Illusions

The Consol Energy Center, despite construction having only been finished a little over a year ago, seemed to age a hundred years as Loren stepped through the doors. It was Friday morning and quiet — much too early for the team to be at practice or the staff reporters to be booting up their computers and getting ready for the day. In fact, most of Pittsburgh was still fast asleep in their beds. Loren’s commute had taken an easy ten minutes and she was the only person in line when she made her routine stop at the nearby cafe for coffee. All of this would’ve been part of her ideal day had it not been for the matter at hand: her job.

If she didn’t know better, she would’ve thought she was walking the Green Mile. Her hands shook, her stomach was in knots, and her heart was beating so fast she was sure she was going to have a heart attack. All she wanted was someone to tell her everything was going to be fine, that it was just a huge misunderstanding and the situation was already taken care of. No harm, no foul. But that wasn’t how things worked in Loren’s world — a world full of deceitful scumbags and people willing to do anything for their fifteen minutes of fame. This wasn’t something that’d go away overnight or with a bit of wishful thinking. This was a scab that’d keep getting picked until it eventually scarred…then it’d be there forever.

By the time she reached Mario Lemieux’s office Loren’s hands were shaking so bad she tried four times before finally being able to form a fist. Two knocks were all she was able to muster, and an eerily calm “come in” nearly caused her to faint. The office was just as it’d always been — photographs, trophy cases, mock championship banners, expensive furnishings — and it succeeded in calming her enough to shake Mario’s hand convincingly. Still, even as she was able to shake some of her nerves, she wasn’t able to shake the god-awful feeling that had settled in the pit of her stomach.

“I’m sure you know why you’re here, Miss Hamilton.”

Loren nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” he nodded, “that’ll save me the time of explaining the situation. Care to tell me your side of the story?”

“I don’t know where to begin,” she replied honestly. “I woke up yesterday morning to Sidney telling me I should check the internet and then I saw the article.”

Mario nodded as he twirled slightly in the large chair he was seated in. “I want you to know first and foremost myself and the rest of the organization are beyond pleased with the work you’ve done. You’ve certainly exceeded our expectations and, despite what Mr. Crosby may think, you’ve done him a great service.”

Loren nodded again. “Thank you, sir.”

“Because of that, Loren, I’m going to make this as painless as possible.”

Those thirteen words were all it took for Loren’s world to completely fall down around her. Nothing good ever came out of as painless as possible. No dream jobs were ever salvaged by thanks for your help, but… This was it. This was the end. The practices, the appointments, the lunch dates, the friends — all of it was being ripped away from her because of some bullshit rumor. Loren understood. She knew it was a dog-eat-dog world and she had one slip-up before she was yesterday’s news. However, she never thought it’d come at the hands of someone else. She never thought the very thing she worked so hard to avoid, to make sure never, ever happened, would be her downfall.

“You’re firing me,” Loren stated, the lump of shock and sadness in her throat heartbreakingly obvious.

“We thought it’d be best.”

Loren contemplated telling him how wrong he was — how wrong they all were — but decided against it. Whining wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Stomping her feet and begging Mario to give her her job back would only get her dragged out of the building by security. It surely wasn’t professional. She could’ve cried. She could’ve called Sidney or Kris or even Jordan and demanded they tell Mario the truth, that she was innocent and she’d never do anything to jeopardize her job. She could’ve thrown her achievements in his face, asked him who could’ve done a better job given the circumstances. Maybe one or all three of those things could’ve gotten her job back but they’d all cost her much more: her integrity, her professionalism…but most importantly, her pride.

Loren Hamilton had just put herself through ten months of hell for the sake of her career. She was passed the point of begging.

Shaky arms pushed her up from her seat. She couldn’t remember ever sitting down. An unsteady breath thanked Mario for giving her the opportunity of a lifetime. She couldn’t remember anything other than the night she drove to Sid’s and drank the wine Fleury had given him. An erratic hand shook her now ex-employer’s and bid him farewell. She couldn’t remember her heart ever aching so badly.

Reality didn’t sink in until she was back in her apartment. She was now unemployed, dishonorably discharged from the only job she’d ever known for nearly the last year. There was enough money in her bank account to live as she had been for another three months — rent and bills and various necessities included. However, she knew she wouldn’t stick around to see herself blow through it. Pittsburgh had only become her permanent residence because of job relocation. Without said job she no longer had a reason to stick around. Her friends (or what was left of them) were back home in Erie, as was her family. It wouldn’t be hard to find a job there. It made the most sense.

What didn’t make sense, what Loren could not wrap her mind around, was why it’d come to this. Wasn’t revenge a dish best served cold? Rhea had gotten what she wanted but it came at a price. A Pyrrhic victory, if you will. Was Loren’s job worth Robbie’s? Was tainting Loren’s name worth his reputation? Loren could find another job. She knew her professional life was far from over, but Robbie’s was. You didn’t cross a man like Mario Lemieux and live to tell the tale.

Well, maybe that was pushing it.



Sidney Crosby’s entire day had been thrown off since the moment he woke up.

His alarm decided to take the morning off, leaving him a mere thirty minutes to get ready for practice. He was delighted to find his hot water also took the day off, earning him a miserable shower and probably pneumonia. He figured he’d be able to find solace in a cup of coffee but that, too, didn’t happen. He’d stood in front of the machine for five minutes trying to get it to brew but it only spit out an angry puff of steam each time. Not to mention the traffic.

The locker room was silent when he stepped in — another bad omen. For someone as superstitious as he, these things did not go unnoticed. Anyone else would write them off as random acts of his already bad day, but not Sidney. The looks on his teammates’ faces also did not go unnoticed, but he couldn’t place the emotion. Was it pity? They hadn’t even given him that look when he first broke the news that he was out indefinitely because of his concussion. Sidney Crosby wasn’t really the type to invoke pity and his teammates weren’t the type to dish it out. Yet they all looked at him like he was the world’s most pitiful creature.

“Who died?” he joked, trying desperately to lighten the mood.

“Can I have a word with you, Sid?”

Mario seemed to appear out of nowhere which didn’t help Sid’s nerves. He nodded meekly and followed him out of the room, leaving his teammates to lace their skates and take the ice on their own, without him. The way the heels of his dress shoes sounded against the marble floors all of a sudden made him sick, like he, too, was walking the Green Mile.

When he took the seat Loren had been sitting in only a few hours before, it was still warm. Sidney noticed that, too. All of a sudden he knew exactly what was going on. The looks, the silence, the pity — it all made sense.

“No—”

“Sid, let me explain before you say anything.”

“You fired her?” He was furious. His head throbbed and his hands shook and no matter what he did he couldn’t stop thinking that this was going to do him in. Forget the concussion, forget everything else. Losing Loren was…

“We can’t have someone jeopardize the team, Sid. You should know that better than anyone.”

“Oh my god. You actually believe that bullshit article?”

“It doesn’t matter what we believe,” Mario replied, calm as ever. “I know she did a lot for you, Sid, but you have to look at the bigger picture here.”

“What bigger picture? I’m out. I’ve been out since January and she’s the only one who was there through everything. She took the blame when it wasn’t hers to take. She took me to all those appointments—”

“I’m sorry, Sid, but it had to be done.”

Sidney stood from the chair, unable to remember a time he’d ever been so angry. “For what? To make you look good? You didn’t even ask me! Or Kris!”

“Just calm down—”

“No,” Sidney snapped. Neither man could believe what was happening. Sid had never, ever talked to Mario in such a way, and for good reason. This was the man who took a chance on him, who took him in and showed him the ropes. “How could you do this?”

“Please, just let Ray and I take care of it.”

“I can’t believe this.” He was pacing now. “She’s gone? Because of some stupid article that wasn’t even true?”

“Sit down,” Mario instructed; Sidney obliged. “You know why this had to happen, Sid.”

“No, I don’t. People get fired for consorting with players, which she didn’t do.”

“You’re right,” Mario agreed, “but there’s another part to that. We can’t have future employees thinking it’s okay for these kinds of things to happen.”

Sidney’s eyes quadrupled in size. “So you fired her to make an example? She’s some sort of martyr for your bullshit rules?”

“I know you’re angry. I should’ve told you beforehand, but—”

Sid shook his head, once again trying to dissolve the lump in his throat. He never expected it to hurt this bad. Sure, he knew Loren wouldn’t work with him forever, that she’d eventually move on, but he didn’t think it’d happen like this. “She was all I had. The only friend, the only confidant, the only one in my corner. She was there for everything. She knew everything—”

“We’ve all been here for you, Sidney—”

“Really? Were you? Because, as I recall, you were on a strictly need-to-know basis. Call me when you have good news. You didn’t care about the bad. No one did. No one but her, and where’d that get her? Thrown away. Disposed of.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way. You surely didn’t make it public knowledge.”

“Why would I? Then she’d have to field even more bullshit rumors about us dating — again. I can’t have friends. I can’t have a girlfriend. I can’t even go out to dinner without half the city jumping to conclusions.”

Mario shrugged. He knew; he’d been there. “What do you want me to say, kid?”

“Nothing,” Sidney answered. “Don’t say anything.”

Mario watched him exit the office without another word. There was no emotion visible on his face but there didn’t need to be. He wore his heart on his sleeve and right now it was shattered into a million pieces. Hiring Loren was a risky move: she was a young professional and everything Sidney needed in his life, both on and off the ice. She was attractive, hardworking, focused. Mario thought Sidney would be smart enough to not let feelings get involved but clearly he assumed wrong.

He fought for her. He went against everything he was ever told to fight. Sidney Crosby was known for a lot of things but his fight wasn’t particularly one of them. Sure, he fought Matt Niskanen once. He was fighting his concussion right now. He fought to become one of the greatest hockey players to ever play the game. He’d never fought for a girl. More importantly, he’d never fought Mario.

Perhaps, better than anyone, Mario knew why: love makes you do things you normally wouldn’t.