Sacrifices

Livia was running late again. She pulled her car into the parking garage of The Garden and grabbed her duffle bag and skates from the trunk and began running to the elevator. She had already had a long day and hated being late for anything. Her shift at the restaurant went over by a half hour and then she got stuck in traffic for the game. The Bruins where playing at 7 tonight. She had to be there and be ready to take the ice for 6. It was already 6:15. The elevator doors opened and Al, the security guard was at the door. When he saw here he smirked and began to say something to her but she cut him off. “Don’t start!” she said with a smile and an eye roll. She flew past him and into the changing room where they all changed. She worked as a Boston Bruins ice girl. Her coach had gotten her the job for some extra cash. It was technically her fourth job. Livia was training to be a professional figure skater for the 2014 Olympics. That was her most important job. She had to practice every single day. Sometimes even twice a day if time allowed it. Figure skating took up a lot of time and energy. But most importantly it was expensive. To pay for it all she helped her coach at his small rink in Cambridge to coach youth figure skating. Then she worked three days a week at the local restaurant down the corner from where she lived. On top of that she was an Ice girl for every home game. Sometimes it could be stressful keeping her schedule straight but she managed. She got to be on the ice almost all day and that’s what she loved about it the most. Livia was usually never late to the games but today was just one of those days.

She set her stuff down and quickly changed into her outfit. Tonight she would be on the ice for the first intermission. She would referee the mini five on five game; she liked doing that the most. Livia made her way into the bathroom where the rest of the girls were touching up there makeup. They said their hellos and Livia proceeded to fix her makeup. All of the ice girls where nice and fun to work with but Livia didn’t see any of them outside of The Garden. Sometimes they were a little too much for her. They liked to go out every night and drink. Livia didn’t have time to do any of that. She would get jealous sometimes that she couldn’t do everything she wanted but she was only 19. She would have plenty of time when she got older. At least that’s what she kept telling herself.

Before she knew it the first intermission was here and she took the ice with all the 7-10 year old boys. Her job was to watch the game, signal a goal, and make sure no one got hurt. It was fun and reminded her of when she coached figure skating. She loved coaching the kids. They were so eager to learn and entertaining to watch. The mini five on five ended and The Bruins took to the ice to warm up. She was getting all the boys off the ice when a younger boy tripped and fell on the ice sending his skate and stick flying. She skated over to him to help him up when he began to cry. You could tell his skates and jersey were a little too big for him. Livia grabbed his skate and started putting it back on his foot. She’s fallen on the ice before in front of all these people, it is not fun. You can tell the little boy is nervous. She tries telling him that when you fall and get right back up it shows everyone how brave you are and that the fall didn’t hurt. He nodded at her but was still upset.

Tyler Seguin from The Boston Bruins watched the interaction the entire time. He watches the boy fall and the beautiful ice girl dry his tears and calm him down. He finds himself skating over to them. As he skates by he leans down and tells the boy what a good job he did during his game. He makes eye contact with Livia. As he does so, He falls to the ice and slides into the boards. Livia could tell he did it purposely and starts laughing.
“See everybody falls!” she says to the little boy who is now laughing with her. The players normally don’t engage with anyone before the start of a period. She thought it was unusual and very sweet to try and make the boy feel better. As they both skate off the ice the Bruin watches them. Livia can’t help but turn around and stare. When she does, she sees the player watching her. She blushes and turns away after making eye contact with him. Nothing usually makes her nervous but she has never seen a player do that before.

Later, Livia hands out T-shirts in the stands. While the game is going on, she tries to find the player again but can’t remember his number and is too far away to see their faces. She begins thinking about her schedule for the upcoming week. It is brutal. She has two practices every day and coaching every day, four shifts at the restaurant and three Bruins home games. She was hoping to take a vacation to head back home to Rhode Island to see her friends that she hasn’t seen in forever. But it’s looking more impossible as the months go on. She had moved up to Boston to get a better coach and train harder. She loved Rhode Island but there were no major trainers or coaches to train with there. Her father was against it. He was in fact against everything about figure skating. He thought it was a waste of time and that she needed to find a real job. He wanted her to take over the family engineering business. It had started out small but turned into something big and left her family pretty well off. She had no interest in the business. In turn her father had chosen to cut her off financially until she came to her senses. She knew she never would and her relationship with her father suffered because of it. She had her doubts about what she was doing but she loved it so much. There was no place else she’d want to be.

After the second intermission was over, Livia got to head home a little earlier than usual. She was excited about the time to herself at first. But she quickly realized how tired she was from her day and went to bed, bracing herself to do it all again tomorrow.