How was the flight?
How’s the snow?
How are you feeling?
My thumbs hover over the screen, debating if I even want to reply.
Did you see Austin? We saw him on TV last night at the opening ceremonies. He looked great!
Yeah, no. I’m not answering that. The question is too loaded and any answer I give her will only lead her to pressing for more details. My parents tried to come to Italy with me, but it turned out to be impossible. With my short-notice call up, we were lucky to get me a flight. Booking airfare for Mom and Dad too would have involved selling one of the cars out of their driveway. My mom said they’d find a way. I’m not holding my breath.
Dad and I are so proud of you two.
My hand jerks around the phone and I put it down. That’s the last thing she said to me when I called from the airport too. That she and my dad are proud of me. And Austin. We will always be a pair in their minds, just like Donna knew I’d be at the hospital when she arrived last year. Mom doesn’t look at my late arrival at the Olympics as anything other than all my hard work paying off. She sees it as the inevitable conclusion of all the years she and Donna swapped carpool duties and she stood in the freezing January cold to cheer me and Austin on while we were still skiing alpine.
But this year has been...weird. Austin was in the hospital in Maine for close to a couple weeks. I stayed for a few days, even after the team left, but he was pretty out of it. Eventually, Patrick finally arrived to be with Donna, and the ICU staffstarted dropping hints about Austin needing quiet and rest. They clearly meant there were too many of us around, and what was I supposed to do? Tell Donna to take a hike?
After I got home, I texted a few times, but the concussion meant he wasn’t allowed to use screens for a while, and even once he was, he still only had one good hand, needed multiple surgeries, and was loopy from the pain meds. I called once, and he sounded good, but then when I called the next day, he didn’t remember speaking to me the day before.
Still, all of that is excuses, because the real problem was I didn’t know what to say. “How are you doing?” seemed bad when I already knew what the answer was. And, “Hey, do you remember riding my dick until neither of us could practically walk?” didn’t feel like the kind of thing to put in a text to your best friend when it’s unclear if he’ll ever be able to walk properly ever again.
So, after the first couple weeks, I mostly said nothing. Austin got discharged, but the team doctors agreed he’d do best at a private sports rehab facility in British Columbia. So even during the off-season, while we were doing dry land training, gym sessions, and keeping fit with things like mountain biking, Austin wasn’t there. When we did communicate, it was mostly in memes, social media links, and occasionally gossip about teammates and competitors. Those things felt safest, and it was easy to hide behind “sorry, I’ve been busy with training.” So we never actually said anything important to each other.
I don’t know what happened. Somehow I went from imagining a perfect future for the two of us to barely being able to speak to my best friend. The guy who blew my mind in bed and promised me forever, then immediately forgot about all of that and nearly died.
But hey, after everything, at least I get to prove to the world I’m the best ski cross athlete on the hill right now? Or I get totry anyway. Once upon a time, Austin and I made a plan. Train hard. No distractions. If you fall, get back up and do it again. We dreamed of standing on top of the podium together.
I’m not sure if together is still on the table. Austin thinks we’re friends...maybe...and I know we could be so much more. But, regardless, the rest of the plan still stands.
The pillow is very inviting. I could close my eyes and worry about all this later. But I’ve got three days to get my head on straight before competition starts. There’s no time to sleep...or brood about how I’m ever going to salvage my relationship with Austin. He said once he’d wanted to wait until after the games. This is exactly what he was talking about. And whether he knows it or not, now I get a second chance to stick to the plan.
It’s time to compete.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
The conditionson the mountain are perfect. There’s been a lot of snow this winter, but nothing new in the last few weeks, which has given the stuff that’s already fallen time to be compacted down under skis and the grooming equipment the resort uses to maintain terrain. The air is cold and the sun is bright, so it’s easy to see the dips and shadows where the pitch changes, even before the course team has put down the stripes of spray paint meant to indicate the start of jumps or the bank of a turn.
It’s absolutely perfect, and I am a mess.
It begins where all races do: at the start. Austin, Matthieu, and Kage are doing drills. Ski cross is different from most other ski events in that the races are done with four competitors on the course at a time, and our starting gates have handles. They’re small horizontal bars that you grab onto, so you can rock yourself backward, then launch yourself forward when the barrier comes down, sort of the way swimmers will use the edge of the starting platform for leverage to get into the water faster. I take my place next to the others, gripping the bars tight while making sure my poles are pointed behind me and out of the way. I take a deep breath, letting the tension pullthrough my shoulders as I bend my knees low and lean into the tough plastic of my boots. I’ve started from gates like these thousands of times. It all comes down to breath and timing. The trainer counts down the seconds until the start and as the barrier drops I pull myself forward, getting ready to launch onto the course...only to find myself faceplanting in the snow as something below my shin snaps.
What the fuck?
The guys, only a few metres beyond as they rock over the first set of rollers on the course, look back to find me sprawled on the ground. Kage hoots. Matthieu puts his hands to his hips, leaning against his poles. Austin skates back toward me.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Cedric, what the hell was that?” Ivan calls from above the gates. I roll onto my back, swinging my skis wide to avoid snagging them in the snow. I didn’t even fall hard enough to pop the bindings, but it’s okay. My ego is still plenty bruised.
Also, one of the buckles is hanging off the front of my boot like a dangling tree limb waiting to fall on an unsuspecting jogger. The damn thing must have popped off under the pressure of the start.
“Fine,” I say, getting back up to my feet. “Just a technical malfunction.”
“Do you want to walk the course instead?” he asks.
My jaw tightens. I don’t need to be treated differently than the others. My late arrival and my spill already have me feeling like a bit of an outsider while the three of them are clustered together, chatting and leaning against the tops of their poles while they wait for me to recover.
