Chapter Twenty #2
The next forty-eight hours passed in a blurry sequence of logistics.
Checkout instructions taped to doors that were already propped open, gear bags piled in the hallways like drifted snow, and a constant, rolling tide of goodbyes.
The village emptied with unsettling speed.
Isaline went through the mandatory Swiss team debriefs, nodding as coaches talked about “next season’s goals,” while a stone settled deeper in her stomach every time someone mentioned her flight back to Europe.
The place that had always felt like the center of her universe now felt empty, haunted by the ghosts of what had been.
She found Matthias in a quiet corner of the nearly deserted athlete lounge, a half-empty coffee kiosk still brewing coffee nearby.
She sank into the chair opposite him, wrapping her fingers around a paper cup just to feel something warm.
She watched him for a moment, taking in the sag of his shoulders and the weary set of his jaw.
“I’m stepping back,” he said without preamble. “No more full-time travel. I have done my time. It is time for you to leave the nest, Isaline.”
The words came out lighter than she expected, edged with a relief that was all his own.
Isaline’s head tipped up. Before she could form a question, he kept going.
“If you wanted Hollis’s input going forward, on course-setting, on schedules, on how to survive this circus without losing yourself…
I would have no objection.” He paused, letting the statement land.
“I trust her eye. I trust her character. She would be a great coach for you.” He leaned forward just a fraction.
“If you want to keep her close, whatever this is turning into, I will not stand in the way.”
The blessing landed like a quiet permission slip she hadn’t realized she was waiting for.
He offered a rare, half-crooked smile. “My only condition is this: if you drive her as crazy as you have driven me for twenty years, you must at least take a gold while doing it.”
Her eyes stung with tears she refused to let fall. She nodded once. The simple motion carried the weight of a thousand unspoken thank-yous.
“I would never aim for anything less, Dad,” she promised, her voice thick. “I’ll make both of you proud. On the hill and off it.”
After the talk with her father, Isaline sat on the edge of her narrow bed for a long time.
The laptop on her knees glowed with the cold light of her original flight itinerary.
Zurich. The Swiss team charter. The life she’d always been slotted into.
Matthias’s words echoed in the room, threading through the quiet of the emptying village: Leave the nest. I trust her character.
Her fingers flew over the trackpad, pulling up the number for the Swiss team administrator. She took a breath and hit the call key.
“Isaline, congratulations again. Everything all right with your travel packet?”
“Everything is fine,” Isaline started, her voice steadier than she felt. “But I need to make a change. I won’t be on the team flight.”
A beat of surprised silence on the other end. “Is something wrong? Are you extending for medical purposes?”
“I’m extending for myself.” Isaline calmly walked through the lie she’d prepared, framing it as a chance to decompress and explore a new off-season training structure in the States.
She parried the administrator’s volley of questions about insurance and camp dates with a resolve that felt brand new.
By the time she hung up, a confirmation email pinged in her inbox.
A new flight. One month from now, departing from an airport she’d only ever seen on Blaire’s Instagram stories.
The choice felt like jumping a blind roll, terrifying and freeing all at once.
Later that evening, she found Blaire walking a slow loop near the hollowed-out plaza.
The air had gone soft and quiet; the village’s sharp edges blurred by the lack of crowds.
Blaire’s steps were measured, and she had a wistful look in her eyes, a posture Isaline recognized as someone bracing for a goodbye.
They fell into step, breath ghosting in the cold, their conversation circling logistics and departure times. Isaline let her talk, waiting for the right moment. Under a muted floodlight that highlighted the packed snow, she stopped.
“I need to show you something.” She pulled out her phone and opened the screen to her new itinerary and handed it over.
Blaire’s brow furrowed as she scanned the phone. She looked at the date, then the departure city, then back at the date. The frown deepened into confusion before it melted into a huge smile.
“I’m not flying home yet. I’m staying. For a month,” Isaline said with an enormous smile.
Blaire’s mouth dropped open as she looked down at the phone that she held loosely in her hand.
“To rest,” Isaline continued, ticking off the reasons that were only half the truth. “To spend some more time in America. To figure out what my training looks like without my father breathing down my neck. And to see if this… us… feels the same when there aren’t competing medals on the line.”
The last of Blaire’s practiced composure cracked.
She took Isaline’s phone and looked at the confirmation screen, letting the numbers and dates etch themselves into her mind like a start list she never wanted to forget.
She handed the phone back and, instead of stepping away, she caught Isaline’s hand and held it.
Her thumb brushed over Isaline’s knuckles as if she were memorizing them.
“I’ll make sure this month is worth staying on this side of an ocean for,” she said, her voice quiet, almost disbelieving.
They headed back toward the American housing block, shoulders brushing. The talk shifted, no longer about start lists or split times, but about the best grocery store near Blaire’s condo and whether Isaline had ever tried proper Idaho potatoes.
They paused at the door, the future pressed tight around them like the cold.
Blaire’s eyes dropped to Isaline’s mouth, then back up.
She grinned, a slow, wicked curve of her lips that made Isaline’s stomach flip.
“Just so you know, as soon as we get to my house, I’m planning to wear you out so thoroughly you’ll think you raced three more downhills.
Call it our official training program for making up lost time. ”
Isaline’s pulse kicked hard, heat chasing out the cold. Blaire Hollis could have every medal on the planet, but by the end of this month, Isaline fully intended to be the only gold she thought about.
“Then don’t hold back, Hollis,” she said, letting her smile go slow and wicked to match. “I want my first post-Olympic training plan under you to be so demanding that I can’t tell if my legs are shaking from skiing or from you.”
Isaline curled her fingers around Blaire’s jacket, tugging her inside. Let the world remember Blaire as the Sun Valley legend. Tonight, Isaline intended to be the Swiss black widow who ate her alive and left her grateful for the ruin.