I lean to let her camera focus, give her the practice smile, keep my hands for myself, and nod absentmindedly.
Her smile falters, then she melts back into the crowd.More discipline.More emptiness.
“Good run,” Bellini says behind me, clapping my shoulder.His grin is tight, practiced, but his eyes carry something almost genuine.“Clean skiing down Trinkl.Impressive.”
“Thanks,” I say, and it lands like a stone.His praise should warm; it doesn’t.That’s on me.
Cold settles in my chest, the kind that makes me want to lash out just to feel something.“Save the sportsmanship for the cameras, Matteo.”
His brows knit, confusion flickering across his face.He starts to reply, then doesn’t.Just steps back, lips pressed thin, like he’s not sure what hit him.
I should be sorry, despite his history with Katharina, despite our battle for the globe, he´s a fair rival, a decent guy.But I don´t feel like behaving like an adult today.
I shoulder past, medal heavy, the noise already fading.This victory tastes like ash.
***
Hinterstoder, Austria, March 18
Thomas
Tenth place.The number blinks from the board like an insult.
Second downhill in one weekend, and I couldn't keep my form for one damned day more.
Martin didn't finish.Niko scraped an eleventh.Nobody's smiling.Not the coaches, not the physios, not even the wax crew who usually find a joke in anything.The whole team is wrapped in a black mood, muttering, sulking, kicking at the snow.
And I feel it's my fault.All of it.
I'm supposed to be the leader.The one who steadies them lifts them.That's what they told me.That's what the cameras believe.But then again, they also used to say I was too young, too easygoing, just a reckless talent on skis.Now I'm both too young and too old, too light and too heavy.I can't even hold myself together, so how the hell am I supposed to carry anyone else?
In the past, it came naturally.Now, nothing does.
The anger builds like ice cracking in my chest.I rip off my boots, slam them down, and snap at Roman before I can stop myself.
"These skis don't run like they used to," I bark."You changed something, didn't you?They feel dead."
Roman straightens slowly, hands still on the rack, eyes calm as stone.For years, he has tuned my skis and stood by me through wins and losses, never wasting a word.
This time, he speaks.Voice low, almost gentle.
"Skis go where you point them, Thomas.Lately, I can't tell where that is."
The words hit harder than any crash.Roman—who never talks feelings, who lives in wax and angles and edge bevels—just said out loud what I've been choking on.
My pulse rattles in my throat.Because I remember Rudi, my mental coach, leaning back on the screen, his eyes sharp as knives, and the word he said when I mentioned Katharina was just an affair:'Interesting.'
They both know.They both saw it.The answer was her all along.
But then what?She doesn't want this.She made that clear.I'm supposed to get by without her.Be stronger than this.
So why does every turn feel wrong without her voice in my head?
The thought burns, and with it comes anger; at myself, at her, at the whole damn circus.Anger that she looks so fucking beautiful when she walks toward me, clipboard in hand, concern in her eyes, she has no right to show.
"Thomas, can we—" she starts, quiet, careful.
I walk straight past, jaw clenched, not answering.Not trusting myself to answer.
