I blink at the blue bubbles. Scroll up. There’s a photo of the stupid leather bracelet I remember—she liked taking it off me for red carpets and then putting it back on in front of cameras, like it meant something. The jacket too, fine. But the paintings?
I don’t own any paintings. I don’t even own a flat.
Another message pops in while I’m still frowning.
Also, my team is not happy about your silence. Please don’t make this uglier than it has to be.
My silence. That’s good.
I type out:Did you maybe leave them with me in a different universe?
I stare at it, then delete. No point. Anything that isn’t a direct yes will end up in a group chat I never want to see, screen shotted.
Instead, I thumb back a short:Fine. I’ll check with my parents. They have all my boxes.
It’s not a lie. Most of my life is still in my old room at home and a storage cage in Finkenberg. If there really are paintings, that’s where they’ll be. Or she’s decided I stole something I barely remember looking at.
I hit send and shove the phone back into my pocket before she can start typing again.
The cabin creaks as a gust hits it side-on. For a second, it swings hard enough that the bases of my skis thump against the rack outside. The cable whines, then settles.
Great. Ex drama in my pocket, shit snow under my edges, and wind. Perfect reset conditions.
I blow out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and rub a hand over my face. This is exactly the kind of thing I used to brag about being able to block out. “Nothing gets in when I’m on the hill,” I told some magazine last season: big smile, easy quote.
Now a text can follow me right up onto the gondola and sit in my chest like an extra kilo in the start gate.
Below, the station is already a toy village under the falling snow. A few cabins ahead, I catch flashes of bright jackets through the glass—tourists twisting around for selfies, kids bouncing on the seats. One of the cabins coming down has faces pressed right up to the window, hands waving as it passes underneath.
I used to love that: the noise, the recognition. Being the guy people pointed at.
Lately, it feels more like being under a microscope. Every bad run, every neutral face, every night out, someone films, someone posts. The ghosts multiply.
I shake my head, as if that will clear it. Pathetic. I’m twenty-four, not forty-four. I get to ski for a living. I’ve got Max tuning my skis like a maniac, a service team that would probably die for me, and still I’m up here sulking because a woman I should never have let into my hotel room is demanding paintings I don’t remember.
“Get over yourself,” I tell the empty cabin.
The cabin gives a tired shudder, and the hum of the cable dies. We swing once, twice, then stop, hanging there in the white.
“Na super,” I sigh, and lean my head back again.
The cables start humming again before I can decide whether to be annoyed or grateful for the extra time. The cabin lurches, swings, and then we’re moving, crawling through the white. Trees slide past in vague dark smudges, the piste below nothing but a strip of white.
By the time we reach the mid-station, my ten quiet minutes are down to maybe one. Because there are figures waiting.
The doors thump open, cold air knifing in. I brace for a rush of noise, a kid with their skis half across the threshold, somebody shouting my name.
Nothing.
For a second, it looks like I’ve got the cabin to myself after all. Then a small shape steps in, careful and quick, dragging a pair of long skis behind her.
Helmet, goggles, jacket that’s seen more than one season.
She swings the skis into the outside rack with practiced efficiency, then drops onto the bench opposite me and starts unbuckling her boots without looking up. I raise my eyebrows; either she’s oversensitive about the boots, or they’re tighter than normal tourist boots. I shoot a quick look at the long skis in the rack and decide on the latter.
A proper skier, then. I sigh, because that means she’ll definitely recognize me.
I feel my whole body do that automatic little flinch, the one I’ve picked up this season whenever someone shares an enclosed space with me. Half a second of bracing: the polite smile, the “Hi,” the “Sure, of course,” the phone angled just so.
