Chapter 23
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Kirby felt like she was moving through thick fog. Her legs were heavy, her head full of cotton.
Coach Wu was talking to her, and she was nodding along, but nothing was clicking. Other coaches moved around her relay partners, who were all pulling on their lucky relay socks, getting geared up. A wax tech was speaking to Jordan.
The mood in the changing room was electric. Relay days usually were, but she didn’t feel anything but sad. Which was ridiculous. Being sad about Mara May was ridiculous.
Kirby had slept in Apollo’s room, his roommate conveniently absent all night, but Apollo snored. And when he wasn’t snoring, he’d been texting Lindsey with the click-clack sound of his phone’s keyboard turned on. Kirby had wanted to wring his neck, but she also couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
“You’ve never acted like this about a relationship before,” he’d said once she’d come clean. She’d denied that.
She’d pulled up examples from her dating shows. The breakup with her most recent ex had been full of drama—rumors, paparazzi photos, shade online, an explosive reunion episode, which would air the week after the Olympics—but Apollo knew her. He hadn’t bought it.
Kirby’s emotions were already jumbled and outsized from the excitement and pressure surrounding the Olympics, from the panic attacks that seemed to jump her at random moments, from the whiplash of going between filming and racing.
Adding in the messiness of falling for Mara May had been like taking a match to gasoline.
And her brain had decided it was too much. She was shutting down.
She couldn’t snap out of it.
Coach Wu gripped her knee, and she jumped. “What?”
“What’s up with you today?” Coach asked.
“Nothing.”
Coach Wu shook her head. “You need to look alive, KB. Your teammates are depending on you.”
“Okay. I know.” Kirby slid her headband into place. Coach Wu left without another word. She’d seemed disappointed.
Kirby closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She needed to focus. She needed to lock in. She couldn’t be a disappointment.
Someone squatted down in front of her, and Kirby expected it to be a coach. She opened her eyes, ready to fake it. To fake being pumped up. To fake being fine.
It was Mara May.
Mara rarely assisted on her teammates’ race days. She rarely showed up. But there she was, lugging a carrier of water bottles. She handed Kirby’s to her.
“You race better mad,” Mara said, her voice soft but full of steel. “You race better with a chip on your shoulder.”
“I swear to God if that’s why you—”
“Of course it’s not. But you need to go out there and show me exactly how fucking mad you are. Make me regret not racing in this relay with you, Bonham.”
Fire zipped through Kirby because it did make her mad. She was furious at Mara—and kind of heartbroken—but mostly just outrageously livid.
“There you are,” Mara whispered. She picked up the sunglasses that were beside Kirby on the bench. They were the black ones Mara had gotten her. She’d worn them for every race, every run, every practice since Mara had left them in her room.
Mara gingerly put the sunglasses on the top of Kirby’s head like she was scared to touch her.
Then Mara left without another word, moving on to give Brandilyn, who was rubbing balm onto her knee, a water bottle and a mini peptalk.
Kirby tracked Mara around the room as she spoke with everyone. She was unsmiling, cold, and businesslike. She didn’t linger with anyone but chatted with all four relay skiers.
“Let’s fucking go,” Kirby said to no one in particular. But everyone shouted like she’d given a speech. Jordan banged her hands on the bench in a drumroll. Coach Wu nodded to Kirby from across the room. And Mara walked to the doorway, turned, met Kirby’s eyes for a brief second, and left.
The sun sparkled off the sheets of perfect snow as they made their way outside. Kirby knocked the sunglasses from her forehead down over her eyes. The sky was clear blue. The energy in the stadium was charged.
Relay days were special.
Kirby was usually humming with excitement and adrenaline before a relay. But instead, she was fuming. They skied their warm-ups, and then, before Kirby knew it, Jordan was off on the lead-off scramble leg. The crowd’s cheers were earsplitting.
Kirby often raced the third leg, with Brandilyn pulling the anchor, since they were both strongest at the freestyle versus the classic style of the first two legs.
But with Brandilyn’s injury, the coaches had switched them around.
Kirby had to bide her time and stay warm and primed through three legs.
She had to stay angry through three legs. The sound of the crowd faded in her head as the first and second legs transitioned in the relay exchange zone.
“You got this,” Kirby said to Brandilyn. They hadn’t practiced their exchange—Brandilyn tapping Kirby versus the other way around—as often as Kirby would have preferred, but it was going to be okay.
Kirby wasn’t going to fuck this up for anyone else.
When Brandilyn was tapped to start her leg, the US was in sixth. Brandilyn was a great pursuit racer, though. She raced better when chasing someone.
Kirby moved into position in the relay exchange zone. She slowed her breathing and tugged on that thread of anger. It was sharp and red, a consistent drumbeat in her chest.
Fuck Mara. Fuck everyone.
Brandilyn came back into view. They were still in sixth, but she had closed the gap significantly, and all the top teams were clustered up.
Kirby started skiing when Brandilyn was a few meters away. Then she felt the tap on her shoulder, and she burst forward, through the stadium and out onto the course, leaving the cheering crowds behind.
She focused on her skis and poles, on skiing hard and clean, and on the skier in front of her.
Fuck everyone.
Kirby pushed up a hill, drawing level with her first victim. She passed the German skier. Hills were her favorite. So hard, so much effort.
The next skier came into her sights.
Her legs burned. Her chest burned.
She gained ground on the downhill and hit the final curve and straightaway back into the stadium.
She pulled into fourth. Third place—Finland—was within reach.
She was going to finish this hard. No one would ever say again that she wasn’t focused. That her attention, and ambition, and drive were split between skiing and the reality TV, influencer shit.
Fuck Mara. Fuck everyone.
She could do both. She would do both.
She wasn’t the princess of cross-country skiing, but she was the workhorse.