The Chance

14 || Comfortable Silence

LOVE - Kendrick Lamar

𓆩♡𓆪
Alexander

"Montgomery wants you down in Boston next week if possible."

The buzz cut and his equal sitting next to him inform me of my wanted presence at Boston Landing.

To be requested by Jim Montgomery himself is an offer I can't refuse, but as I have the dates of all our games burned into the back of my brain, I get conflicting thoughts.

We have a game on Saturday night. It's our first home game of the season and I know everybody is going to be there.

How would it look if every player but the captain shows? At the home opener nonetheless.

I look over at the athletic director, Benjamin Fraser, to get some sort of help in response.

He takes a look at me and nods his head in confirmation. I take the gesture cautiously, "I'll be there." I say as an exiting statement.

The two across the table stand up with smiles on their faces and I shake both their hands before they leave the room. Only a pang of guilt resides in my stomach when I realize what I just agreed to.

And it looks like Fraser sees that. "Don't feel guilty, it was a good decision Grant." He assures me as he stuffs a few papers into a binder. We exit his office soon after.

"I know," I try to shrug off the weird feeling. "But it's my first year as captain and I'm missing the home opener."

Fraser walks with me downstairs until we get to ground level. "I know you don't want, no athlete should want to. But who's going to remember you missing the opening game five years from now?"

I take in his reasoning. He's right, who the hell will remember me not being there? As long as I give them something else to remember, like a Frozen Four trophy for example, then I don't have to worry.

But that doesn't mean I hate missing the game any less.

The drive back to my house is slow. I've just sat in a room like an old man with arthritis for the last thirty minutes, coming to the conclusion that I've never been that tense in my life.

Part of me is relieved that I come home to an empty house, the silence is the first relaxing thing I've experienced all day.

Yet, part of me hates the silence because it doesn't resonate well with me. I remember coming home to a house like this everyday for years, all the way up until I graduated.

And for a while it would just be me and the walls of the house. Only finding comfort once my sisters would get back from school, and our parents...hell I don't even know when they would get home.

It sounds sad I know.

And it was sad for a while, but at a point you just learn to live with it.

Sighing, I take the alone time to shower and get some work done. I know surrounding myself with schoolwork sounds like a stresser, but the more I sit on it, the more it builds up.

So I focus and try to finish most of it. The next thing I know a few hours have passed and when I walk out of Aiden's room, it's still eerily quiet.

Where the hell is everyone?

It's like a ghost town downstairs and the only thing that floats into my ears is the grumbling of my stomach. I walk into the kitchen and find the refrigerator empty per usual.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket I look down to see a few missed texts from Aiden.

Stopping at Five Guys want anything
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