Skylar died shortly after giving birth. Once she was cleared to climb, she and Damien were doing a free solo ascent near the resort. It wasn’t a particularly dangerous route, well within her skill level, but her body wasn’t ready to climb so soon after pregnancy and birth. Damien and I were insistent that she give it more time, but she was a force—once her mind was made up, noone could change it. Damien climbed behind her so he’d be able to catch her, but it was no use. She fell and never got up again.
The grief threatens to choke me.
Even though she died climbing, I think of her every time I ride. Her death destroyed Damien. It destroyed all of us really. Every time I prepare to drop in, I think of her and the fact she’s no longer with us.
Mountains used to be my salvation. Now, I fear they’ll be my damnation.
Chloe rides up beside me and shakes me from my thoughts. We used to be so close. Desperately, I want to let her in again, but I can’t get myself to do it.
I don’t want her to see me like this. So I drop my helmet and my goggles down over my eyes, even though I certainly don’t need them just yet. It’s enough of a shield between us that I’m able to finally look at her.
She gets too close for comfort and I veer off to the right. “You ready?”
Chloe is decked out in a deep blue kit, flashy like her bike. It’s funny how bikes match their riders so well. It reminds me of her favorite barbie growing up—ratted blue hair with a matching shimmery mermaid tale. My smile is involuntary, and she sees it. “What are you smiling about?”
Her grin is effortless, as if she desperately wants to join me in this brief moment of joy. I let her for a second before my overthinking takes over. I put some space between us, and she does me the honor of looking away.
The brunette always favors style over speed or skill. Hell, she favors it over safety too. Chloe has never been a very consistent rider. You don’t know what you’ll get with her. She’ll either place last or first and hardly ever anywhere in between. She was a lot like that as a friend too, a little unsystematic, always keeping me on my toes. I miss it…miss her.
Biking hasn’t been as fun without her.
She takes my silence as an invitation to talk. “This is my first big ride since my injury.”
I try to remember what injury she’s talking about, but I can’t recall. That’s pretty shitty of me, I know it is. I’m sure she posted all about it on socials, and I should have reached out, sent flowers or something. But I vehemently hate social media. Well, I like it just fine when I’m scrolling for fun, but as soon as it has anything to do with biking, I shut down.
Kudos to the girls that do it, but squeezing my tits together over my handlebars to get likes on a picture isn’t really for me. I also can’t bring myself to put on a full face of makeup to go ride around in the dirt, but that’s exactly what does well on social media.
Guys though, guys can simply throw up some GoPro footage of themselves actually riding and go viral. Reid only does the thirst trap thing because he likes all of the compliments.
Chloe is one of the girls that portrays the whole ‘sexy biker chick’ thing online. She’s tasteful about it though. Even now, her long brown hair is carefully braided and shimmering in the sun. Her lips are bright pink and she has blue eye shadow on to match her whole get up. The eye shadow makes no sense to me—her eyes will be covered by googles. I guess she wants to look good on the chance she makes it up onto the podium—and I get it, even if I don’t want to admit that.
We make small talk as we join the rest of the riders lined up at the gondola. It’s staggering how quickly someone can go from feeling like family to feeling like a stranger. This right here is exactly why I’ll never tell Reid how I truly feel. I can’t handle him ever becoming a stranger to me.
I’ll just keep settling for whatever scraps I can get.
14
As we ride up the gondola, Chloe is taking selfies and acting nonchalant, as if we’re not about to launch ourselves down a mountain at breakneck speed. One wrong move could literally mean life or death. People seem to forget, but riders die every year. It’s a very real possibility…one I can’t get out of my head.
Chloe has always possessed a knack for staying calm under pressure. Nothing ever gets under her skin. Even our fight. She faithfully listened to me berate her and still checked in on me the next day. It’s infuriating.
I recognize a few of the girls up here from last season. But there’s plenty of new faces too. I’ve been trying to study the roster before each competition to ease my anxiety some—familiar faces put people at ease, supposedly.
Blair drops in first for the practice run. She and I are lumped in with two other girls. I choose to go last and hesitate before locking in and flowing down the mountain. As soon as my front tire grips the dirt, my blinders are on and nothing but me and my bike matters.
The trail is easy, perfectly suited to my strengths, full oftechnical sections and big open shoots. Suddenly, I’m regretting not going first. Now that I’m cruising, I want to fly down this trail.
We trickle in towards the finish line, and I scan the crowd looking for Reid and Riley. I don’t see either of them, but a camera man starts following me and I find myself smiling right at the lens. Not a forced smile either, a real, genuine smile. I crushed that, and now I know I can do it again—at least technically speaking.
I have to keep my focus on the bike and the ground beneath me. Nothing else matters for the next hour, just me and the trail.
Blair is first to ride. She looks assured, and I know she’s going to be the one to beat today, like she usually is. They don’t have a monitor up here, so I have no clue how her ride went. That’s probably a good thing, I don’t need anything else shaking my confidence right now.
Over and over, I lower my dropper post and then bring it back up again. I can hear the cheering crowd from down below. It’s muffled, but if I can hear the chants at all from way up here, Blair must have done pretty well. Typically only riders and their close family attend qualifiers. The crowds and the cameras will be much more intense for the main event later today.
Alex claps me on the back—she’s a newer rider. Her girlfriend, Meg, is riding second position today. She should be about done by now. My mouth fills with a subtle metallic flavor as I bite down on the inside of my cheek. A soft whistle blows near my ear bringing me back to reality.
It’s my turn.
