Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
There was icy fog in the morning air, making the starting line moody and dramatic. Kirby had slept poorly and woken up early, too agitated to sleep any longer. She’d spent all morning slowly warming up her muscles and fueling for the classic sprint events.
In Kirby’s experience, it was impossible to be fully prepared for the Olympics.
She had come to her first Olympic Games when she was twenty-four.
At that point, she’d only been skiing competitively for a few years.
She’d gotten to race a sprint heat after the flu had taken a teammate down.
Kirby had been so na?ve. So new to the sport. Naturally gifted but inexperienced.
It had felt so extraordinary. The excitement in the air. The pomp. The optimistic sportsmanship.
Every time she’d hit an Olympic course since, that anticipation and hope rushed up on her like a sense memory.
It didn’t matter that she was a gold medalist now and not the young adult who had come last in her very first Olympic heat.
It didn’t matter that she was a pseudo-celebrity and not a relative unknown entity.
The Olympics were always special and beautiful and so fucking stressful.
If everything went well, she would race four times in the next four hours, from qualification, quarterfinals, semifinals, to finals.
Coach Wu approached her in the warm-up area. She glanced around thoughtfully. “One misty moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather…”
Kirby stared at her blankly.
“Not a nursery rhyme fan?” Coach Wu said, humor in her voice. “That one’s my favorite. There’s leather.”
“I’ll be honest, Coach. I’m not going to be much for banter today, I don’t think.”
Coach Wu smiled. “That’s a first. You looked good in warm-ups. Do you feel good?”
Kirby considered the question. It came down to appearance versus reality. Her outward presentation versus the turmoil in her head and heart. Looking good versus feeling good.
Seeing Mara crash during the skiathlon. Taking care of her afterward.
Filming together. It was too much. Too many emotional swings, and she’d begun to worry the chaos would trigger a panic attack.
The attacks loomed over her like a guillotine threatening to fall without warning.
She’d finally spoken to one of the sports psychologists who had traveled with Team USA, and she’d done a videocall with a therapist as well.
They weren’t magicians who could cure her over the course of an hour, but she felt more settled.
And she’d realized she needed a breath to get through her first race before jumping headlong into another battle with Mara. Whatever form that battle might take.
It was okay to feel out of control.
But it was also okay to take back control when possible.
“Actually, yes. I do feel good.”
“Head is where it should be?”
Kirby nodded. Coach Wu had been checking in consistently over the past week without being pushy. Both were appreciated. The checking in and the giving space.
“Go make them regret underestimating you, KB.” Coach Wu gave her a trademark shoulder pat before Kirby made her way to the starting line to begin the qualification round where the thirty fastest skiers would move to the quarterfinal heats.
Her heart was hammering in her ears. She took a breath, filling her lungs with frosty air.
Then another. Then suddenly crystal clarity flushed through her.
It was a sensation she was always chasing but rarely caught.
The stillness. The way time slowed, and her thoughts quieted, and the only thing that existed was the snow in front of her, the tension in her muscles as she waited to explode off the starting line, and the silence as she waited for her signal.
And bang.
She was off.
The sprint course at Tesero Stadium was exactly her kind of course. It was fast with a hard climb up a hill before a long straightaway to the finish line.
She pushed for the whole race, but there was strategy involved. She needed to qualify but also preserve energy for the later heats.
When the finish line came into view, she saw the Olympic rings imposed on the course and clocked the cheers from the crowd for the first time. She zipped through the finish line and slid to a stop.
She smiled and waved a pole at the crowd before putting her hands on her hips to try to breathe through the pain of exertion.
Her time was fine. She was solidly within the top fifteen and would easily move to the quarterfinal heats.
She glanced toward the athlete cheering section where she’d watched Mara and Lindsey race the skiathlon. She couldn’t make out individuals, but it was full.
Was Mara watching her race today? Or was she resting and preparing herself for her next event? That would have been the responsible thing for Mara to do, and Mara was responsible.
But Kirby was going to medal today. She could feel it. She was hungry for it. And most importantly, she wanted to do it in front of Mara. She wanted Mara to see her make the podium.
Would Mara be happy for her? Or jealous? Frustrated?
Who could say? But Kirby wanted her to feel something, anything, about it.
The qualification race ended, and Kirby searched through the results board for her fellow teammates.
Jordan had placed twenty-fifth, so she would move on to the quarterfinal heats. Brandilyn’s time had put her at thirty-first.
Kirby’s stomach dropped. To be so close and miss out was devastating. Brandilyn had been expected to easily qualify. She found Jordan and Brandilyn in a hoard of skiers being shuffled around. They were hugging. Brandilyn was laughing but had tears on her cheeks.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Brandilyn said as Kirby wrapped them in a big joint hug. “I fucked up and bobbled a turn. I’m fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. Brandilyn was young. She had such a huge career ahead of her. She would hopefully have many more chances at racing in the Olympics, but the sprint was her best event. It had to be shattering.
That was a trademark of the Olympics, though. High highs. Low lows.
Coach Wu moved Jordan and Kirby toward their area with stationary bikes to keep their muscles warm and physiological state primed until the quarterfinal heats, and a handler ushered Brandilyn over to her parents.
Brandilyn was limping a little. As her parents enveloped her, Brandilyn really started to cry.
And Kirby felt like crying too. What a terrible, wonderful, terrible thing they put themselves through. For it all to come down to slightly less than three minutes of racing, a few tenths of a second, and 1585 meters.
Mara had shown up. She’d watched Kirby’s qualification round. Then the quarterfinal.
Kirby had come first in her quarterfinal heat. Jordan had come in third in her heat but had snagged one of the lucky loser qualifying spots by having the best time among skiers who didn’t place first or second.
Rumors had started to pop through their phones and gossip channels about an injury, but Mara tried not to speculate. Brandilyn would be okay. She had to be. Mara was superstitious about injuries. She pretended like it was an impossibility to be taken out by one.
The men’s quarterfinal heats took place after the women’s and Apollo got second in his, so he was moving on to the semifinals. It was a bit of an upset. The exhilaration and noise from the athlete spectator zone was insane.
As Kirby lined up for her semifinal heat, the tension in the crowd ratcheted up. Kirby shook out her arms and adjusted her sunglasses. They were the black ones Mara had bought for her. They’d never talked about it. Kirby had never mentioned it.
Mara’s heart rocketed into her throat. She felt sick. She wanted Kirby to do well. She cared.
She really, really cared.
And in the past, she hadn’t. Or, maybe, more truthfully, she had hoped Kirby wouldn’t succeed. She had wished poor times and upsets on Kirby as punishment for that thirty-k mess four years ago. It wasn’t very nice, but it was her truth.
Now, it was terrifying to care so much about an event she wasn’t even freaking racing. She didn’t like it.
Mara was frozen with her eyes on the large screen showing the skiers sprint up the hill, arms pumping. She willed Kirby to go faster. Faster.
She wasn’t going to make it. She wasn’t going to qualify for the finals.
Lindsey was next to her, even-keeled as always.
“I don’t think I can watch this,” Mara whispered. She almost never came to races that weren’t her own. There were too many emotions as a spectator. It screwed with her calm. She needed zen.
“It’ll be close,” Lindsey said, focused on the screen as Kirby powered into the stadium in third.
“I’m going to go.”
Lindsey glanced at her sharply. “What?”
But Mara was already making her way through the crowd. She hurried to the exit. Heard the cheers as skiers crossed the finish line, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at the results board.
Mara had gone to a Super Bowl party once in high school.
She remembered her friend’s mom being so into one of the teams that she couldn’t even watch the game.
She had paced between the kitchen and her bedroom, occasionally peeking at the TV to see the score.
Mara had asked her why she wasn’t watching if she cared so much.
She’d responded that it was too stressful. Every play felt like torture.
That was how Mara felt right then. It was torture watching Kirby ski.
Mara had been clocking incremental changes she would have made if it had been her racing. Monday morning quarterbacking. And her heart was pounding harder than when she competed, her whole body going haywire with anticipatory excitement and stress.
People said hi to Mara as she left the stadium. Someone asked Mara where she was going, but she didn’t respond.
Then suddenly she was free and relatively alone. She took a shuttle back to the Olympic Village.
On the ride, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the turmoil in her body.
She wanted to check her phone. By now, Apollo would have raced in his semifinal heat, and she felt bad for not being there to cheer him on.
Which was ridiculous. She had never even had a conversation with him that didn’t involve topics like the weather or protein powder.
When she got to the Olympic Village, rather than putzing around her room or pulling up the results of Kirby’s race, she went to the gym and did as much weight training as she could without overextending herself.
Then she ate dinner alone. And finally, hours after leaving the Tesero Stadium, she felt calm.
Worrying about Kirby shouldn’t have affected her like that. It was a distraction, one that had wasted a whole day when she should have been preparing. It was scary.
She needed to get a grip. She had a race in two days. The interval start freestyle ten-k. She had a bronze medal in that event from Pyeongchang. That was what she should have been focusing on. Rather than letting herself get worked up over Kirby Bonham.
Two days to the ten-k. Twelve to the fifty.
Lindsey was in their room reading a paperback when Mara returned.
“Hey!” Lindsey said, sitting up in bed. “Are you sick or something? I was worried about you.”
“No. I’m fine.”
“So you rushed off because why? You don’t give a shit about Kirby, Jordan, or Apollo?”
The accusation surprised her. Not because the perception of her was a surprise. She knew her teammates grinded against her status as the top skier in their sport. Her persona as a sweetheart and team leader versus the reality of her personality.
But it was a surprise coming from Lindsey.
“No. I do.”
“Apollo made the finals. And you weren’t there to cheer him on.”
“Did he medal?” Mara asked.
The glare Lindsey gave her could have melted a medal. “That’s not the only important thing in the world, Mara.”
“Right. How did, uh, Jordan and Kirby do?”
She really only wanted to know about Kirby but admitting that was too revealing.
“Look it up yourself.” Lindsey shook her head and went back to her book. It was a murder mystery with a cat and lots of baked goods on the cover.
Mara stood there awkwardly. She felt like she shouldn’t stay there, but it was her room. She had nowhere else to go. She felt kind of sick again. Like she’d just wrecked something very important.