Maybe Someday

There was no way he could feel any happier, Sidney Crosby decided. His friends, his family, and his fans were gathered with him in his hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia to help him celebrate the one thing he had always ever wanted, the Stanley Cup. The amount of noise (screams, yells, chants, whistles) that sounded in his ears was not an unwanted thing; actually it was the second most wonderful sound Sidney had ever heard in his now, twenty two years. The first most wonderful sound he had ever heard, of course, was the first time he heard someone call him a Stanley Cup Champion.

He grinned and waved and hollered right back at the people lining the streets of his small, Canadian town as he drove by, the Cup right next to him. It was probably the best birthday present ‘the Kid’ had ever received, and probably ever would be. He tried to make eye contact with as many people as possible, wanting their memory of the day to be just as special as his would be. Even in his highest hour, almost being regarded as god-like, Sidney still wanted to give back to his fans as much as he could; it was just his personality. Contrary to what a lot of his critics and the haters thought, a lot of the time, the last person he thought about was himself.

As the car (he was awkwardly standing on the back of) kept making its way around the town of Cole Harbour, Sidney tried looking for familiar faces, but there was too many people and trying to determine if he knew them was making him dizzy and further distorting their features. He shook his head at himself as he kept smiling and waving, his eyes darting from face to face.

It was long after he had given up trying to recognize people, but there was no mistaking the face his eyes landed on after hundreds and hundreds before. He had seen it every day for all of his life, at least, until he was eighteen and moved his life to Pittsburgh. He knew the face almost as well as he knew his mother’s, his father’s, and his little sister’s. Her bright, light blue eyes were the same, her round and pink cheeks were the same, her natural and wavy blond hair was the same, and her smile, the one Sidney used to rush home from hockey practice in the late evening to see (if only for a few minutes before his mother called him inside) was the same, too. He felt butterflies swarm in his stomach, his heart jump in his chest, and his eyes widen as he looked at her.

He blinked. And just as soon as she had appeared, Ellen was gone.