“What are we supposed to do?” asked Izzy. The team shifted their attention back to Ari. They were looking to her for reassurance, like they used to look to Gracie. But she knew they could see the fear in her eyes. She tried to remember one of the motivational quotes she’d heard in her audiobooks, but her mind went blank. After a few seconds of silence, the horn blared, and their break ended. When her teammates skated back into their positions, they looked even more nervous than they had a few minutes ago. Ari’s misspoken pep talk had thrown them further off-balance. Things only got shakier as the game carried on.
Half of the team played like they had something to lose, and the other half played like they weregoing tolose. They were completely out of sync, and the Japanese players could sense it. Within moments, their opponents navigated their way around the disjointed nature of the British team and scored a goal. They spotted the panic, the lack of harmony, and used it to their advantage to score another goal. And then another. Gracie would have been able to fix this. She would have brought them into a huddle and calmed it down. But when Ari tried to fix things in the second break, she only made it worse.
“It’s not too late to turn things around! Remember, we didn’t come this far just to come this far,” she said, repeating a quote she’d heard in an audiobook.
Her second attempt at a pep talk was met with an audible series of groans.
“Why would you say that?” said Yasmeen, shaking her head.
“Please, don’t ever try to give a pep talk again,” said Izzy.
“You’re not great at this, are you?” said Sienna without thinking.
No. No, I’m not.
20Drew
DAY THREE OF THE 2026 OLYMPICS
Drew didn’t have imposter syndrome. The trepidation he felt when he walked into the press office wasn’t a belief rooted in self-doubt, nor was it the nagging feeling that he didn’t fit into his surroundings. Drewwasan imposter in the Village.
He was surrounded by photographers who’d spent decades building up their careers and young hotshots whose careers had ascended at record speed. And while he knew that Zeus wouldn’t have hired him if he was completely talentless, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed to do something spectacular to prove himself every day. Which was why he’d walked into the Village that morning in such a good mood. The content team at Zeus had sent a message saying they loved the photos he’d taken so far. Especially the photos of Lukas, the ski jumper who’d unexpectedly finished in last place. The photos Drew had taken of him after his race had a devastating but alluring quality to them. So, the social media managers at Zeus took his photo and postedit alongside a quote from Drew’s conversation with Lukas. One about how, despite his disappointment, he was never more motivated than he was when a competition brought him to his lowest. A bunch of other high-profile athletes reshared his post and the photo made its way into a bunch of news articles reporting on the first day of the Olympics. But he still had a long way to go.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Ari asked as she placed a tentative skate on the ice.
“Trust me,” said Drew as he took his camera out of its case and looped the strap around his neck.
“Trust you, based on what? The three days and twentyish minutes we’ve known each other? For some reason, I trust you with my secrets. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to trust you with my life,” Ari said uneasily.
She reached down to tap the ice below her with her thick hockey gloves. When the sound made it clear that it was rock solid, she finally relented and placed both of her feet on the ice. After a moment she pushed forward and began to skate, gliding across the ice in the low early-morning light.
Drew had spent the day before scoping out potential photo shoot locations for his and Ari’s photo diary. He knew the obvious spots with the backgrounds that would make for the biggest impact. The main stadium, the competition venues, and the various Olympic rings dotted across the Village. But he wanted to find a quieter location, somewhere away from the crowds and TV cameras. He’d spent hours walking through the cold until he’d stumbled across an unexpected spot. At first, he’d thought it was just a frozen lake. It was on the outskirts of the Village, in the quieter section that housed the athletes’ accommodation blocks. And it was surrounded by enough trees to obscure it from people walking by. But it wasn’t a lake. Luiz told him that it was an outdoor practice rink in the shape of a lake specifically builtfor athletes who wanted to blow off steam on a rink that didn’t resemble their training grounds. So, he’d suggested it to Ari as the location for their first shoot. She had a packed schedule, so they’d agreed to meet up at 6:30 a.m., just in time to see the dawn turn to sunrise. It proved to be the perfect location. The lake rink was lit up by warm bulb-shaped fairy lights that brought a gentle glow to the perimeter, an ethereal contrast to the deep blue early-dawn sky.
As Ari glided across the ice, Drew played around with the settings on his equipment, adjusting the shutter so he could capture sharp stills on his digital camera and dreamlike blurs on his film camera.
“Is this the kind of movement you want?” Ari asked as she zigzagged in precise, straight lines. “Or do you want something more dramatic?” she said, speeding across the ice, leaping up into the sky and landing into a twirl as Drew raced to capture it all. He hitRECORDon his voice memos app to make sure he captured their conversation, too.
“Where did you learn to do that?” he asked, carefully walking across the ice to capture her hockey-uniformed pirouette.
“My mom wanted me to be a figure skater. She said, and I quote, ‘You’ll scare boys off if you’re always walking around with a hockey stick.’” Ari grinned.
“Did her warning work?”
“No, it had the opposite effect. I started going to hockey practice every day, instead of just twice a week. But Ididconvince an older girl who practiced at my local rink to teach me how to twirl. It’s fun. You should have a go.”
“I can’t skate,” Drew admitted.
“You’ve never tried?” she asked, eagerly gliding back toward him. “I could teach you.”
“Oh, I tried. But I think I did six months’ worth of lessonsbefore my grandparents agreed the injuries weren’t worth it.” He smiled as he recalled the memory.
Thandie was graceful like their grandmother, so she had taken to it like a duck to water. But Drew was kind of clumsy like his grandfather and never quite found his feet. He was at his best in stillness, he preferred tocapturethe moment than to be in it. The mention of his childhood made him wonder whether he should bring up the topic of his sister to Ari. While they played the same sport, he actually wasn’t sure if they knew each other. There were hundreds of national and professional teams and, by virtue of living on other sides of the world, he knew that Thandie and Ari spent most of the year competing in completely different tournaments. He considered mentioning it but ultimately decided against it. His sister’s team was the current reigning champions, and he didn’t want to throw Ari off by mentioning the competition. So instead, he asked about her.
“I think I have enough skating shots, but we need some candids,” he said as she skated off the rink.
“I could pretend to tie up my laces? Act the way I would if I was getting ready for a match?” She walked over to a bench covered in snow, and Drew took a photo of the way her bright blue hockey uniform stood out against the brilliant white snow. The sun was slowly coming up now, a warm light rising from the horizon.
“Quickfire questions?” he said as he replaced the battery in his camera and tried to find the right angle to capture her from.
