Confessions from a Ranger's Roommate

Finals had just started but something else had Teodora stressing out. Any minute, Michael would be showing up to take her for a quick lunch before she had to be in the lab for a few hours. She shifted her stance and waited for Derek to pick up.

"Sup Teo? Might see you tonight," Derek immediately answered. "I'm gonna try to skate a little."
"Seriously?" Teodora asked happily. That was a good sign if he was trying some skating. "Though I have something else to ask you about. I know some wushu, some muy thai and how to fight from my old neighborhood in Van Nuys."
"Teo," he sighed. "What the hell are you doing? Asking me to give you fighting tips? I know Sean Avery's just got called up."

"Did he?" Teodora asked curiously. "I didn't know that. Still haven't met him. But, no. I always swore I wouldn't get violent like the guys from Van Nuys or how foster kids could be from being in the system except for one guy. Tommy Wong. He was a kid in our grade back in Van Nuys and he was totally desperate to be in Wah Ching."

"Fuck Teo. You mean that Chinese gang you told me about?" He asked. "Like they thought they were the superior race and everything? They were in that war against the gang in your block?"
"Yeah. Course I said a lot of my classmates back then were either Asian or Hispanic so when racial tensions were especially getting bad, Tommy thought he would really show his brother and the Wah Ching boys and tried to rile up my whole grade to beat the shit out of Jerome since Manny's Hispanic and he's not that stupid to beat up a white girl."
Derek groaned and she nodded.
"Yeah Manny and I were the ones standing in front of Jerome and I made a nice speech that Tommy was a racist dickhead, he would do to them what he wanted to do to Jerome and was really only doing it for the attention and that's when Manny and I jumped him. No one backed him up," Teodora said.

"So, what? He's back for round two?" He asked.
"No. My thought is that his brother knew what we did and told Tommy to message us on Facebook to recruit us. Probably thinks we're in the system still. Or he wants to settle an old score," Teodora replied. "Like, he's a scrawny guy and everything but better safe than sorry."
"God fucking dammit. Alright," Derek sighed. "Yeah, we'll be discreet and I'll teach you. I suppose Alex Chung knows."

"Sure, Alex, the foster brothers...no one else though," Teodora said and saw Michael approaching with a big smile. She'd better end the conversation now and said a quick goodbye. In a much higher tone, she cried, "Sup roomie?"

"Hey bookworm," he greeted her, voice heavy with sympathy. "How are you holding up with finals?"
Teodora shrugged. "I knew this was coming from last year, so I'm more prepared this year. Should we get lunch?" They walked to a newer deli and sat down to discuss Christmas break. "So I'll probably be in California for at least two weeks. Maybe three but I'll be back in the last week to get everything ready for the next semester."
He nodded. "I was told by the Tampa people to come see a game when they play Anaheim."

"Yeah, sure. I bet Alex's sister Ariel and his girlfriend will come. They're curious about all," she paused when she noticed someone familiar coming in. "Uh oh. Kurt's cray cray step sister's coming in.," she said wearily and then spat, "Mee cheen nyun."
"What's that? Crazy in Khmer?" Michael asked.
"Crazy bitch in Korean," she murmured and scowled again when Olivia laid eyes on them and smirked. "Olivia," Teodora called wearily. "Just go before you embarrass yourself."

She came over and smirked. "Well. This one's hot."
"This is Kurt's stepsister and she's leaving," Teodora cut in. "Is your boyfriend done with work? Maybe you should head to his office and see him."
"You're Kurt's stepsister?" Michael asked, trying to cool the situation down. "He's a cool guy-,"
"Stepsister?" Olivia echoed back. "More like his daddy left him and mommy found her meal ticket with my father. Did you know he's the governor of Connecticut?"
Teodora cut in again as Michael narrowed his eyes in immediate dislike. "More like Governor Ron couldn't handle his alcoholic wife and his money blowing kids, divorced her, made you kids appreciate money and met Kurt's mom when she was showing him houses and loved her and her two well raised kids. You all dug your own graves." Olivia scoffed and tossed her hair. "Saw in Page 6 that you were puking all over the bouncers at some club. Classy."

At that, Olivia stormed off. "Jesus. Kurt told me about his, ah, unique stepfather but I didn't know all that," Michael scowled in Olivia's direction.
"Yup. That act doesn't last long with Alex, Denise and I around," she smiled proudly as they went back to eating. "So you'll do the whole Canada tour?" She asked, steering the topic back into calmer waters.
"Yeah,we'll be up there for Christmas. We need to get you skates and need to get you up to Canada finally," Michael ticked off.
Waving a hand, she said, "Summer. Summer."

When they finished lunch, Teodora got up. "I'll come around with whoever can come later," she said and left for Spanish class. As she waited for Cara, she slipped on her headphones to listen to Korean music.
"No Corea del Sur," Professor Chavez teased, knowing she was listening to BoA, a very popular female singer from South Korea.
"Callete! You shut up!" She shot back and saw Cara approach with a smile. "Yo. Hate to take that smile off but our favorite Olivia made an appearance. Scared her off nicely though."

Cara snorted and rolled her eyes. "Whatevs. She's not worth my time. But Sadie texted me and said bring you girls down to Philly sometime during break."
Teodora brightened. Sadie was Cara's interior designer cousin who seemed like the perfect fit for a reality TV show like The Hills at first glance. However she was great to hang out with. "Maybe she, Taeyeon, Denise and I will get money put in our hands cause we sing the vocal songs very well."

"That was hilarious. You girls can sing though," Cara smiled. "What were you singing? Something Korean maybe? Fly to the Sky? Or was it No Scrub by TLC?"
"Ya Lo Se by Jenni Rivera," Teodora laughed. "I love it when Alex comes along and Sadie gangs up on him." Then she brightened. "If I get home when DZ's taking his pre-game nap, I'm doing something."
"Put nail polish on his toe. Kurt gets so pissed if I do that," Cara giggled.

They settled into their seats and started taking notes before their last final. She squinted at the white board and sputtered at the topic of today's class. "Yo, this is so depressing! Why are we studying the sad and depressing Dirty War in Argentina?" Cara wrinkled her nose and agreed. "Man. Just the other day I was asked to do a sarin project. That's depressing too!"

"Senorita Ansary?"
Teodora couldn't help but call out, "Mi clase de ciencias es muy triste. Este is muy triste? Porque? Why is everything so sad? Why the Dirty War?"
There was a mixture of people agreeing with her along with laughing.
"Que tienes?" Teodora asked as Professor Chavez. "What's bothering you that we have to study this before finals and break?"

Laughing, he chucked his marker at the ground. "FINE THEN!" He cried. "Spend the rest of your time studying for the final!"
They broke off into groups as Teodora wrinkled her nose at Professor Chavez pointing at her playfully. Someone tapped her shoulder and she turned around to face a student she didn't really talk to. "What's que tienes?"

"Like a concern. Like, what's wrong?" Teodora replied.
The girl nodded thoughtfully. "Oh. This isn't meant as a bitchy comment but why do you get away with talking English in class?"

"Grew up in the LA area for eight years before I went to San Francisco. Van Nuys taught me pretty fluent Spanish-although very slang-y stuff," she admitted. "Plus a lot of Asian languages. Khmer, Vietnamese, bit of Thai, bit of Hmong, I can speak Korean pretty well but I can barely read it...." As the girl laughed, Teodora paused to read a text from Steven Stamkos, finalizing plans for meeting up at one of the California games over break.

"Oh...my...God," Cara said softly as the other girl turned to study for her finals.
"Que tienes?" Teodora asked and got no smile from Cara. "Sup?"
"Speaking of my cousin Sadie, she broke up with Christopher," she said softly.
Teodora blinked in surprise. "They made it five years and now she ditches him? Was it those parents? I know they're big into financial stuff." She had met Christopher a number of times when they visited Philadelphia on their breaks and decided he was a bit proper but a good guy.
Cara still seemed thoughtful but managed a smile. "I remember when you, Alex and Sara butted heads with them."

"That was all Alex's girl!" She laughed. "Plus, she had all the right considering her dad's the big name compared to Christopher's family. Though it was still funny seeing Mr. Weiss sit there fuming."
"Yeah, I dunno. I'll investigate. We're all going to Philly anyways when we all come back," Cara said and pocketed her phone.

Teodora nodded in agreement and soon they departed from Spanish class. Since Teodora had spent a good amount of time in the lab, she went straight back to the apartment, knowing Michael was right in the middle of his pre-game nap.
Creeping in, she produced a black and sparkly nail polish and painted Michael's right big toe as he slept on the couch. When her phone went off, Michael stirred at her Si No Le Contesto remix song blasting. "Is that my alarm?" He asked sleepily after she had bolted away.

Shutting it off. she laughed. "You listen to Reggaeton? What words in Spanish do you know other than hola?"
"A dios le pido," Michael shot back playfully and got up to get ready.
"That's not bad," she started to say and then wrinkled her nose. "You got that from listening to that Juanes song! You cheater!"

His own alarm went off so he got off the couch to get ready for the game. "What'd you do in Spanish? Study for the final?"
Teodora studied Brandon Prust and Brian Boyle's numbers. Who would be less likely to run his mouth and ruin the prank? She chose Brian and quickly texted him. "Well," she laughed and pocketed her phone. "We were about to study the Dirty War that went on in Argentina-,"
Michael suddenly stuck his head out. If his face wasn't very serious, she'd be blushing at him being shirtless. "Dirty War? Like a civil war? You don't think you're from Argentina, do you?"
She shook her head. "Took place roughly from the 70's to the 80's. I'm way too young." He nodded once and went back to putting on his suit. "But yeah, I told Profe it was too depressing and he gave up and had us study."
"You're not pissing off the Professor, are you?" Michael asked.

"No," she laughed. "Profe Chavez is awesome. Its my one last year that was a nightmare. Kinda an uppity well off girl from Spain. Had some relation to the Spanish Crown. Anyways, she didn't like it too well that no one used this verb tense called voseo, but its really only used in Spain. The LA girl being me took a stand against her to get off our asses about docking our grades over it because everyone was doing bad. Finally she got all pissed off and quit teaching at our school then Chavez took over."
"Sounds like you," Michael laughed. "Downer and Stammer asked if you got their text about the California games by the way."
"Yup, replied already," she said and left for a moment to freshen up her makeup and put on her Rangers jersey.

They went to MSG and Teodora was standing in the middle of the hallway, texting a few different people when someone started talking behind her.
"Number 4's your boyfriend? Didn't take Del Zotto to be a boyfriend," a nasally male voice said from behind. "But a night with me will make you tear that jersey off."
She scowled in disgust and turned around. "Wanna bet?" She asked and did her best to have no surprised reaction at the owner of the voice being Sean Avery. "You some sort of lucky fan that gets to hang out with the team?" She asked innocently. Mentally she patted herself on the back as his eyes narrowed.
"He'll ditch you soon enough and you'll lose the life of dating a rich athlete," Sean said and smirked. "Maybe if you ask nicely, I'll date you after."
"Aww, too bad Michael and I aren't dating. Or that I already come from a rich family," Teodora shot back. "But when the League realizes what a disease you are, I won't date you and let you leech off my money."

"What's this? Already sucking up to the superstars?" Sean smirked.
"What superstar?" Teodora asked. Was Hankie behind her? She spun and nodded at Ilya Kovalchuk and one of his teammates that decided to help. "Well he's cool," she said, now remembering they were playing the Devils.
"SEAN!" Derek barked from behind and Sean zipped away from them, causing her to laugh. "Teo. I know you think you're tough and everything but don't go starting fights with hockey players."
Ilya smiled and couldn't help but disagree happily. "Shut Ovechkin up quick enough." When Derek shot him a dirty look, he shrugged, "I needed help with Alex and Evgeni. Teodora's tough."
"Do you know why she is?" Derek asked, ignoring her glaring.
Glancing around, Ilya lowered his voice and said, "I figured there was more to simply just living in a bad area."

The player she didn't know spoke up. "I was the one that said come over. He had that look on his face. Ilya said she didn't take shit from anyone but I figured better safe then sorry."
Teodora glanced at the player and suddenly smiled. "Zach Parise. I hear you're a sneaky player," she said and he grinned at the compliment. "Anyways, he wouldn't last too long at my school. My old classmates would eat him alive." Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it to see a weird grey and black image. She was about to dismiss it when she took a second look.

"HOLYSHITMYMOMISPREGNANT!" She screamed.
"Her adoptive parents are younger," Derek smiled and took the phone. Ilya and Zach moved forward to congratulate her when they were interrupted with a hollering.

"What the hell is on my toe? Seriously, what the fuck is this?"
Teodora slapped a hand over her mouth as Ilya smiled. "What? Did you do something?"
"The fuck is this? It's not coming off!"
She could hear Ryan Callahan's concerned voice. "Did you hit your toe? It's black."
"I didn't! There's crap on there-IT'S NAIL POLISH!"

The door opened and Brian stuck his head out to silently laugh with them. Teodora clapped a hand over her mouth and sputtered. "It was me!" She mouthed as Ilya snorted. "He's like an older brother. I have to pester him and keep him in line."

The door opened again and Michael grabbed her. "Roommate, I think you need to admit something," he said as she fought him off.
"Geoff me! I'll bite you like I do with Alex!" She said and started to make chomping motions at his arm.

"Let's start the meeting," Coach Tortorella called over them. "Teo, please don't bite my player."
"Sorry Coach," she said, giving a nod of respect to Michael's coach as the Devil boys left.

She departed for the family section where she broke the news of her pregnant mother. As the girls gushed and the game started, she pushed aside thoughts of Sean's antics and thought about her former elementary school enemy. There was no way, he was reaching out casually to be friends after this whole time. Either he wanted to settle their old score or he figured she, Manny and Jerome were still in the foster system and wanted to recruit her into the Wah Ching gang. If its not one thing, its another with me, she thought, once again amazed of her crazy life. Shaking off any more negative thoughts, she settled down and started to watch the game.

Notes