“...what?” Nate just mutters and sits down, brows drawn together.
Our good mood seems ineffective against him. He’s still scowling even as I push the Styrofoam container with spicy fried noodles toward him. I don’t let it deter me and offer him the chopsticks.
“Oh, just some philosophical questions that were raised, because of the Grizzlies, you know.”
“Right,” Nate presses out, hesitating over the chopsticks but eventually taking them. “That’s funny.” His tone says otherwise, and as he breaks the two sticks apart, he looks up at Baker who’s hovering, shifting on his feet.
Slowly Nate raises his blond brows. “Yeah?”
“I, uh…nothing, man. Just wanted to see if you’re alright.” Baker draws up his shoulders. “Got an important game on Saturday after all. We need you to be in top form. If you’re puking on the ice we’ll get mauled,” Baker finishes with some quickly assembled cheer, already bidding a retreat.
“We’ll give those teddies a good hiding,” I wink, playing along with the joke. It does the trick, and when the others leave, they’re snickering and laughing again.
Thankfully I have a free period for the next hour. I’m glad about the long break, taking out my phone while Nate still picks at his food. There’s still the sponsorship question to be solved as well as some more messages in the chat room for our Alliance, but first there’s something more important that’s been nagging at the back of my head.
“I don’t know if I’ll get it today,” I sigh, staring at the puzzle I have open on my screen. My mind still draws a blank looking at the five little squares, two of which are yellow. “I only have two guesses left and all I have is M and P.”
I grimace, mulling a few possibilities over in my head but ultimately just put my phone down again. It’s then that I notice Nate staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“What? Oh, don’t tell me you already solved it and it’s something as easy assmileagain. IknewI should have guessed that one,” I groan. Nate is the undisputed Wordle champion. I’ll never know how he manages to guess all these words so easily. It’s like he sees one letter in the right position and instantly has it all figured out.
“...no,” he mutters and starts poking his chopsticks into the noodles again.
“Are they not good?” I ask after Nate has been twirling up the same two noodles for an entire minute, during which I wasted another guess. “Or is it your stomach again?”
“I’m fine!” Nate insists but doesn’t look at me. Maybe he’s actually a lot more nervous about Saturday than he’s been telling me.
“It’s just a bit…spicy.”
“Spicy,” I repeat. This is the same guy that orders whole chilies on his pizza. “Mh, okay. I mean, we can swap?” I nudge my half-full container with shrimp fried rice closer toward him, but he just shakes his head after a short glance.
“Uh no it…it’s good.”
I don’t really believe him, but he continues eating, so I don’t question it too much. Instead, I mess up another guess and put my phone back into my pocket.
I throw Nate a few glances but then force myself to stop before it becomes creepy. He’s so quiet today. Usually, it’s impossible to shut him up, which I guess is why I’ve been trying to fill the silence. But it’s actually…not so bad. Now that I’ve stopped talking, the quiet feels comfortable.
Nicko, October 17th
I’m already warmed up when I arrive at St. Bernard’s rink in the afternoon, my cheeks flushed from jogging across campus the whole day. Unlike Bonham Tech, which sits smack dab in the city’s center, with its cluster of modern glass and steel rectangles, St. Bernard’s grounds stretch from the shores of Lake Champlain to the outskirts of Bonham on one side and to the edges of the forest on the other. The campus is decorated with huge stone buildings that remind me of century-old universities in Europe, with their elaborate designs and massive stone steps. I almost expect the students around me to whip out wands from underneath their fancy sweaters and wool coats. Oaks and birches line the paths, the fallen leaves rustling beneath our steps as everyone shuffles from one class to the next.
I have only ever been to Nate’s dorm and the rink, so navigating campus has been an adventure. The buildings aren’t simply numbered or associated with faculties. Instead, they have fancy names like “Hemingway Hall” or “Dickens Dorms”. I feel as lost around here as I have in Nate’s classes, where a stockyprofessor in a tweed jacket droned on about syntax and sentence structure.
My stomach rumbles in protest as I pull open the heavy glass doors to the rink. I’d only eaten half of the fried noodles Hart got me, claiming some leftover stomach issues, while my intestines must have suffered severe burns from all the hot sauce. Unlike Nate, I don’t handle spicy food well, which is why I generally avoid Asian takeaways and never bothered to learn how to use chopsticks. I was lucky Hart was so fixated on his cell phone and the little puzzle game that he missed most of my struggle.
Panting, I race down the large corridor, right past a massive glass cabinet displaying all the trophies the Bats have won over the last decades. The university’s ice hockey program has an excellent reputation, although their most glorious days are in the past. They actually managed to bring home the Frozen Four trophy thrice in a row before Kip McCoy and his peers from Bonham Tech ended that winning streak. Since then, neither the Bats nor the Badgers have managed to claim it.
There’s a buzzing coming out of my pocket just as I screech to a stop in the middle of the hallway, unsure if I need to go left or right. I’ve only ever entered the arena from the visitors’ side. It’s far larger than I assumed. Not as modern as our facilities but equipped with small details that scream wealth and old money.
I decide to go right as I simultaneously root around for Nate’s phone in my pocket. The glimpse at the unfamiliar lock screen and my own name popping up in the unread messages are still throwing me off. Switching our phones was the sensible thing to do in order to make this ludicrous scheme work, but I don’t like the idea of my twin brother having full access to my texts and chats. We don’t keep a lot of secrets from one another, which is probably why I hold a few topics even closer to my chest.
For a moment I debate on leaving the messages unread, since I’m already running late, but I’m also desperately waiting forthe solution to that stupid five-letter word puzzle Hart and my brother are apparently so invested in. Until today, I didn’t even know what aWordlewas, let alone that Nate was doing it every day.
C’mon, it’s super easy.
I’ll give you a hint!
What letters do you have already?
