Chapter 13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Kirby skipped her session with the sports psychologist. She wouldn’t be able to hide what had just happened. If she got there and started talking about the panic attacks and the anxiety and all the shit she had been hiding, the scarier secret—the Mara May secret—would come pouring out.
It would catch up with her. She assumed she couldn’t say, “Hey, I need to talk about my mental health,” then ghost said mental health professional without someone checking up on her. But that was a problem for later.
For the past few months—no, the past few years—Kirby had told herself that the most important thing was the other stuff.
The TV appearances, the fame, the notoriety.
Her bread and butter. It kept her bank account in the black.
It gave her a nest egg. Skiing was what made her famous enough to find fame in other more lucrative ways.
She still raced at a high level. She won races. She won money. She worked her ass off, worked harder than most people she knew because she managed it all while also doing reality TV like it was a full-time job.
She sat up straight in bed. Energy buzzed through her. She needed to do something. She spied the bag with the sunglasses on Jordan’s bed.
Ridiculous.
Mara May was ridiculous.
Kirby looked into the bag and realized Mara had bought two pairs and labeled them. An all-black pair had Kirby’s name on it.
Jordan’s had baby pink rims.
Fuck.
Kirby called Apollo. Didn’t even think about it. She felt ready to fly apart, and the only person she could imagine talking to was him.
“What’s up?” He sounded half-asleep.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Uh… Hold on.” There was whispering on the other end of the line. When he spoke again, he seemed more alert. “I’m just chilling.”
“With who?”
“Lindsey,” he said.
“Oh. Really?” That was new and fascinating information. “Were you guys taking a nice nap together, or…”
“Yeah, or.”
Kirby loved gossip. Loved knowing secrets and matchmaking. Apollo was her best friend, and she wanted the very best for him. Lindsey was one of the most solid and genuinely kind people she knew.
“How interesting.”
“Look… Slow your roll there, KB.”
“How long has that been going on?”
“Umm. Can we chat about this later?”
“Maybe while we ski? I need a break.”
“Yep. Skate skis or classic?” he asked.
“Classic.”
“Sweet. I’ll be there in thirty. Are you okay?”
“Not really.” It was the second time she’d admitted that out loud in just a handful of days. That should have felt like progress. Or like she was doing the right thing. But it felt like ripping her own skin from the muscle.
“I’ll be there fast.”
“See you soon.”
An hour later, she and Apollo were on a trail.
It was a local Predazzo flat loop trail that Coach Wu had suggested because they didn’t have access to the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium except during specific time slots.
They went at a leisurely pace, enjoying the wind on their faces and sun in their eyes.
She didn’t often get to ski for fun during competition season.
She skied to train. She skied to practice, to optimize, to get better.
It had been a long time since she and Apollo had gone out together for no reason other than enjoying each other’s company.
They synced their earphones so they both could hear the same music.
He let her choose, which meant they were listening to what Apollo called “wispy sapphic Americana.” Not exactly pump-up music, but it made Kirby feel like she was in a movie with dramatic, beautiful needle drops.
After a few kilometers, Apollo paused the music and took out his earphones. Kirby did the same.
“Should we start with Lindsey?” Kirby asked.
“Sure.”
“What’s going on?”
He slowed to an easy glide. “I’m in love with her.”
“What? You tried to get me to sleep with you like two days ago.”
“It was longer than two days ago.” He smiled. “I’ve been shooting my shot with Lindsey for five years. She rarely gives me the time of day. Except when she does.”
“Wait, go back to the beginning.”
“It’s not all my story to tell.”
“Apollo, stop being cagey. Just tell me what is yours to tell. And why is this the first I’m hearing about it? I tell you everything.”
“You tell everyone everything, including TV viewers. That’s your thing. I’m not special in that regard.”
If she hadn’t been worried about injuring him, she would have shoved him into the snow.
He smiled when he caught the dirty look she was giving him.
“We went on a few dates five years ago. We hook up every couple months. Once a year maybe. But she lives in Park City and trains in Anchorage, and I split time between Vermont and Norway. She doesn’t want to do long distance.
I don’t want to live in fucking Utah or Alaska.
She gets boyfriends or starts dating other people, and I respect that and give her space.
Then when they break up, we see each other, and fireworks, bang. ”
“You bang?”
He laughed, his beautiful, booming laugh. “No, I meant, like bang, we reconnect, and it’s, I don’t know, electric. Bang was for emphasis. Not an active verb.”
“Okay, nerd. And you’re in a bang cycle right now.”
“Please don’t ever say bang cycle.”
“Lindsey seems so normal. I would not have expected her to be your type.”
“What do you think my type is?”
“Well, we fool around occasionally, and I’m—”
“A drama queen.”
Kirby ignored that. “And you slept with Tommi Korhonen, who is like a hot older ski daddy, last season.”
Apollo picked up the pace. His cheeks were rosy, and Kirby didn’t know if it was because he was wind chapped or embarrassed.
“Moral of the story, I don’t have a type,” he said. “Except Lindsey. She’s my type.”
Kirby was a little miffed that this was the first time Apollo had shared his feelings for Lindsey McGrath. But everyone had secrets.
“Your turn,” Apollo said as they climbed a steady slope.
Kirby took a deep breath. “I decided I want to win.”
“That’s new?”
“Kind of. There’s this narrative that I can never top Beijing. That it was a fluke.”
“KB, you’ve won or hit the podium in the thirty kilometer multiple times since then.”
“I’ve only beaten Mara three times. Plus, I’m not racing thirty kilometers this time. It’s fifty.”
“Okay, wait, wait. I’m not going to argue with you about whether you, a gold fucking medalist, are a good skier. Why did you decide you ‘want to win’? Which, I’m going to ignore how insane that sounds, but all right.”
“Mara pissed me off.”
Apollo slowed again. His variable speeds were starting to annoy her.
“And that’s different how? She’s been getting under your skin for four years.”
“Not like this.”
He glanced at her. “What did Mara do?”
Kirby shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I want to beat her.”
“That’s a relief to hear,” he said very slowly. “I also want to beat the other skiers in my events. Glad to know you now realize how competition works.”
Kirby came to a dead stop at the top of a hill, and Apollo zoomed past, tucking in as he descended. It took him several seconds to realize she was no longer beside him. He snowplowed to a stop, then duck-walked back up to her.
“Sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“Teasing you.”
She looked up at the sky above them. It was robin’s egg blue with cartoonishly fluffy clouds. She adjusted her new sunglasses.
“If I want it, it hurts more if I don’t get it,” Kirby said.
Apollo nodded, his eyebrows tipping down. It was such a basic statement. One that most people probably reconciled when it came to their dreams before they made it through puberty.
“That’s the cost of hope, Kirb.”
She smiled. He was the only one who called her that.
“So what should I do?” Kirby asked.
“Hope. Try your best. That’s all you can do. All any of us can do. And stop running yourself ragged thinking about Mara May. She’ll beat you or she won’t. She’ll win a gold or she won’t. That’s not your trauma. Worry about your own story.”
“My story?”
“Yes.” He nudged her with his elbow and started skiing again. She followed.
“I’m not sure I know what I want that to be anymore.”
“Really? I thought the”—he waved a pole toward her—“you know, spectacle had a purpose. You told me you wanted to set yourself up for after the Olympics.”
“Spectacle.”
“The drama in the press with Mara. The TikToks. The everything. It’s purposeful. It’s a plan, right? You don’t want to tell US Ski and Snowboard’s story. You don’t want to tell Mara’s. Or the TV networks’.”
“Yeah. I guess. No, you’re right.”
They skied through the trees until they hit a clearing with a large vista of the beautiful mountains. Apollo stopped again and leaned on his poles.
“What happened with Mara? What did she say? I didn’t think she had given another interview.”
“Nothing. She just…”
Apollo stared at her. She stared at the mountains, not willing to give him an inch because everything would come tumbling out. It would be worse than if she talked to the sports psych.
Kirby slipped a hand from her pole strap and took off her sunglasses to rub a smudge off them. Black rims. Black lenses. They were beautiful. They felt so right.
“She’s nice, I think,” Kirby said. “Nicer than she lets on. But she makes me so mad. Every time I’m around her, I feel like I’m coming out of my skin. Like I can’t hold it together. And I’m already barely holding it together. It’s an additional, I don’t know, variable that I hadn’t planned on.”
“Well, you don’t have to be around her. You’re not friends. You rarely train together. She’s spent her career hiding from her fellow skiers. It should be easy enough to avoid her.”
“You’re right. And I can win.”
It felt like opening her chest to say that and mean it. To strip out the protective layers she’d shored up around herself that shielded her from the pressure and the exposure and the pain of competing in front of the world.
She needed to stop hiding behind her other self. The Kirby who did TV shows and went viral and made headlines. That person would still be there once this was over, regardless of the outcome.
“Anyone can win. That’s the magic of the Olympics. But if you win another gold, it won’t be a fluke, no matter what the ski snobs say. You have as much right to be here, to be there, in the very top echelon, as anyone else.”
“Even if I’m just a queer redneck from Minnesota.” She ground the tip of her pole into the snow. He had to know what buttons he was pressing. All the ones that kept her up at night and made her chase fame and security and attention.
“Especially as a queer redneck from Minnesota.”