Post Olympic

The Life of an Almost-Olympian

This one is long, sorry but not really        ;)   

-rabid

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The little shop is adorable, and when I walk in, a bell rings. The whole place smells like cotton candy and warmth. I look around, an enormous dude around Lucy's age is at the counter, packing up for the night. He turns around when the bell rings and meets me with a huge smile.

"Hey, uh," I stutter a bit. "Lucy met me on her route today, and asked me over for," He lets out a laugh .

"Ah, you would be Nico, the new coach," He holds out a huge weather-worn hand and I shake it. "She's in the back room with my daughter, I'll go get her," He walks over to a door and disappears. There was a candy shop like this in Boston that let me sleep out back shielded from the wind during the winters before I had the opportunity at the shelter. I love that family because of it.

I lean against the counter and look around. Everything in here is super colorful and incredibly cheery, it's amazing.

"Nico! Welcome to the store." It's Lucy and I have to smile, she makes her way over to the counter. "I'd like you to meet my daughter and her wife." I hold out my hand to shake and both girls shake. They look just a couple years older than me.

"Hey, I'm Nico, I'm the new coach for the Wolves."

"Adelaide," The shorter girl says.

"And I'm Mags, Lucy's daughter." The taller one says, she has the same short hair that I do, and I scratch mine, it's an awful haircut I did myself, and the longer I'm here the more time I have to consider getting it redone, but I haven't been paid yet so that's not in my plans.

"Alright, I'm going to go get some tea and cookies, Mags, do you want to bring her upstairs?"

"Sure," Mags says, "follow us." This whole group of people is so genuinely friendly, I'm surprised at how pure they all are, how wholesome. They lead me up to a back staircase and it creaks under my feet.

"So you're the girl that was in the olympics?" Mags says as we're taking off our shoes outside the door into their upstairs apartment.

"Yeah, not really though." I sigh.

"Are you kidding?" Mags says, pulling open the door. "God, the hockey world was up in flames because of you, you were supposed to be the next big thing in women's hockey, and then that girl framed you, I wanted to fight her for the longest time,"

"Well, she came forward after a while," I sigh.

"Yeah, but she totally ruined it all for you out of selfishness, god, I cannot." Mags and Adelaide bring me into the kitchen and we sit down at the table there. "And you disappeared off the face of the Earth there for two years, and now you're back, what happened?"

"Well," I let out a sigh. "I spent a year and a half on the streets of Boston if that makes any sense."

"What? No way." Mags says. Adelaide leans over to her.

"Mags, you probably don't want to press questions."

"It's okay," I chuckled. "Yeah, it's a really long story,"

"Alright, tea," Lucy sets down a handful of mugs and big pot of tea. "Bobby is cleaning up down there, so we can talk up here just a bit before he comes back."

"Okay, I know I'm pressing questions, but I kind of want to know the long story." Mags says.

"Mags," Lucy starts, but I shake my head and smile just a bit, I'll trust them.

"Before the olympics, I was in college, UMass Amherst." I sigh, then I turn to Lucy. "Do you just want me to start from the top?"

"Only if you want to, Nico." She pours us all tea, and hands me a mug.

I don't know these people, and normally I would never do this, but they all seem so nice, and I'm cozy with the tea in their little kitchen, so I guess I'll go for it.

"So, I'm initially from the rougher section of Hudson, which is a rough town in the first place, my family was terribly off, and I guess that's just how it is." I sigh. "So my dad worked at a supermarket and my mom waited tables, I'm an only child, and they were high school sweethearts, you know, the two captains of the hockey team." Mags makes an aww noise and I take a sip of tea. "They scraped together all they had and got me gear when I was four, one of my biggest childhood memories was actually going out onto the pond behind our tiny house on Christmas morning with my first pair of skates and skating until I couldn't move from the cold, they taught me all they knew about the sport."

"That's so cute," Mags mumbles. I smile down at my cup of tea.

"So I started school, and they both picked up extra jobs, at times, I considered quitting hockey because it's such an expensive sport, but they kept me with it," I take another sip of the cinnamon tea. "Then I hit middle school, and this is where things got rough." I take a longer sip to brace myself for it. "My mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor and immediately hospitalized." Everyone immediately changes demeanor from my fluffy childhood to what happened after.

"Oh my gosh," Adelaide mumbles.

"My dad tried to make it through with her, putting whatever he could into helping her with her treatment, but eventually decided it was too much and put her through a divorce, leaving me home alone all the time, I was thirteen." I take a sip of tea. "I don't know what happened to him, I've heard he remarried and moved south, more kids, bigger family, went back through college, maybe he's an attorney now."

"That's horrible," Lucy says. I shake my head and take another drink of tea.

"My hockey coach, love the guy, paid our differences when my college funds and the family savings couldn't cover it, and my mom got worse and worse." I take another drink, fighting back the knot in my chest. "By the time I hit fifteen, she was on her deathbed, and I remember it vividly, Christmas eve, I was sixteen, she died that night at the strike of midnight, I wasn't there to be with her, they called me that morning to say their fears and that I should come visit, but I had a project to finish, and I couldn't." Mags and Adelaide have moved closer, holding hands under the table and looking sad. "With nothing left to do, I couldn't pay for a funeral, or the hospital bills, so I dug through all the assets we had, and came across one final account, my grandparent's inheritance. It wasn't much, but I used it to pay off everything and we buried her in the spring, and by June, I couldn't pay rent, and was evicted."

"Where did you go?" Mags asks.

"I moved in with my coach and my best friend, I slept in their spare bedroom for two years, I can't ever repay them for that." I finish off my tea and set down the mug. "I got into UMass, full ride for hockey, and then freshman year I made the olympics." I smile a very tiny smile. "It was my dream, the only thing that mattered to me, but then I was framed for drugs and kicked off the team" I don't dare look at anything but my empty mug. "UMass pulled my scholarship and spot on the team, and I dropped out because there was no way for me to pay for it, so I took it as it was. My coach and my best friend were convinced of the scandal and turned me away,"

"Rude," Mags says, Lucy gives her a look.

"So I turned to the streets. I sold most of my gear to used gear shops, most of my belongings I also sold off, all that I had left was a jacket a pair of jeans, a couple shirts, sweatpants and my skates, which I wouldn't give up for the world." I set my head down on the table. "I lived under assorted bridges and overhangs for a year and a half, my homeless friends were the nicest people I'll ever know. I became good friends with a girl named Liza. She never told me why she was there, but I didn't ask. She didn't have a leg, so I helped her get around. We'd watch storms come in over the harbor." I don't tell them the rest of that story. I don't want to. "And I made friends with a guy who would go hunting for food with me, he told the greatest stories. After that year, I got a spot at a homeless shelter, and five months later, Hadley came and found me, so here I am."

"And nobody knows about that?" Mags asks.

"Not at all." I pick my head up off the desk and look around at all of them.

We all sit there for a second in utter silence at the end of my story and I get redder and redder. Finally, thank god, Mags clears her throat.