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Dry Land

V

"Ink eater," I repeat for the third time, slowly growing irritated with my older brother.


"A what?" He questions yet again, unable to comprehend what I'm saying.


"Alek," I begin slowly," Your printer. It is an ink eater. It uses up a shit ton of ink...in a short amount of time. An ink eater," I explain," You need to get rid of it."


"But it's my printer!"


"Do you even use it?"


"It's my printer!" He says again, making me sigh. My brother could be difficult most of the time.


"No wonder you haven't found a girlfriend yet! Vous ĂȘtes impossible!" I huff in annoyance, making the people behind us chuckle. Whirling around, I'm only to be met by most of Alek's teammates," My god you guys are just everywhere! Do you not spend any time to yourselves?" I question, even more annoyed now than I was before.


"Well, if you're asking about what we do alone, then I'd be happy to tell you, but I don't think you want to know," Kaner says, making me crinkle my nose in disgust.


"Okay, ew, no. Did not need that today. Fuck you Kaner, that's disgusting," I say, sitting down and placing my head on the countertop," Don't you all have somewhere to be?" My words are muffled by my shirtsleeve.


"Well, technically yes, but we aren't going without you. You seem to know these swimmer people better than we do, and you also know us, so you can be like..." Kaner takes a short pause to think before continuing," Like a translator, except we all speak english."


"So would you please come with us? We can't do this without you Alex," My brother says softly, making me groan internally. I really didn't want to face my former teammates.


"Alek, you know I can't just show up there! They're gonna hate me for what I did to them!"


"And what exactly did you do Alexis?" Jonathan pipes up, making me glare at him," Don't look at me like that, they won't hate you. You didn't do anything that would validate them hating you. So stop being such a baby and get some goddamn shoes on so that we can head to the pool."


I don't respond, just send him the most deathly look I have saved in my files and head towards my bedroom, where I proceed to pull a pair of shoes out of my closet. I hated it when he was right.


--^--


"Nice shirt by the way," Jonathan smirks as we enter Norris Aquatic Center, the pool where Northwestern competed and practiced, which was currently being used by Team USA just for a few weeks until college season started up.


"Yeah well, it was in my 'do not wear ever' pile, but all of my shirts are dirty so I had no choice," I say coldly, still angry over what happened earlier.


Jonathan looks puzzled for a moment before groaning," You can't still be mad at me over the whole thing that happened back at the apartment... I was just being honest! You're gonna thank me for this someday you know," He continues after I refuse to look at him.


I open my mouth to respond, however I'm cut off by Kaner coming up behind me and pushing me forwards a little bit, almost making me tip into the pool. "Kaner you idiot! I could've fallen in!"


"Well yeah, that was the point." Is his response, making me glare at him before smirking.


"So I guess you won't mind if I do this as payback then?"


"Do what as payback?" He questions with a confused look on his face that soon turns to surprise as I shove him with twice as much strength into the pool, making the rest of the team laugh.


"Lesson number one of being at a pool with Alexis Belinksy," I hear a voice from behind me say," Never be near the edge of the pool when she's around, because you will end up in the water, clothed or not." Immediately, I notice the majority of the Blackhawks standing close to the pool's edge step at least a couple feet away from it, almost simultaneously.


Turning around, I'm met with my old teammates all chuckling silently behind Bob, my old coach who was standing there smirking at a now soaking-wet Kaner.


"Don't feel bad," Ryan says, stepping out from behind Bob," I learned the hard way too."


"In my defense, you're the one that started it Lochte."


"And how exactly did I start it Alex? All I remember is being on deck one moment and in the water the next!"


"All I remember is you stealing my goggles and throwing them in the water. If I remember correctly, I told you that you had to retrieve them before I pushed you into the pool. Essentially I was just helping," I say innocently.


"Helping my ass," Ryan mutters before turning around and walking away, a majority of the team following behind him, with a few of my closer teammates staying behind.


It isn't long before one of my oldest teammates, Elizabeth Beisel, has captured me in a hug, laughing, I hug the shorter girl back," I missed you so much Al! Don't ever leave me with Ryan and Michael again!" She says, making me laugh more.


"I've missed you too Liz," I tell her sincerely," Life just hasn't been the same without you."


"Yeah and this team hasn't been the same without you Al," She tells me, pulling back from our hug," And it's the weirdest thing ever, but I absolutely hate being the top IMer, because without you, it's not any fun. I don't have someone to make fun of good ol' Bobby with."


"Hey!" I hear Bob yell from behind us, making me laugh.


"Remember that one time when we froze the workout book in a block of ice? We had to wait for it to thaw until we could work out," I laugh, remembering back to some of my favorite times at practice.


"Yeah, and then we had to do the ridiculous IM set," She reminds me," It was worth it though. The look on your face was priceless Bobby."


"Wait, that was you two?" Bob asks incredulously," I thought that that was Ryan and Michael trying to get out of the kick set I was going to make them do!"


"Told you it wasn't us!" Michael defends.


"Yeah but it was you two all of those other times," Bob reminds him, making me chuckle quietly.


"Did we just admit to our crime?" I ask Liz.


"Sadly, I think we did," She says, looking over at Bob slowly," But it was so long ago that surely by now you've forgiven us, right Bobby?"


"Yeah sure," Bob says nonchalantly," Just as soon as you both do six broken four-hundred IMs for time."


"But I'm not swimming anymore," I say dumbly.


"Exactly."


"So are you going to introduce us or..." I hear my brother trail off from behind us," I mean, I obviously know all of these people, but the rest of the guys don't."


"Oh, right!" I say, proceeding to introduce the majority of my teammates before getting back around to Liz," And this is Elizabeth Beisel, former Gator. She and I have been on Team USA since we were little, and I guess since we were like the only fourteen-under year olds in a field of upperclassmen in high school and older, we kinda became best friends. And I've been stuck with her ever since, even though she stopped growing when we were like, seventeen."


"It's not my fault I'm five six! You're like six one so you have no room to even poke fun at me. You never stopped growing," The IMer defends.


"Like two peas in a pod," I hear Michael mutter from behind me, making me laugh.

--^--

"This pool is really cool," Brent Seabrook says a couple of hours later when both teams had been situated in the bleachers that had been pulled out for the 'debriefing', as they called it.


"Yeah, I guess," I say, shrugging my shoulders and sitting in between the Blackhawks and my former teammates.


"What do you mean 'you guess'?" Patrick Sharp pipes in," This place is huge!"


"Well, the University of Iowa just built a pool a couple of years ago that is bigger than this, and better. And Minnesota has second best. But Michigan holds top honors regardless," I tell him as-a-matter-of-factly.


Elizabeth and Ryan scoff from beside me," As if, University of Florida is way better than Michigan," Ryan tells me, making me scoff as well as Michael, who trained with me at the U of M.


"Oh please, if anything Stanford has all of you beat," I hear Katie Ledecky say from the front as she turns around to join in on our conversation.


"Baby bullet! That's right, I forgot that you had signed on there. Congratulations by the way, but don't expect me to pick between you and Missy. I honestly could care less about Stanford or Cal."


"Nice to know," I hear the voice of Teri McKeever say as she sits down in the front row, making me turn red.


"Oh god, not like that coach...I was just saying...I mean I meant, oh god," I mutter, slouching down in my seat," I need to learn how to keep my mouth shut."


"What was your first clue?" Alek asks, causing me to hit him hard in the shoulder. He shrinks back a bit, laughing at my outburst of violence.


"It's fine Alexis," She tells me, making me feel a bit better," We all know that somewhere along the way, Bob brainwashed you into thinking that Michigan was the best, and that's okay."


"But they are!" Both Michael and I defend at the same time, making the people around us chuckle.


"And besides Teri, you and I both know that I don't brainwash my swimmers. They are free to make their own decisions and do anything they want to," Bob says, making me scoff.


"That's the biggest lie I've ever heard you tell Bobby. And besides, Michigan is the best. National champs on the men's side in 2013, need I remind you."


"And who were the 2014 champs?" Nathan Adrian, a Cal alumni pipes in," Three titles in four years Alex, you have to face the facts, Cal is better than Michigan."


"Need I remind you that Michael chose to train with Michigan? And they have Jaeger. Michigan is so better than Cal," I defend, crossing my arms and rolling my eyes.


"Yeah and I chose to train with Cal," Nathan says, making me laugh.


"Yeah but you're no Michael Phelps."


"But I did win gold in London," He defends.


"What are they even talking about?" I hear Andrew Shaw mutter from behind me.


"More like who," Kaner says.


"I have no idea," Jonathan adds in, making me smile. It was always nice to know something that the center didn't, which was something that I had learned was hard to come by. Jonathan Toews was impossible to beat.


Meanwhile, more of the swimmers had joined in on the debate, and were currently laughing and joking along with each other. I can't help but smile at the sight. I had missed these guys more than I had thought.


"I think someone's falling back in love with it again," I hear Jonathan mutter as he takes a seat beside me.


"Maybe," I tell him honestly, shrugging my shoulders," Who knows."


"Well you do," He points out.


"Okay Mr. Smartass, don't think I've forgiven you for earlier," I say, making his face fall just a little bit.


"Oh come on! I was just trying to act like a good captain!" He defends, making me shake my head a little.


"But I'm not one of your players Jonathan, and regardless of if I'm happy to be here or not, I honestly thought that I wasn't ready to face these guys again, and I was scared," I explain," So I would appreciate if you stopped acting like a captain and started acting more like my friend."


"We're friends?" He questions, making me chuckle lowly.


"Yes Jonathan, I would say that we are."

Notes

Outfit

Comments

great job

It's back! Great update :D

hockeygirl07 hockeygirl07
1/12/16

Please update!!!

Arrow6677 Arrow6677
10/24/14

finally

I've just been reading this and it's so entertaining! You're on to something good here :)

kaks kaks
10/10/14