Then he’s sliding over the line, both skis back on the ground and he cheers for himself, arms raised over his head incelebration. He’s elated, and his happiness hits me in the gut worse than any rock or tree stump ever could.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I ask, pulling up to a stop in front of him, so close he has to stop short, throwing his weight onto his poles to keep from crashing into me.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, but the lingering smile in his eyes only makes me angrier.
“Is this a joke to you? We’re days from competition and you’re fucking around on the hill?”
Austin’s brow pinches together. His face scrunches up and he tugs his buff down, so it hangs around his neck.
“Fucking around?” he asks, pursing his lips in confusion. The gesture highlights how his mouth is slightly lopsided in a way it didn’t used to be. I can’t see it, but somewhere along his jaw is a scar where they had to cut him open after the hairline fracture in his jaw got bigger and they went in to screw it back together. I wasn’t there, of course, but I heard about it, because along with team gossip, my mom and Donna have basically created a two-woman colour commentary team. They’ve documented and relayed every single detail of his surgeries and rehab. Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t start a podcast, because every phone call I’ve had with my parents since the accident has included what I’ve come to think of as “the Austin Segment” where Mom tells me about her latest conversation with Donna and all the updates from his doctors and therapists. I’m sure she meant it to feel comforting to hear that Austin was making progress, and maybe she was surprised I hadn’t heard it directly from him, but every time she talked to me about it, it let me relive the terror of finding him and only amplified the sense of how separate we’ve been ever since.
“You nearly fell,” I say, anger rising inside me.
“That?” Austin shrugs carelessly. “It was nothing. Didn’t matter anyway, with how far behind me you were. I had lotsof time to recover.” He bangs playfully at my shins with a pole, which should be a signal that it’s time for a little friendly roughhousing, but his lack of concern sends me flying into a rage. I swing a pole at him, but instead of aiming low like he did, I swat at his arm, hard enough it might bruise, even with his layers of clothing. He gasps, hopping back as his eyes get big in shock. “What the fuck?”
“Exactly. What the fuck, Austin? This is serious.”
“You think I don’t know that?” His voice rises, and my blood goes with it. Maybe a fight is what we need. Get it all out there. “After everything I’ve been through to get here?”
“After everythingyou’vebeen through?” Only my feet still clipped into my bindings keep me from launching myself at him.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Hailey calls behind me, reminding me we’re not alone. You’re never alone at events like this. Except for once, when it was only the two of us in a hotel room. That’s where it all went sideways and now we’re here.
I’m breathing hard, and the cold is making my nose run, but a screaming match right now will only land us on Ivan’s shit list, along with tonight’s highlight reel for any sports network who happens to have a reporter roving practices for potential stories, and more than a few social media feeds. Now isn’t the time, like it hasn’t been the time for months and months. I spit a goober of snot into the snow, closer to the tips of Austin’s skis than I probably should. He slides a few more inches back, head tilted to one side before finally his expression clouds and he laughs once.
“Fine. Whatever, Zed. Sorry we interrupted your two-week vacation.” Then he pushes off, sliding past me and heading back toward the lift.
We don’t say anything on the ride back up. We don’t even ride together. I watch the back of his head from my chair, while my whole body shakes with fury.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
I wishI could say things are awkward when we get back to the athlete accommodations, but they aren’t really anything. Kage and Matthieu keep up a steady stream of conversation in the van on the way into the village. Austin’s watching something on his phone. No one so much as acknowledges my presence. When we enter the hotel, I go straight to my room. There’s another string of text messages from my parents, and even a couple from Donna. Mostly they ask how my day was, how Austin’s doing, and what our plans are for tonight. Like I have any plans besides bed. I strip out of my clothes, and I’m basically asleep before my head even hits the pillow. After two whirlwind days of traveling and this afternoon’s training, I have nothing left in me.
When I wake up again, it’s dark. Matthieu is in the other bed, snoring gently. I check my phone and it’s three in the morning. Nine o’clock at home. Jet lag sucks. I roll over, firmly shutting my eyes and try to go back to sleep, but even though Matthieu’s snoring is barely more than a loud exhale, it seems like the noisiest thing I have ever experienced. Twenty minutes later, I’m stumbling around with only my phone flashlight to help me find my bags. I slip into sweats and shoes, and let myself out of the room.
I’m not the only one awake. The main floor of the hotel isn’t exactly busy, but there are more than a dozen people milling around. Some are in various national team apparel, but most are in faded and worn athletic gear. We’re all wound too tight to lie in bed. A few have found food, sipping on coffee and small plates of fruit. The hotel must be prepared for the kind of hours we keep. Two women walk past me, red faced and breathing hard. One mops sweat from her brow with a towel.
“The gym?” I ask and she points down a hallway.
The gym was probably a conference room or something. Big halogen lights illuminate the space, but the walls are panelled in golden wood, and the wooden floors have been covered in protective rubber mats to keep the weight racks and cardio equipment from scratching them. Half the machines are in use, but I find a treadmill, pop in my headphones, and set a gentle pace.
I used to hate running. When we got to the point in our teenage racing careers where it wasn’t enough to show up on Saturdays and ski as fast as we possibly could down the hill, I was so disappointed to find out that our dryland training involved running. If I wanted to be a runner, I’d have joined track and field. These days, though, it’s not so bad. When it’s warm enough, I tend to stick to mountain biking for cardio, but sometimes a few kilometres on a treadmill are what I need to get my mind to go blank.
Also, it’s annoying that I still think of me and Austin and our racing careers—both teenage and otherwise—as a “we.” I don’t even know what we are anymore. I’m the one who’s making things weird, but it’s not like he reached out to me much while he was rehabbing in BC either. The occasional selfie. A text sent after I’d gone to bed because west coast time is three hours behind. Beyond that, pretty much everything I knew was mom-to-mom gossip and the things I could find out from news articlesand ski media like podcasts. It was as though Austin had decided we weren’t a “we” anymore, when only weeks and months earlier he’d been promising he was going to turn our Olympic dream into some gooey love-swept confession.
Like he’s ready to prove my point, as I start to slow the treadmill again, feeling more grounded than I have in days, the door to the gym swings open, and Austin walks in, followed by a couple trainers. It’s after four now and the gym is getting busier. It’s not uncommon for athletes at our level to be up at five on a competition day, and that plus jet lag means we’re all keeping weird hours. I catch Austin’s entry out of the corner of my eye, but either he doesn’t notice me or else he does but he’s still pissed about yesterday, because he and the trainers go to one of the benches on the other side of the room. One of them pulls out some resistance bands, while Austin sits. He’s in shorts, compression leggings and a T-shirt, which gives me a better opportunity to look at him as I step off the treadmill than I had yesterday while he was in all his outerwear. At first glance he looks good. Like he always did. Strong chest, thick thighs. His forearms are muscled, with tendons and veins stretching beneath his skin. He looks like he did that night in my bed. Fit. Ready for anything.
But then the trainers start whatever regimen they’ve planned for him and it only takes a minute before he grimaces. It’s not a face made from exertion, the one we all make as we push our bodies to their limits. It’s pain. A restriction. Something that doesn’t bend or stretch the way it used to and even the small reminder of pain I only witnessed is enough to have me recoiling back so suddenly my heel bangs against the treadmill frame, and I have to put a hand out to keep from falling over in front of the world’s best snowboard and ski cross racers. The sound of the treadmill rattling is enough to make Austin look up, and when our eyes meet, I feel like a prey animal who’s suddenly beenspotted by an entire pack of wolves who haven’t eaten properly in weeks. Never mind that his expression is more confused than hungry. I can’t be here. I mutter an apology to no one and hurry out of the gym.
So, that went well. When I get back to the room, Matthieu is already awake.
“Work out?” he asks as I enter. I only manage a grunt before I shut myself in the bathroom, rattling soap and shampoo bottles together as I make a big production of showering. By the time I’m out, he’s gone. I get dressed more slowly. Take some time to stretch properly after rushing so quickly out of the gym.
I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I? Except I don’t know how to turn it off. Once upon a time, everything seemed so clear, and now the sight of Austin has me in a tailspin.
Deep breath. I flatten my palms on my thighs and focus on breathing. I’m here. At the Olympics. It’s not how I thought it would be, but I’m still here. Still had enough points to qualify on my own. It was only a run of bad luck that kept me off the team. So it’s time to stop overthinking and second guessing. The thing with Austin doesn’t need to be resolved now. There will be chances once the games are over. Trying to figure it all out here, even if he remembered what happened, would complicate race preparations, which is the only thing that should matter.
