Maybe all that therapy with Adi actually is working.
Instead, I slide to a stop behind him, bending at the waist and supporting myself on my poles as I breathe hard.
“Gonna have to ski faster than that if you want to win,” Austin says, eyes crinkling at the corner as he smiles so hard his face might break.
“I was going easy on you. Wanted to boost your confidence. Comeback kid and all that.” But my bravado gets undermined by my heavy breathing. I was much closer to giving that everything I had than I’d ever admit, and Austin looks like he was out for a five-kilometre fun run on a sunny morning.
He laughs at my display, then pushes off. He sways from side to side as he skates over the snow, headed toward the lift.
“Come on. Ivan will be pissed.”
Worth it. No amount of preparation and talking through the course was going to fix what was going on inside my head. It was never a strength and strategy problem.
When we slide onto the lift, I let out a long exhale. The kind I’ve been holding in the very bottom of my lungs for months, maybe longer. Austin pulls the safety bar down over our heads, leaning against it, face pointed up to the thin winter sun. His eyes are closed and his mouth is turned up in the corners, making the gentlest smile.
“That was really fun,” he says, and the relaxed ease in his voice pours over me like warm honey.
“The winner always thinks racing is fun,” I grumble, but I don’t have any heat to put behind it. I’m not actually sore about losing. Getting to watch him ski like that was incredible. I have lots more days to beat him, along with the thirty other athletes who will try to take my place at the top of the podium. Today isn’t about that.
“Oh my god,” he says with a happy groan, leaning back. “You should have seen my first day back on skis. You’d have laughed so hard. My legs were like noodles. No strength in them whatsoever.”
The light feeling in my chest sinks. I don’t want to think about that. All the months. The work. The pain. I only want to think about now. The after, when he’s okay and everything can be like it was before.
Austin opens his eyes and looks at me. His smile fades.
“What?”
I shake my head, pressing my lips together tight to keep from saying all the things that are trying to get out at once. The chair is wide, made to seat four skiers across and we’re alone, but Austin shimmies over until he’s close enough to bump my shoulder.
“What is it?” he asks, and now his voice has gone soft and serious, and the care I hear breaks me. I look away, staring out over the snow reflecting bright in the sunshine. It makes me squint as I wipe a gloved hand awkwardly at the corners of my eyes. No wind to hide my tears this time. Austin bumps me again, leaning into me. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
I shake some more. My head. My whole body. If I start talking, I might never stop, and this ride on the chair will end soon enough.
He threads an arm through mine, the material of our coats swishing against each other. Austin rests his head on my shoulder, or at least he tries to. Our helmets bang together with an emptythunkthat has me wondering if there’s anything inside our heads to protect. Not in mine, that’s for sure. I got so worked up over seeing him. Speaking with him. Just being around him. I nearly killed our friendship and my chance to reach the goals we set for ourselves when we were only kids dreaming big.
The chairlift comes to a sudden halt, swaying on the heavy cable overhead.
“Oops,” I say. It’s not uncommon for lifts to stop. A staff person traveling to the top of the hill needs extra time to unload gear, or a newbie misjudges the procedure and falls...or stays on too long and has to be rescued.
Except there aren’t too many newbies around. This whole mountain is closed to non-athletes. Could be staff then. Someone bringing an extra pair of skis up, or ski patrol carrying a sled, just in case...though more often than not in a big place like this and when high-speed crashes mean every second counts for a response, they’ll travel by snowmobile with the sled hitched to the back.
The world falls silent and we stay perfectly still. There’s no danger. There are urban legends and freak accidents where lifts and gondolas detach from the cable and fall, but most are myths, and the few that do happen are pretty rare. I slap my hands together, the impact pumping blood at my wrists and arms, trying to keep warm. The chair ahead of us is empty, as is the one behind.
“Zed,” Austin says softly, and something about the sound of my name makes all the hair on my neck stand up on end.
“Yeah?” I ask. It’s only a few letters, but my voice wobbles on every one and I blush. Watch him tell me he has to pee. Or that the energy bar he ate while waiting for our practice session isn’t sitting well.
But instead he says, “I need to tell you something. Iwantto tell you something. I was going to wait until after the games, but then...” He bounces a fist off the safety bar and when he glances at me, his cheeks are flushed and his eyes shine.
Oh god. He’s going to say it. Again. Except he thinks it’s for the first time. That this is going to be some surprise revelation. And what am I supposed to do? Be surprised? Shocked? Pretend like it was always going to be that way?
I don’t want that. I don’t want to be friends. I want the man who fumbled and laughed and promised me forever. And if he says it, he’ll think that’s what he’s giving me, and he’ll never know that we’ve already been forever to each other before.
Because I spent months hiding from him. I was scared. For him. Maybe a little scared of him. Of who I would have to be for him if I told him what had happened. That was selfish and I’m sorry. I’ll tell him how sorry, once he knows. Because I’m not going to lie to him. Not going to hide anymore.
His lips are moving, like he’s speaking, but nothing comes out. Austin plucks at one of the fingers on his glove, still looking nervous. I put a hand on his, squeezing reassuringly as I force myself to smile confidently and keep my voice steady.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I already know.”
