It's Not Easy Romancing a Stone

I woke up the next morning in a kind of fog. With the butterflies setting in automatically, I tried to not think about the competition. The only other thing that popped into my head was wild mind imagery that my brain had somehow mixed up last night.
The dream was so lifelike; I was convinced it was real..
After dwelling on the dream for a few minutes, I got all my things ready and apologized to Rian. I explained every detail of the dream to her and she just smiled and laughed. She fed me some bullshit as the dream being some sort of sign of my ‘underlying feelings for the 6’ 2”, flirtatious rookie’. By the time we were on our short trip to the Garden, my head was still clouded. I needed to focus on my competition, but I just… couldn’t. My thoughts were, unfortunately on my account, on one thing only: Tyler. He was like a thorn in my side; painful and irritating. I've really known him for a day or so and all my assumptions about him have been dead on target.
I sighed and looked out the passenger window of the ca r at blurred scenes passing: grey blobs of people bustling around one another, cars zooming past with nothing left behind but whirls of invisible air. My eyelids started to droop as Adele came on the radio, roaming through the air of Rian’s car. I closed my eyes completely and before I could drift into any sort of slumber, the dream of Tyler started to roll behind my eyelids like a ceaseless movie. The car came to an abrupt halt at the precise moment that my eyes snapped open.

“We’re here!” Rian’s cheery voice nearly screamed into my ear.

“We-we’re hear? Al-already?” My stomach no longer had little butterflies, no; they had transformed into fucking birds. Not only did I stutter when I got this nervous, sometimes I ended up getting sick in anticipation.

Rian nodded her head and squeezed my hand. She opened her door and got out. I followed her actions and grabbed my bag from the back of the car. I looked up at the huge building in front of me and realized that the Bruins had to go through this every other night. Not only did they all have to deal with the pressure of playing good in front of coaches and other important executives, they also had to impress 17,665 or so fans. This eased my nerves a bit and I found that my legs had taken me to the elevator that led down to the skater's dressing area. I as we made our way down to the ground floor I felt my stomach burst into even worse knots than before.

I stepped out of the elevator and found the check-in. I got my number for scoring purposes and was instructed to pin it to the front of my leotard. With shaking hand I received my number and it read ‘119’. Rian had to cover her mouth from laughing so hard and I gripped the paper tighter and turned to go get changed. I really wasn’t in the mood to hear about her ‘It’s a sign!’ bullshit.

I made my way down a secluded hallway and found the women skater's dressing rooms and raised a shaky hand to open the door. Rian had left earlier to go find her seats so I was on my own from here on in. She usually stayed with me and helped me go over my routine for a final time but I had no one here now, and that didn't help my nerves at all. A few minutes later I was in a stall practically in my own little world when suddenly my bubble of peace and quiet was popped by non other that Hilary Anderson.
Hilary was your typical mean girl who had not one once of common sense. She had been in every competition that I was since I was five and always ended up being the girl that beat me in the end; sometimes by a gap as little as two points. That’s the kind of things that made me want to punch her in the face even more than usual. She was with two younger-looking girls who she was bossing around; having them tie her skates and fix her sparkling straps that didn’t leave much for the imagination. I rolled my eyes at the sight and tried to block them out but couldn’t because the din of their conversation was blocking my train of thought.

“Honestly Hilary, could you just shut up for five minutes? Some of us are actually trying to concentrate on the competition.” I shook my head and tried to ignore the birds that were still flapping in the stomach.

“Sorry for disturbing you bitch.” She pulled a grin. “Don’t be too disappointed when you lose AGAIN. You know jealously is and never will be a good quality.” Her high pitched voice echoed throughout the room. No one else was talking. They weren't staring either but everyone was waiting on what I would say next. I rolled my eyes and continued to lace up my skates until I was interrupted yet again by Hilary’s sharp voice cutting through the air like a knife.

“You know me and the girls were just discussing the fact that Tyler Seguin is here to watch the competition. You know the hot and steamy new rookie. He just started with the Celtics this year-” I looked up at her, my mouth open slightly in astonishment. What the fuck was Tyler doing here? At the Garden? Now? He shouldn’t be here; he has no right to be. Well I guess he does but still... Why would he ever fucking bother to watch an ice skating show? This is making me more nervous than it should be.
In the midst of my mental conversation I ripped my skates off and stormed out. I saw all the girls discussing and caught the end of Hilary’s conversation.

“He is so fucking hot. I’d totally tap that. I’m going to find him after the show, maybe I’ll get lucky.” She spoke with acid in her voice and twisted her bleach blonde hair around a perfect manicured nail.

All my focus was now on finding Tyler and getting him the fuck out of the building.I don't know why this was my reaction but I just needed to make sure he was here, and then get him out. I took the elevator up to the fifth floor to the loge. I went to the center ice section and peered my eyes over the rows of people. I didn’t see him and I started to get nervous. I needed him out of this building now. He couldn’t see me skate; most importantly I didn’t want him to see Hilary and seeing how pretty she was. Hell, she was the fakest girl I’ve ever laid my eyes on but she pulled herself together nicely and that’s what’s scared me. The little flame of jealously surprised me and caused my body to become numb for a few moments. Then it dawned on me, Hilary was probably lying about the entire thing. So this was all for nothing, and my nerves have now shot up to about a 100 on a scale of one to ten. I don't even know who she heard that Tyler was here from or anything else for that matter; she's probably just spreading rumors. I felt that familiar ball rising in my throat and I felt the urge to cry right then and there.Tyler has caused me nothing but stress and that's the last thing I needed right now. I turned to go back up the stairs back to the elevator but as soon as a turned, the person coming down the stairs and I collided. My skates, which were dangling in my left hand, knocked over his cup and spilled the contents everywhere.

“Oh my God I’m so sorry!” His drink was dripping all over and it was entirely my fault. I looked around for some napkins but saw none. Embarrassed, I looked up and met a familiar pair of brown eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me, so you really are here?”

Tyler’s eyebrows rose at my question. “Who told you I was here?” He completely ignored the stain on his shirt and I did the same after I had realized it was just water. I opened my mouth to answer his question but was cut off by the lights dimming and skater’s names starting to flash across the screen, along with the announcer reading off the sponsors. My nerves were now getting the best of me and my stomach did flips. I felt sick and buckled over, my skates scraping the concrete stairs.

“Whoa, whoa, Vanessa are you okay?” Tyler knelt down and grabbed my skates from my hand placing them down.

I shook my head and looked up at him, my whole body shaking.

“I j-just ha-have re-really- b-b-bad ne-nerves.” He looked at me with sympathetic eyes and grabbed my hand lightly.

“I’ve got just the thing for that, follow me.” I had no choice as Tyler practically dragged me behind him and into an elevator in which I never even knew existed before now. He punched in some sort of number sequence and a number pad but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was concentrating on not being sick. A few moments later the elevator dinged and we were somehow brought to ice level. We stepped out and Tyler pushed through a few sets of doors, never letting the go of the grip he had on my hand. Moments later, I found myself in none other than the Boston Bruins locker room. I looked at him confused but didn’t say anything, I was too afraid that if I opened my mouth, my breakfast would end up all over the floor.

“This is where I come to focus when I’m nervous.” Tyler looked at me from across a bench that I sat on. He sat next to me, straddling the bench and facing me completely, not taking his eyes off me.

“I know exactly how you feel Nessa. I know that you think that you have to perform well or the world will stop spinning, and you’ll be a failure. But listen to me,” I wasn’t really paying
attention to his little speech. I was looking around for a bucket to throw up in, just in case.

“Vanessa listen to me!” At his sudden raise of tone, my eyes snapped up to his. Something besides the dozens of birds flapping around stirred inside of me when he looked at me like he was, but I ignored it. My eyes were panic-stricken and were flashing over his face. Tyler's eyes, which I now noticed, were placid and soothing, waiting for me to hear what he had to say.

“No matter what happens out there on the ice Vanessa, the world off it will still be the same. No one’s going to judge you in the real world like they do on the ice.”

“H-how do y-you know?” The birds were calming down a bit.

He smiled gently. “Because I do this for a living. You just need to concentrate on yourself and the music; nothing else. Not the crowd, not the judges, nothing but you and yourself. Just like you do every time you practice.” His voice was calm, like he believed in me. That was exactly what I needed right now. This was the finals of the entire state. This was it. ‘Concentrate’ I kept telling myself.

They were back to butterflies.

“Focus on positive thoughts only, nothing bad. Take deep breaths right now.” I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply and followed that with an exhale. I could feel my nausea fading.

I breathed in deeply again and caught his scent. He has a subtle and sophisticated smell, but it was just enough to catch your attention and keep it there. It's a smell that made me want to rip his jacket off and smother my face in it forever. I caught myself and realized what I was thinking was mad and laughed a bit at my own expense. I opened my eyes and saw him sitting in front of me, his chocolate eyes exploring my face. He had a little confused look on his face. It looked like he was trying to figure out what I was thinking about. When he realized I was looking at him, he grinned slightly and looked down.

The butterflies were gone.

“Will skater number 119 please come to the zamboni doors. Skater 119 to the zamboni doors please.”

I laced up my skates and stood up to stretch. Soon realizing the locker room was next to the zamboni holding area I made my way to the door.
“That’s my queue.” Tyler stood up and followed behind me. In my skates I reached to about his shoulder. Right before I got to the door, I turned around and quickly hugged Tyler around the chest. He seemed surprised but promptly wrapped his arms around my frame. “Thank you.” I mumbled into his chest and took in his scent once again.
I pulled away but was speedily brought back into his arms and he squeezed me even tighter. Not letting go, I looked up at him, my chin on his chest, and was met with the typical Seguin smirk.

“What?” I questioned jokingly, nerves completely gone
.
“Skater 119, eh?" He smiled and loosened his grip and I slipped out of it.

"I’ll talk to you after the show, okay? Maybe we can meet up or something?” He sounded a bit sheepish at the end and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Maybe, if you’re lucky.” I winked at him playfully and he just laughed.

“Good luck Vanessa, you’ll do great.” He winked back and his face was the last thing I saw before I got ready to beat everyone, including Hilary, out of this competition.