“I can’t wait to meet her!” Hailey said excitedly, starting up the annoying subject of our lunch time topics again for the past two days.

Macy and Caitlyn agreed, nodding their heads vigorously. Seeing that my break was over, I plastered on a smile too. “I wonder if she’ll join the Brampton club!”

There’s a new girl coming to school and Caitlyn, Macy, and Hailey are really excited about meeting her. On the bus ride, they were crickets, chirping on and on about how they imagined her to be like. In class, they sent notes – they were ecstatic.

I didn’t really care. The last thing I needed was another friend who had a life dream about winning gold in the Winter Olympics for figure skating.

That was the only reason why Caitlyn, Macy, and Hailey were excited about meeting her – they wanted another girl to share their figure skating passion with. Hailey’s older sister, Anita, had seen the new girl getting a tour of our school one day she had stayed after school and she told us that the girl was impatiently walking around the school with the principal and her parents, consistently mentioning that she had to get to her first session of the year at the rink. So now Caitlyn, Macy, and Hailey were getting ready to accept her into our exclusive friendship bond. Actually, it wasn’t that exclusive at all. If you wanted to be friends with us, there were only two requirements; you had to adore figure skating and hate ice hockey.

So how was I friends with them? I was acting. I had to. I had to act like was on the same page as them to keep my friendship. I was the new kid once too. I had moved here from Vancouver a year ago and once they found out that I figure skated, they wanted to be best friends with me, so naturally, knowing no one else in the whole school except my brother who was in high school, I accepted. Back then I didn’t know that I’d have to put on an act every day of my life just because of my decision. I soon found out that they despised hockey and any girl who thought otherwise. Telling them that I was on a rep hockey team back in Vancouver was out of the question. What was I to do; tell them and then have no friends for the rest of my middle and high school life? I don’t think so.

So I told Austin about my problem, and him being the best big brother in the whole wide world, he helped me through it. He helped me sneak my hockey practices in before figure skating and stopped anybody from finding out about me to the best of his ability. This way, I could keep my friends happy by not letting them find out I was obsessed with their enemy sport and keeping myself happy by not dropping my favourite sport and keeping my mom’s.

The only reason I started figure skating is because my mom loved it and was a world-wide known Olympic champion ‘in her day’ – no biggie. So anyway, it helps if I tell myself that if this ever falls apart, it’s not my fault, but my mom’s, who got me into the sport in the first place.

Hopefully, it would never come to that. Hopefully, I could keep this up until twelfth grade graduation when I could be free and take up pro hockey and forget all about watching my weight to perform a perfect Axel on my snow white skates that are cleaned and sharpened every two weeks and an extra time before a competition.

Is there an up side to all this lying and acting – of course! It made me a better liar and actress. I could tell bold lies right to someone’s face and know that they’d believe me because I was that convincing. Plus, I took on a role everyday of my life, pretending to be just like my friends who are actually my exact opposites. If ever have a change of heart and need a career where these skills come in handy, I could easily be an actress or lawyer.

Ariana Clarke: Award-winning Actress and Lawyer Extraordinaire.

On good days, I could act as happy as Macy and Hailey on their way to practice. On amazing days, when I really felt like taking on the role of loving the amazing sport figure skating, I could be as enthusiastic as Caitlyn. But most of the time, I was just neutral, a little under Macy and Hailey on the I-Love-Figure-Skating Meter by a single toe pick.

“I wonder how good she is,” Macy wondered out loud. “What if she’s, like…good? Like, really good?”

I didn’t care if she was ‘like, really good’ or not, but it seemed like Caitlyn did. I could tell just by the way her eyes got smaller coupled with her nervous shrug. Caitlyn was undoubtedly the best skater in our middle school (figure skating-wise), and I don’t think she’d like her title being tampered with.

“We’ll see,” Caitlyn finally said simply.

We all just left it at that: we would see.

“Give me your best shot,” Austin challenged me, getting in ready position. He was playing goalie to give me practice on shooting, but as usual, it wasn’t working. I could barely get any shots in because Austin was way better than me.

I flipped my falling mess of brunette hair out of my face as the wind picked up a bit.

Autumn was making its entrance, I noticed as another leaf from the tree flew past me.

I concentrated and whipped the puck into the corner of the net but Austin stopped it just in time.

He laughed. “Focus, Ariana! You’re embarrassing yourself!”

“Just pass the puck,” I said, tapping my stick on the driveway. Occasionally, Austin could get very annoying and proud, but that was normal – he was a boy after all.

As soon as he passed it to me, I whipped it back right away, watching it catch fire and blow a whole throw the net.

“Whoa!”

I laughed at Austin’s surprised face and crossed my arms across my chest. “Focus, Austin, you’re embarrassing yourself!”

“Ha-ha,” he said, trading places with me, “we’ll see who has the last laugh.”

I focussed on Austin’s green eyes that were challenging mine as he got ready to shoot. I wanted to have a good idea of where he was going to aim, but he didn’t break his stare and I wasn’t planning to either. Then something behind him caught my attention.

There was a girl – a tall girl with short brunette hair. It was sticking to her face with the help of her sweat and she was watching us with a tiny smile on her face.

The next thing I knew, the puck hit my unprotected stomach and it was sitting in front of me proudly.

Austin was doubled over with laughter. “Bull’s eye!”

“Nice shot.”

Austin turned around and I saw that the girl was still watching us, but she was a little closer and still coming.

Nice shot? Getting a puck slammed into your stomach kind of hurts, I thought to myself.

Something about her made my skin prickle a little bit and I was still trying to figure out if it was in a good way or a bad way.

“I thought so too.” Austin smiled.

“I didn’t,” I put in. I hit the puck at him but he merely stopped it with an easy stomp of his foot.

“Nice try.”

The girl watched my hockey stick as if she was replaying my shot in her head. I suppose she was because she came to me and repositioned my hands to I guess what would be a benefit of mine.

“Try it that way,” she said. “It seems weird, but it should help.”

Without asking, Austin kicked the puck back to me with a smile that I read saying ‘no matter how your hands are, you still aren’t gonna get me.’

Not caring whether I succeeded or not, or that Austin wasn’t even in front of the hockey net, I locked eyes with Austin’s that were joking, and slapped the puck. It sailed through the air and hit Austin square in the chest.

“Ow!” he rubbed his chest with an aching look.

I smiled at the girl. “Wow, thanks!” I had to admit, I didn’t really think that it would work and I didn’t really care, but now I could actually hit Austin…and make it hurt, too! Maybe I’d be able to score on him periodically!

“No problem,” she said with a smile back.

Austin called out to her before as she went on her way. “Hey! What’s your name?”

She turned back. “Morgan. Morgan Elliot.”

“Well, Morgan Elliot,” he said with a friendly smile, “anyone who can make Ariana Clarke improve her aim is great. Wanna play for a bit?”

Her smile brightened. “Sure!”

I couldn’t take my mind off Morgan Elliot. She played with Austin and me for at least two hours yesterday and we had a blast. We played two on one, defeating Austin, and for the longest time we counted how many shots we could make on Austin out of twenty – I got thirteen, she got fifteen. She could really play. She was slightly better than me and not so far away from Austin.

But who was she? I hadn’t seen her around the neighbourhood before and I hadn’t seen her at school. She looked like she could be in grade eight like me, but I’m pretty sure I would remember if I had a girl hockey star in my grade.

“Where’s your head today, Ariana?” Hailey asked me as we walked into class together.

“Yeah, you’re, like, so zoned out,” Macy agreed.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just thinking about…um, I can’t quite get my Walley jump yet. Either I fall, or it doesn’t come out clean enough.”

Caitlyn nodded and her tiny braids bounced with her head. “That really is difficult. I could help you with that later.”

“Sure!” I agreed, trying to sound upbeat.

Yes, what I needed was even more figure skating time, I thought to myself sarcastically.

“So the new girl is starting today,” Hailey told us as we took our seats. “I forgot her name but she’s gonna be in our class!”

I sighed. We were having this conversation again. I didn’t care about the new girl – in fact, I was already starting to hate her because of how much my friends talked about her. The weird thing was that they didn’t even know her yet. It would be so amusingly ironic if they ended up despising her.

“Class, let’s all welcome our new student…”

All heads turned to the front of the room to finally cease our curiosity.

“…Miss Morgan Elliot.”

Morgan Elliot was the new girl.

There were two major things wrong with that – if Caitlyn, Macy and Hailey found out that she played hockey, they’d hate her. The second reason was that she’d tell them for sure that we’d already met and would expose me playing hockey and they would hate me.

“Morgan, come sit with us!” Caitlyn called to her as she looked around the noisy cafeteria for a place to go.

The difference between Morgan and me was that she didn’t look frazzled or uncertain about where to go. She just looked around calmly for a place to eat her lunch. She looked like she knew she’d find a place to fit in…somewhere. Oh, and she didn’t put on a foul at the ‘food’ they were serving in our mess hall of a cafeteria.

I wish that I had that attitude when I had first moved to Brampton. Instead I’d let myself get swept up by the first pack of girls that approached me. I’d definitely been regretting that decision at some points in school when the only thing my friends would talk about was the figure skating contest that had been on TV the other night. Usually, I would have been planted on the couch next to Austin yelling at the hockey players’ bad moves and highlights.

That was exactly why I didn’t want Morgan here. She didn’t know any better. She didn’t know that Caitlyn, Macy and Hailey would glare at her when they found out that she was great at playing The Sport That Shall Not Be Named.

“Caitlyn, that might not be such a good idea,” I said slowly. “What if she’s –”

“She will not be a better skater than me!” she snapped, her face darkening.

I jumped a bit. When Caitlyn got upset or mad, it was a scary thing. Her dark brown eyes turned to slits, her fists would clench and her cocoa-coloured skin would seem to get even darker in her fury. “Um, I wasn’t going to say that.”

She relaxed slightly. “Oh. Well, I wouldn’t care anyway.”

Macy and Hailey and I exchanged glances. We all knew that that was a HUGE lie.

Morgan made her way over to us and I bowed my head. Maybe I could keep her from seeing my face for all of lunch. Or maybe I could just leave without her having to talk to me!

“Hi!” Caitlyn chirped. “I’m Caitlyn. This is Macy and Hailey. That’s Ariana.”

Instead of saying hello and smiling at Morgan like Macy and Hailey did, I lowered my voice as I scrambled up from the table without showing my face. “I have to go…study. Bye!”

I rushed out of the cafeteria with a big gust of wind and found safety in the back of the school library. All I would have to do is wait it out in there until I came up with a plan to hush Morgan.

“You know that girl, Morgan, who played hockey with us yesterday?” I asked Austin as he flipped through channels on the TV.

“Mmm-hmm?”

“She’s in my class. She’s the new girl.”

“Cool.”

I took the remote out of his hands and muted the program so all he could see on the screen were the stupid guys falling into different traps and not the high-pitched screams and yells that he loved. “Not cool, Austin! What if she tells Caitlyn and Macy and Hailey that I play hockey?”

Honestly, Austin could be as oblivious to my problems as my parents.

“What, they’re friends?” he asked me, trying to get the remote back.

I moved it out of reach. “She sat with them at lunch. I don’t know what went down because I avoided her the rest of the day.”

“Smart move,” Austin said sarcastically. “Now you have no idea if you’ve been exposed or not. You should’ve stayed and listened in so you could cover for yourself just in case she brought it up. Duh.”

I slapped myself on the head. Aw man, I really should have done that! Why had I taken the coward way out and hid from her when all I had to do was talk to her?

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’ is right!” Austin said, grabbing the remote back from me. “Goodness, Ariana, you know nothing about deceit.”

I made a face at him. “Oh, really? I’ve been able to pull off this charade for a year now.”

Austin ignored me and continued watching his show.

The door bell rang and no one in our house moved. Finally I heard my mom’s office door open and was surprised that she was actually going to answer the door. No one in my house liked to answer the door.

“Would you get the door, Ariana?” she asked me and then went back inside just as fast as she came out.

I rolled my eyes. Of course I had to do it. I slid off the couch and made a big show of trudging to answer the door to no one in particular. I opened the door slowly for my own dramatic comfort.

“Ariana, right?”

Morgan Elliot was at my door.

I nodded slowly.

She smiled and wagged her hockey stick that I only just noticed she was holding. “You up for a game?”

Without hesitation, I agreed. I didn’t really take into account that she could’ve told my friends my secret, I was just happy to play with her because, like I said before, she was really good.

In five minutes, we had our hockey net set up and I had fished my hockey stuff out of my maze of a garage. It was still really messy from the tornado of junk that had hit when we had first moved into the house a year ago.

I played goalie and Morgan lined up her shots and got nearly all of them in. “You’re really good.”

“I know,” she said. The way she said it wasn’t in a proud way or anything. She wasn’t modest: just knowing and confident in a good way. “You are too. Do you play here?”

“Yeah.”

“On a team, I mean,” she said, shooting again and narrowly missing.

“Yeah,” I said again.

She looked both confused and surprised. “Really?”

I nodded. “Is that hard to believe?”

“Kind of,” she said, stopping for a breather. “Your friends…they’re into figure skating. They say that you love it too.”

My heart stopped three beats and then started again. I gulped. “I don’t love it…”

“They hate hockey. They say you do too,” Morgan said. She looked at me closely. “They thought that I skated. Figure skated, I mean. That’s the only reason why they wanted me to eat with them.”

“Really?” I said, trying to sound and look nonchalant even though my heart was doing an extra five beats per second by now. I could feel myself perspiring in anxiety.

Morgan started to laugh. “When they found out that I had never so much as touched a white figure skate, they all went silent and basically booted me away.”

I didn’t know what to say. What did Morgan do after that? Did she spill the beans on me?

“So I went and chilled by myself for the rest of lunch,” she said, answering my question without me having to ask. “What I don’t get is how you’re friends with them. They hate what you love.”

I put on my actress voice and went all out. “Oh, I don’t love hockey. It’s Austin’s thing, really. He just uses me for practice.”

Morgan watched me closely. Her grey eyes followed me like a storm cloud and the corners of her mouth twitched a little bit. “You’re lying!”

“Am not!” I said right away, sounding way too defensive.

Morgan didn’t look convinced, and lined up for another shot. She sent it sailing between my legs.

“So are those girls your only friends here?” she asked me as we traded positions.

I nodded. “Basically.”

I slapped the puck and it whizzed just over the net.

“A little less lift,” she advised. Then she returned to the topic of my friends. “So you like them so much that you pretend to like a sport that they like, and hate the sport they hate?”

I shrugged. “I guess. They’re really good friends, though.”

Okay, that was another lie. Caitlyn and Macy and Hailey were…all right. There were more things I disliked about them than what I liked. I liked the fact that they all liked skating. Oh, and me. That was about it.

Caitlyn was too bossy and loved to be the best at everything. Macy just annoyed me in the way she talked – she said ‘like’ in practically every sentence and had a naturally snobby tone to her voice that matched her judgemental thoughts of people. Hailey cared too much about her appearance and was known for starting arguments between us.

“Uh-huh…” Morgan mused.

Following Morgan’s advice, I positioned my hands the way she told me to last time and used less lift with my shot, sending it flying past her opposite shoulder and into the net.

“So this is what I think,” Morgan said, leaning on my net. “You figure skate to keep your ‘friends’ and make them happy, but I think you secretly play hockey because you love it and it is, undoubtedly the best sport out there.”

I gaped at Morgan, my jaw dropping to the ground.

Come on! If my friends couldn’t figure that out for the year they’d known me, how would Morgan figure it out after two days of playing hockey with me?

Morgan smiled, happy with herself. “I think I’m right.”

I nodded weakly. “You are.”

What could I do? I couldn’t lie if she obviously knew the truth!

“I think I’m gonna go home to eat dinner now,” she said.

I watched her walk down the driveway, frowning about how quickly my plan had fallen apart because of a new, clever, hockey playing girl.

She turned around and smiled at me a last time before she disappeared down the street. “Hey, Ariana? I think I’m going to keep your secret, too.”

Morgan and I had become discreet friends. At school we’d smile at each other with little waves, but at home she’d come over all the time to play hockey with me and Austin, or just hang out. For the first time since I moved to Brampton, I actually felt as happy with a friend as I did with my friends in Vancouver.

The next practice we had, Caitlyn skated up to me with a slightly confused face. She asked me what was wrong with me. Apparently I had a sudden change in attitude. I seemed more…‘cheery’ to her.

I just smiled and shrugged. I didn’t see a problem with that at all. I loved looking forward to going to the rink on Saturdays for figure skating because now I went to free skate with Morgan afterwards.

“That was wrong: do it like this,” Hailey said as she watched me skate backwards after I landed my Flip Jump.

“It’s okay,” I said, holding up a hand politely with a smile, “I know where I made my mistake.” I hadn’t squared myself enough and I had almost lost my balance.

I tried my jump again, this time making sure it was perfect. After my clean landing, I went straight into my double Lutz for good measure and landed it perfectly.

Hailey and Caitlyn stared at me.

“What’s, like, the big deal?” Macy asked, skating up to us.

Hailey just fluffed her velvet skirt and smoothed down her hair that was still looking perfect. “Nothing.” She skated away.

Macy shrugged and skated away too.

Caitlyn still stared. “What was that? Last week you said you couldn’t do a double Lutz!”

I shrugged. “I worked on it by myself. Looks great, right?”

Caitlyn gave me a tiny glare before she skated away doing her perfect double Lutz.

I guess she wasn’t appreciating that I was improving quickly. I didn’t know if it was just pleasure of feeling real friendship again or my new found confidence that had rubbed off from Morgan, but I was getting to be a better figure skater and hockey player.

The ice rink clock buzzed, so we all knew our two hours were up, and we skated in to meet our coach. He gave us the usual little chat about what we could fix up to make better for our next competition and so on. When he only praised my work with no criticism, I glanced at Caitlyn who I knew would be green with jealousy, and cringed. I swear I heard a low growl deep in her throat as her eyes turned to slits again.

I stayed to unlace my skates on the bench stands while Caitlyn, Macy and Hailey went back to the change room right away. As soon as I saw them turn the first corner, I pulled my hockey skates from a secret compartment I found under the bench recently.

I waited a full two minutes before going back to the change room to put my figure skating skates away in my bag to avoid getting seen –and maybe caught– by Caitlyn, Macy, or Hailey.

I was just about to push in the door when I heard the same familiar three voices talking inside. But they weren’t just talking about any random thing – they were talking about me!

“She’s not the same,” Hailey said. I could practically see her touching up her hair in my mind. “She was never this good and happy at practices.”

“Maybe she’s, like, seeing a private coach or something,” Macy suggested.

Caitlyn snorted. “I know what it is. She’s not so happy about figure skating. It’s that annoying Morgan girl. I think they’re…friends.”

I peeked through the door and saw her roll her eyes on the word ‘friends’ and shudder dramatically.

“But Morgan’s, like, a hockey player. Ew.”

“How could they be friends?” Hailey asked. “Ariana hated hockey like us. …Right?”

“I don’t know, Hailey,” Caitlyn said, “I just don’t know. We also thought that she failed with her double Lutz but now look at her. It’s –”

“Better than yours?”

Caitlyn glared and Hailey shut up. “I was going to say it was really good.”

They continued talking, but I shrunk away, not wanting to hear another word. I would have to be a little bit more careful if I wanted to keep my secret love – and secret friendship – a secret.

A few weeks later, I hadn’t been hearing anything strange about me between my figure skating ‘friends’, so I thought that I was doing a pretty good job about keeping things on the DL.

“Quit bringing it up,” Morgan said when I brought it up. I had already told her about the conversation I had overheard the day it happened and she was positive that they wouldn’t suspect a thing. “I told you they would never really know the truth.”

“I guess you’re right,” I agreed with a shrug.

“I know I’m right.”

“Can we get back to the game?” Austin asked, swinging his stick around aimlessly. “Or will you two keep talking about the fascinating double life you’ll share forever?”

Morgan and I exchanged looks and at the same time we whipped our pucks into the net, giving Austin with two new bruises to deal with. Leaving him and our hockey sticks behind, we jogged into the house and up to my room, collapsing in laughter.

“Are you girls all right?” my dad called from his room down the hall.

“We’re fine!” we hollered back, still laughing at the blow that Austin took to arms and the look on his face.

It’s been really fun having Morgan around. Since she lives on my street and we have hockey practice at the same time, we’re usually always home with each other. It’s a great bonus that my family loves her too, especially Austin, because then he takes even more time off sitting his lazy butt on the couch to play hockey with us for as long as up to four hours in a day.

Having Morgan come to Brampton has been the best thing since I moved here and she’s like a sister to me now. In weeks she’s already become one of my closest friends of Brampton and Vancouver.

The sound of the phone ringing in my room disrupted my train of thoughts about Morgan.

She glanced at the phone and made a face at it.

I rolled over on my bed and picked it up, knowing that it was one of my figure skating friends – most likely Caitlyn – calling. I tried to sound cheery when I read the caller ID and saw it was who I had guessed, but I honestly couldn’t. It was weird because she hadn’t been calling me recently. “Caitlyn? Oh...hi.”

Morgan stifled a giggle with her hand at my sad attempt and moved closer so she could hear the conversation.

Caitlyn didn’t seem to notice the question and lack of enthusiasm in my voice. “Hey, Ariana, I have a surprise for you!”

“Is it really a surprise if she tells you it’s a surprise?” Morgan asked to me quietly.

I shushed her and kept up my conversation with Caitlyn as if there was no disturbance. “What is it?”

“For your birthday present next week, I’m taking you to see my favourite figure skating couple at their next show,” she said excitedly. “It’ll be so much fun! Your mom said yes and so did mine so we can go on your actual birthday. Won’t that be awesome?”

Morgan stuck her finger down her throat and pretended to gag.

That was my exact same thought. Nearly two hours of watching two people do difficult moves that I knew I would never master wasn’t my idea of fun – especially doing it on my fourteenth birthday. What would I tell Caitlyn, though? She would never let me live it down. She would bug me and bug me and bug me until I told her why I wouldn’t go. Then she’d hate me and hate me and hate me when I told her I never really like figure skating at all.

“Ariana?” Caitlyn asked. “Are you still there?”

Morgan nudged me and when I looked up at her she shook her head wildly and moved her hands in front of her face quickly. Then she pointed to the phone so I could answer Caitlyn who was repeating my name again.

“Um...I'll get back to you on that...” I said finally.

“What?” Caitlyn asked. “It’s not like you have other plans. Macy and Hailey are coming too.”
Morgan rolled her eyes crossed her arms impatiently.

“Yeah, but Austin and Mo– well I might just spend the day with Austin,” I said, glancing at Morgan.

Her expression became less impatient and she smiled a bit.

Caitlyn, however, was not impressed. She snorted. “Spending your fourteenth birthday all day with your brother? I know Austin is fun and all but –”

“I’ll talk to you later,” I said, hanging up quickly. I know it was rude, but she was annoying me. She was acting as if spending time with my family was lame, when it is was most definitely not. Anyway, I wasn’t planning on spending the whole day with Austin; I wanted to hang out with Morgan on that special Saturday.

“Why don’t we do something that you actually want to do on your birthday?” Morgan asked me.

“What do you have in mind?” I asked her.

She picked up her bag from the floor. “Keep in mind that I got these almost as soon as I found out when your birthday was, about a month ago…” she said as she pulled my surprise out. She pulled it out very slowly, purposely making my curiosity more and more intense.

When I finally had my gift in my hands, I shrieked. “We’re watching Toronto play Vancouver?!?!?!”

She nodded excitedly. “Won’t that be great?”

I held onto the tickets, keeping a tight grip until my hands went from normal, to pink, to white. I couldn’t believe I was going to watch my favourite teams play in Toronto!

“But wait – you hate both of these teams,” I said, taking my eyes off the tickets for a brief second and then looking back down.

Morgan just shrugged. “I just figured that since it’s your birthday, we could watch what you like.”

I don’t know why but when she said that, my stomach had an uncomfortable turn.

Logically, it would be because of the fact that both of my friends had planned a birthday present on the same day at the same time, but I felt somewhere else that it was something else. I just didn’t know what it was.

“Ariana!” Caitlyn greeted as she waved me over when I started heading to their table in the cafeteria. By how excited she sounded, it made me feel as if she hadn’t seen me for five years rather than five minutes ago.

“Hey.”

She slumped a little bit, but kept her smile on. Macy and Hailey looked at each other in a way that was unreadable, and a long silence followed. I took that time to worry about what kept crossing my mind these days. Have fun with Morgan and hockey, or be bored with Caitlyn and figure skating. Have fun with Morgan and hockey, or be bored with Caitlyn and figure skating. Have fun with Morgan and hockey, or be bored with Caitlyn and figure skating…

“So are you, like, coming with us tomorrow or what?” Macy asked me, interrupting my train of repetitive thoughts. I nibbled on my sandwich but even that didn’t help. I never nibbled on my favourite sandwich: I’d always gobble it up.

Usually when my mom made me her special cheese sandwich at home, I would love it. The smell would feed my starving nostrils and the taste would make my taste buds dance, but now that I knew what was coming and the cafeteria was reeking a little bit less than Austin’s room, the cheesy goodness was overtaken.

“Macy!” Caitlyn and Hailey hissed at the same time.

“Wha-a-at?” Macy whined, “It’s not like you weren’t thinking it!”

I looked at my friends who were looking back at me expectantly now. I honestly couldn’t think of a worse way to spend my afternoon – especially if I knew that somewhere else in Toronto I could be having an amazing time with Morgan, a girl I actually liked spending time with.

Then it hit me. I actually liked Morgan. I liked to hang out with her and I really looked forward to seeing her again every time she had to go home. Why wouldn’t I want to spend my birthday with her? Why wouldn’t I want to hang out with her even more by finally telling my figure skating ‘friends’ that I hated their passion? By doing that, I would lose their friendship, which wasn’t really friendship at all, and gain the full time one of Morgan Elliot who was a true friend – my best friend.

That was what was bothering me last week until now: I was choosing between three girls that I like half the time and a girl who was a riot that loved hockey like me. How could I have been so stupid as to try to still impress the girls that would abandon me the second they found out my secret, when Morgan already liked me and shared the same favourite hobby as me? Was I really that insane? Well, at least I knew what I had to do now.

Ignoring the faces of annoyance/confusion on Caitlyn, Macy, and Hailey’s faces, I scanned the cafeteria for Morgan. The tops of kids’ heads danced as they moved around, ducked to pick things up, and jumped to catch a stray paper airplane. Finally, my eyes landed on the brunette bowed head of Morgan, who was only a few tables away from us. She was quietly eating with some other people who had a mix of hobbies, instead of one, and hung out each other willingly instead of in a clique.

I felt guilty. Morgan had found some friends to hang out with, but I knew that she would rather eat with me and I felt the same way. She couldn’t talk to them about hockey and who was going to take the Stanley Cup home this year!

I needed to save her. I wondered how I could be so bad of a friend to ignore her in school, but then tell her everything about myself and my day, and exchange secrets and stories whenever she came over to my house, or I went over to hers.

“Morgan!” I called to her, waving my hand.

Morgan looked up and looked past me, as if someone behind me was calling her. When she figured out that it was indeed me, she looked at me questioningly, unsure if I was calling her or not.

I gave her a look that I hope sent the message for her to just trust me and come over.

Morgan slowly got up from the table and came over to us uncomfortably. “Hi.”

Caitlyn, Macy, and Hailey simultaneously wrinkled their noses and made a face at her as if she was something dirty. It made me angry and I wanted to get away from them even more, but I needed to do this.

“What are you doing?” Morgan asked from the side of her mouth.

“Telling the truth,” I replied. I turned to Caitlyn, Macy, and Hailey who were waiting for something to happen. I looked them all right in the eyes before I continued. “Morgan loves hockey and hates figure skating, you know that right?”

“Duh!”

“Duh!”

“Like, duh!”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes but Morgan didn’t. I pulled out a chair next to me and instructed Morgan to sit down. She sat down without question and I saw Caitlyn flinch a little bit.

I took a deep breath because I knew what was coming and so did Morgan. I could just tell by the way she didn’t look uncomfortable anymore, but relieved. She was relieved that I was finally coming out about the real me. That gave me the inspiration to go on because I was just as relieved and happy. “Well, what you don’t know is that I hate figure skating!”

A collective gasp followed.

“That’s right,” I said, my smile growing, “I. Hate! Figure. Skating. It’s annoying and it’s a waste of my time.”

Macy and Hailey gasped again, but Caitlyn glared at Morgan. “You! You are sticking crazy trash in her brain! Stop trying to steal my best friend!”

Morgan and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You guys,” I said, “I never loved figure skating; I never even liked it. My mom made me do it. The truth is…I love hockey.”

This gasp was so loud that a few people around our table turned to look at us curiously. Even though I didn’t appreciate this kind of attention, I went on because I was on a roll and I didn’t want to stop myself half way through and risk my wimpy side deciding to make an entrance and take over again.

“I love hockey and I’m great at it,” I told them proudly, even though my hands were shaking slightly. “I didn’t tell you because you hate it and any other girl else who thinks otherwise, but now I’m not afraid to admit it. Ya know why?”

Hailey raised an eyebrow.

“Because I don’t want to be your friend anymore, that’s why!” I said. I put my arm around Morgan’s shoulder and grinned at her. “This person right here is my best friend. Sorry, Caitlyn, but she is amazing. She accepts me and doesn’t judge me for what I like and dislike, and I love that about her!”

Macy frowned. “So, wait. This whole year’s been, like, a big lie? You don’t love to figure skate?”

Did I mention that Macy wasn’t very bright either?

“Nope.”

“And you know what?” Morgan said, speaking up for the first time in quite some time. “Not only does she not like figure skating, she doesn’t like you either!”

I blushed slightly. I didn’t think adding that part was exactly necessary even though it was very true.

“Well, then, Ariana,” Caitlyn said stiffly and curtly, “it’s only fair to tell you that we never liked you!”

On the inside I was bursting with excitement. It made me feel amazing that I didn’t care that Caitlyn hated me.

Macy and Hailey started running on and on about how I never deceived them and they knew the whole time and just felt sorry for me and other stupid lies like that. All the while, Morgan just grinned at me while I rolled my eyes unbelievingly.

Caitlyn scoffed. “What would we want to do with a lousy hockey player anyway?”

Morgan shrugged. “I don’t know. What were you thinking?”

She and I started laughing and all three girls glared at us, making holes through our faces but we didn’t care. Ignoring them, Morgan suggested that we eat somewhere else. I had never loved an offer like that so much before.

Hailey tossed her hair behind her neck. “We were going to tell you to leave anyway because –”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Morgan interrupted, making me smile even more. I think we were all tired of her bossy voice.

As we walked away from them, arms linked together, and smiles that could make a black hole look bright, I looked back at my former friends one more time. Hailey looked peeved that she was cut off. Macy looked frustrated that she had been tricked, and Caitlyn looked angry – it was kind of like how she looked when she lost. I guess in a way she had.

Macy and Hailey were a close pair and my joining their clique had kind of evened it out, giving her a best friend (though she wasn’t a good one at all). This year-long battle of our unsteady, impersonal, and unloving friendship had been claimed and replaced with something much better –and much more real– by Morgan.

“Have a fun time at your show!” I called back to them, with one last pity glance. “We’ll be watching Vancouver kick but on ice the right way.” I turned around to look at Morgan who was not only my full time best friend, but also my jail breaker. I was free!

Morgan and I squeezed into the two seats that were just two rows away from the boards that were separating me from my idol hockey teams. I absolutely couldn’t wait for the game to start, and even though they were not Morgan’s favourite teams, she was pretty excited too.

“This is the best way I’ve spent any of my birthdays!” I exclaimed as the referee skated onto the ice with the puck.

“Then happy birthday!” she said, giving me a quick hug. Just as she finished, the puck fell to its doom and got slapped by my favourite player on the Canucks right away.

“It is,” I said, watching the puck and players whiz by again and again. My eyes were glued to the hockey players and I could tell Morgan’s were too. I just couldn’t believe that I had a friend who would do this for me. “You’re a great friend,” I told her.

She looked at me and smiled. “I’m just glad that you have someone to share you’re secret with other than Austin.”

“Not anymore,” I said to her. “I’m proud to love hockey again!”

“Good, because I was so close to dumping you for your brother,” she joked, sipping her huge cup of Coke.

We both laughed and watched the guys get closer and closer to the net. It seemed like nothing could stop them. They were like bulls, ready to hit that red target; fierce and strong. I hope to be like that one day. I told Morgan that and she agreed with me saying that we both would and we’d both be dominating on the same team.

It was nice to not have to hold my fantasies in anymore. I could speak my mind about whatever I wanted. It felt nice.

The Vancouver Canucks scored, sending the crowd into radical cheers and boos. Either way, everyone was up and off their seats.

Morgan and I cheered together and I smiled to myself. I was not only proud to put out my love for hockey, but proud to put out my friendship with Morgan.

My life was looking great.

I looked to the scoreboard: Guest: 1 Home: 0

But if you looked at it differently, if you looked at it my way, you’d be smiling just like how I was.

Ariana Clarke: 1
Lying and Figure Skating: 0