The beeps hit. She pushes.
The top gates I can’t see at all, just the occasional flash of her helmet between trees. Then she drops into my field of vision, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
She’s higher than the first run. Cleaner. Not guarding.
“One gate at a time,” I mutter under my breath, as if she can hear me. Maybe she can. Sometimes it feels like she has a wire straight from my brain to her skis.
There’s a nasty little rippled patch just above where I’m standing, where everyone today has either gone too straight and panicked, or too round and bled speed. First run, she’d done the cautious version—round, a bit defensive, the way you ski when you don’t quite believe you belong.
This time, she goes for something in between. For a second, it looks like too much. The outside ski hooks in the rut, bounces. Her hip drops, and her inside hand reaches.
Come on.
I see the moment she could back off, play safe, settle for “clean.” She doesn’t. She takes the hit, breathes, and stacks the next turn on top instead of trying to fix everything at once. It’s not pretty, but it’s committed. I hear someone next to me suck in air through their teeth. I grin.
“Yes,” I say to nobody. “That’s it.”
She disappears over the next drop, into the lower part of the course, and I lose her in the maze of B-net and people. The speakers are too quiet down here to hear her name called at the finish. I have to wait for the little board at the bottom to update.
Those ten seconds feel longer than my whole second run in Adelboden.
Then her time pops up. Faster than the first run. Position—ten.
Tenth, in a category that doesn’t make TV, in a race that doesn’t count for any globe.
I don’t give a shit.
I’m already moving, clattering my way down the edge of the hill, skidding around the back of the finish to where the Masters racers slide out, pulling up in soft snow, breathing hard, peeringup at the board like it can give them their whole worth in three red digits.
She comes in hot, sprays a little more than necessary. Helmet still on, goggles up, hair plastered to her forehead, cheeks bright with cold and adrenaline. She looks first at the hill, like she can still see the line she took. Then her head turns, searching.
Our eyes lock. Whatever was on her face—panic, self-doubt, that old flinch—is gone. What’s left is tired and wired, a little scared, and absolutely alive.
I forget I’m supposed to be the calm one. I throw my arms up over my head like she just won Kitzbühel.
“Zlata!” I yell, loud enough that a couple of dads look over, and I don't give a damn that their eyes go wide, as I remove my sunglasses, and they realize who's standing next to them. “Racer girl! Yes!”
She laughs, shakes her head at me, but there’s water in her eyes. I don’t know if it’s tears or wind.
She glances up at the board, then properly. I see her read her own name, the number next to it. The little intake of breath when she realizes how much time she just cut from the first run. I can almost hear the calculator in her head comparing it to every beer-league result she’s ever had.
New PB.
She slides over, skis squeaking in the soft snow, and stops so close I could reach out and unbuckle her boots.
“Tenth,” she says, like she’s testing the word. “Out of… what, twelve?”
“Fourteen,” I correct. “And I saw the girls you beat. They’re going to be annoying about it at the bar later.”
She snorts. “You’re insane.”
I shake my head. “New PB, racer girl. That’s a trophy.”
She rolls her eyes, but the way her mouth pulls says she believes me at least halfway. That’s already huge.
I yank my phone out before she can argue, flip to the camera, and take a photo of the little scoreboard where her name and time sit in red. Max appears at my shoulder, peers at the screen, and gives a grunt of satisfaction that means more than any of my words ever could.
“Look at that,” I say, turning the phone so she can see. “Proof. Next time you tell me you’re not a real racer, I’m sending you this.”
