It sounds petty and triumphant in exactly the right measure. When I pull back out, there’s nobody behind me, just the steady thunk-thunk of the wipers and the hiss of tires on half-frozen snow. My shoulders come down a notch.
By the time I drop out of the national park and hit the main road, the snow has turned into a curtain. Visibility shrinks to a moving tunnel of white; everything outside the beam of my headlights is blurred. I test the brakes carefully on a straight patch—just a gentle squeeze, enough to feel the tires bite. The car slows, not slides. Good. The road is white but wet, that in-between state where it’s evil in the side roads but just about holding together on the main ones. Sunday traffic thickens as I get closer to the highway ramps, endless lines of cars packed with kids and roof boxes, everyone crawling home from their own little holiday. We all creep onto the D11 like old ladies shuffling into church.
On the highway, it’s somehow better and worse. The surface is cleaner, salt and plows doing their job, but the speed picks up just enough to make the snow feel aggressive, streaks of white knifing at the windscreen. Wipers work furiously on max, beating time with my pulse. I sit in the middle lane with the rest of the sensible cowards, checking mirrors, leaving bigger gaps than any driving instructor ever demanded, aware in a distant way that my body is just one long line of fatigue from neck to ankles. Every overtake by a truck throws a sheet of grey water over the car, momentary blindness that has me squeezing the wheel so hard my fingers ache.
“If I can do that, I can do this,” I mutter, mostly to the dashboard. I know, somewhere under the fear and the tiredness,that I’m competent. I tune my own skis now, I book my own trips, and I drive myself to races instead of checking with a boyfriend to see if it’s “worth it.” But competence is one thing in theory and another when your eyes sting, your quads still hum from racing, and every gust of wind shoves your car half a meter sideways. I am absolutely done with mountain passes for today. I also know I’ll do it again next weekend.
The kilometers tick down with agonizing slowness. I stop once at a service station just to pee and splash cold water on my face, not even bothering with coffee because my hands are already shaking enough. When I finally see the lights of Prague bloom ahead through the snow haze, relief hits so hard I almost miss my turn. City streets are brown slush and orange sodium glow, dirty and familiar and blessedly flat. I take the last few corners like a grandmother, roll down my street at walking pace, and only when I slide into my usual spot between two badly parked Toyotas do I let myself exhale properly.
Handbrake on. Engine off. Silence, except for the tick of cooling metal and my own heartbeat roaring in my ears. My whole body sags against the seat. I made it. No heroic driving, no near-death stories for Eva later. Just slow, careful, stubborn getting there. For the first time all day, I let my head tip back against the headrest and close my eyes. The medal chain digs into my neck, and out there, somewhere in Austria, a man who calls me a racer probably hasn’t thought twice about the road. Somehow, that thought doesn’t sting. It just makes the quiet, ordinary relief of my own front door feel even more like a win. But the job’s not over yet. Here is just the garage I rented to store my skis, as there is no place for them in my apartment. I step outof the car, unlock the garage, and place the skis carefully against the wall, swiping their bases with a towel, checking for scratches and bumps. Then, I finally head home.
***
The flat feels like another country after the car. Warm, yellow, still. I dump my race bag just inside the door, kick it shut behind me, and lay an old towel on the floor before I peel the shells off my ski boots. Boots on the towel, liners dragged out to steam, suit and base layers go straight over the radiator, hanging in damp, tangled stripes. Nobody yells about the mess; Anna’s off on her own ski holiday with her niece and nephew, her texts full of tiny humans in mismatched helmets. I thumb her a quickI’m home, survived, hill was icy, love you, then the same to my parents with added extra:Road was bad, but I drove slow. Don’t worry.I can feel them relax all the way from their sofa.
The cat materializes the second I step into the kitchen, tail up, yelling like I’ve been gone a month instead of a day. I feed him first, because the judgment in his eyes is worse than any coach’s, then turn the shower up to scalding and stand under it until my skin prickles and my feet stop feeling like blocks of wood. When I finally crawl into clean leggings and an oversized hoodie, the exhaustion hits properly—a heavy, stupid fog that makes my hands fumble.
My stomach growls loud enough to echo off the tiles. Right. Food. I scroll through the delivery apps, pick the first place thatpromises carbs in under an hour, and hit order before I can overthink money. Kettle on. Tea bag. Something stronger.
The cat jumps onto the counter to supervise while I rummage in the cupboard for anything alcoholic. My eye lands on a half-forgotten bottle of rum, the cheap kind Anna buys for Christmas baking and never finishes. Good enough. I slosh a finger into the mug, top it with boiling water and tea, and carry the whole thing carefully to the couch. The cat follows, does three circles, and collapses into my lap with a put-upon sigh, claws kneading my thigh through the fabric. I flick on the TV, find Eurosport’s on-demand menu, and there it is: Kitzbühel replay. I sink back, fingers wrapped around the hot mug, and let the familiar graphics and commentary fill the room.
I haven’t written to him yet. My phone sits face-down on the coffee table, stubbornly silent. Part of me pictures his day—the physio table, the proper massage, the spa downstairs, the neatly laid-out kit he doesn’t have to pack himself. No parking fees, no hike from the lot, no boots drying on a radiator that smells faintly of cat. He probably doesn’t think at all about what it takes to get from Prague to Krkonoše and back on a Sunday: doing your own edges, paying your own gas, standing on a chair for a medal while everybody side-eyes the sky and calculates driving time. No service man babying my skis, no team bus, just me and my little car and a bottle of wine in a plastic bag. The thought should make me small and bitter. Instead, it just…is. Two different planets, same sport.
I sip the rum-tea slowly, feel the warmth crawl out into my fingers at last. Somewhere out there, he’s not panicking over whether I made it home. He doesn’t know enough to worrylike my parents do. He just knows I said I’d race and then text. There’s something oddly calming in that—that there is one person out there who waits for my message but won’t fall apart if it’s late, who will let me have this quiet, stupidly earned moment with my cat and my cup before I decide what to say.
The door buzzer makes both of us jump. I disentangle the cat, jog down the stairs in socks to grab the takeaway from a delivery guy who looks as cold and done as I feel, then kick the door shut again with my heel. Only once the warm, cardboard smell of food fills the kitchen do I let myself flop onto the couch properly, legs tucked under me, phone finally in hand. Screen lights up my face, Eurosport hums in the background, and for the first time all day, I’m not moving. Just a girl in Prague, a medal drying on the radiator, a World Cup replay on TV, and a message thread I’m finally ready to open.
***
Kitzbühel, Austria, 20:00
FABIO
Late in the evening, Kitz finally shuts up a little. The brass band noise from the village is just a dull thump through the double glazing; the corridor outside my door has gone from chaos to the odd muffled laugh and a suitcase wheel. My room lookslike every race weekend room ever: single bed with a dip in the middle, race suit hanging from a hanger on the curtain rail, damp socks draped over the radiator, trophy sitting a little too shiny on the desk next to today’s start list. The box with the stupid Gams earrings is still where I shoved it, half-buried in my jacket pocket. I kick off my slides, sit on the edge of the bed in a clean t-shirt with my hair still damp from the shower, and start doing the thing I promised myself I wouldn’t: scrolling.
Official clips, tags, reposts. Slalom tourist did okay today, congratulations, goat emojis, people carving my run into slow-motion heroics. After five minutes, it all blurs into the same three screenshots of my face from three slightly different angles. I toss the phone onto the pillow, stare at the ceiling for exactly two breaths, then pick it back up and swipe to WhatsApp instead. Golden Girl sits right at the top of the list, above my parents, above Max, above the team group chat. The last thing there is my message from the afternoon, hanging like a question mark.
I type with my thumbs, then edit, then type again.
Slalom tourist did okay today.That stays. It sounds like me, not like a press quote. I add another line before I can overthink it:How did Pec treat you? Survive the Masters circus?
For a second, I picture her on that little Czech hill, some modest podium, some trophy, then my own evening—physio bed, hot shower, this mattress that someone else has already paid for. Two completely different versions of the same sport, and somehow I’m more curious about hers.
On impulse, I flip the camera, lean back against the headboard, and snap a quick selfie. No angles, no sponsor cap, justdamp hair, t-shirt, the Kitz trophy blurred on the bedside table behind my shoulder. A slice of my world that isn’t all finish-area chaos. I look at it once—eyes a little tired, mouth doing something that might be a real smile—decide it’s good enough, and drop it into the chat under the text.
Then, before I can talk myself into polishing it into something clever and fake, I hit send and toss the phone down beside me, heartbeat suddenly a notch higher than it ever got today between the gates.
***
Prague, Czechia
ZLATA
My phone buzzes just as Eurosport cuts to my sad, hot Austrian in slow-mo. For a split second, my stomach dives—parents again? Anna?—then I see the name and the tiny preview of his face, damp hair, a blur of silver trophy behind your shoulder. Heat blooms in my chest first, then that stupid low flutter I’ve been politely ignoring since the gondola. I swipe the notification open with fingers that suddenly feel less like mine and more like a teenager’s.
FAB: Slalom tourist did okay today.
FAB: How did Pec treat you? Survive the Masters circus?
