Love, Hate and Hockey Skates

I have hated the majority of my life I could remember. My mother died in a car accident when I was young, on the day of my 10th birthday. From that day my father had blamed me for her death, all because I had thrown a tantrum over not having ice cream with my cake, so she went to get some and was struck by a drunk driver.That was the day the horrors of my childhood had begun. My father had become a recluse drunk who lost his job and claimed disability to sit at home and drink. He would have flashbacks of my mother and get into a drunken rage, which usually ended with me as his punching bag and anger release.I tried several times to tell an adult about it, I showed them the bruises on my legs and arms, but my father was the world’s greatest actor. Every time someone had come to the door under the suspicion something was happening to me in the house, he pretended to act like a sober and loving father, which in turn made me look like a liar.So, I stopped telling people, and I waited f

Weirdly enough, I didn’t see Ace for the rest of the week, not even in the halls or the cafeteria, it was like he disappeared. Only to return on Friday with the biggest grin on his face as he awaited the start of the game.I sat at the top of the bleachers, as far away from the ice as possible and hoped he wouldn’t see me up there, but to my luck, he scanned the crowd and spotted me right away. He gave a huge wave which only attracted all the female attention to me.‘Oh, great. I haven’t even been here hardly a week, and I’m already the target of envy.’ I could feel all the jealous stares as the game started. At first, I didn’t find myself very interested, until I heard the horn go off, which I guessed signalled a goal as the players celebrated on the ice. I looked and realized it wasn’t our team, and it was only the first 5 minutes out of 20 minutes.Maybe this was going to be a lot easier than I thought. I started to pay a little more attention to the game, even though I didn’t und

I was on my way to my Jazz-Ballet class when I got a random text message that said to go to the arena after class. I had my hunches that it was Ace, but I never remembered giving him my number. The worst it could be was a trap set by another, but again, how did anyone get my number? I hadn’t changed it since I first got my phone plan back at the end of high school, when I could finally afford one without my Dad knowing, but I wasn’t one to easily give it out or post it around social media like others. It wasn’t that easy to get a hold of. Since my gut told me not to, I avoided the arena for the rest of the morning, until I had saw Ace running down the hall to my classroom just as I was leaving. “Where were you?” he asked and looked quite breathless. I wanted to ask how he knew this was my class and that I had just finished, but I remembered he had been forcefully walking me to class every day since I got there. “What do

I gawked at him for a few seconds, unsure if I had heard him correctly. “Can I go to it if it’s after my game?” He wasn’t kidding. “You…want to go?” He shrugged. “Why not? I’d love to see you dance, I’m sure it’s awesome. What kind of dance competition?” “It starts a few minutes after your game ends, I don’t think you’ll be able to make it in time.” I wanted to think of any excuse for him not to go. That was the last thing I wanted him to see. Knowing about the competition was one fear, seeing me dance was a whole other level of terror I didn’t want to experience with Ace Huxley. I could only imagine what he would’ve done to me back in high school if he had ever seen me dance. Thankfully, it wasn’t a passion I could afford at the time, and now it is the passion that helps me afford everything. “I have my car, if it isn’t too far, I’m sure I can drive there right after. If you let me go, that is.” He smiled, and for the first time, it didn’t touch his eyes. He was acting as if

I sat down at the island bar while Ace grabbed two beers and cracked them open.“What’s your fancy?” he asked and opened the fridge. “I could make chicken alfredo?”“Won’t that take awhile?”He shrugged and started grabbing the ingredients. “For me, it won’t take long.”“How did you get so good at cooking?”He lifted a brow. “I thought we were asking questions about our past, not just mine specifically?”“Okay, I can take a hint.” I pondered a few questions. “Why was I the only one you picked on, and why so harshly?”“A lot of the friends I had were guys from the hockey team, and my Dad made sure to go out of his way to get on good terms with them. It made them feel better when they snitched on me for not following my father’s pristine guidelines for the perfect life. If I showed interest in a girl like you, one of them would’ve definitely told my Dad, and like I said, I was an idiot and I was scared. I cared more about myself than I did my feelings for you, which is why I never belie