Chapter 8 Drew
Drew
ONE DAY BEFORE THE OPENING CEREMONY
Drew had been in the Village for less than forty-eight hours but was already responsible for a casualty.
Because he was the kind of person who would do anything to get the perfect photo, he’d climbed onto a slippery bench to take a portrait of a Finnish speed skater practicing her routine on the outdoor ice rink.
Then dangled himself from a tree to capture a shot of a group of Ecuadorian ski mountaineers huddled around a fire after a walk.
He’d balanced on bridge handrails, run down icy steps, and even gone as far as to ride a bike with no hands in pursuit of the perfect photo.
But in the end, it was a patch of grass hiding a layer of black ice that brought him to his knees.
He’d slipped and watched in horror as his camera flew into the air, crashed into a tree, and landed on the ground.
He’d escaped the scene with just a couple of bruises, but the shattered glass he’d heard on his fall looked as ominous as it sounded.
He sat on the icy ground for a moment, devastated to see the shattered remains of his new telephoto lens.
As he headed to the press office to see if he could order a replacement to arrive in time for the opening ceremony, he wondered whether breaking his new professional camera within twenty-four hours of arriving at the Winter Games was as bad an omen as it felt.
“You can use this, but don’t tell a soul that I helped you,” said Luiz, handing him a replacement lens that worked perfectly on the Canon EOS he was using that day.
Luiz Souza was a press liaison assistant from Brazil who’d moved to Switzerland to work for the Olympics.
His job was to make sure that everything ran smoothly when it came to the journalists, photographers, and media teams working in the Village.
His short brown hair was smartly swooped back, he was wearing a crisp tailored suit under his PRESS TEAM jacket, and he always seemed to be running an hour ahead of schedule.
Which is why he’d immediately noticed Drew’s …
haphazard approach. But rather than getting annoyed, Luiz took Drew under his wing and helped him find a replacement for his broken lens.
“Thanks, man. You’ve saved my life. I can’t afford to mess things up on the first day,” said Drew. He attached the loaned lens to his camera and thanked the universe for protecting his SD card.
“Well, lifesaving is a onetime thing. From now on, you and your bad luck need to stay fifty meters away from me at all times,” said Luiz, his foot impatiently tapping the floor as he waited for Drew to collect his things.
“If you ever need a favor, just know I owe you one.”
“The best thing you could do for me is get to the closing ceremony without breaking a body part. I’m way too busy to take you to the emergency room and file an incident report,” Luiz joked.
“Out there? It’s every man for himself.” Luiz pushed open the door at the end of the hallway and they stepped out into the truest representation of organized chaos.
The press office was an ultrahigh-tech building that housed over ten thousand journalists, seven hundred accredited photographers, and more laptops, phones, and camera screens than Drew could possibly count.
It was filled with people at the peak of their careers.
Legendary photographers who had captured some of the most important stories of the twenty-first century and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists who’d covered wars and landmark elections.
That winter’s press office was a who’s who of some of the most acclaimed storytellers in the world, and among the crowd of serious journalistic icons was … Drew.
Because his sister was right: One night could change everything.
After kissing the girl who’d disappeared at midnight, Drew had gone downstairs to take enough photos of the party to make up for missing the countdown.
Emboldened by the magical first few minutes of the year, he’d gone around and captured everything that caught his eye.
People tearing it up on the dance floor, sneaking up onto the roof and celebrating with strangers as if they’d known one another all their lives.
After a tough couple of months, the party was exactly what Drew had needed to usher in the new year—a temporary escape from his everyday life.
He’d reconnected with his love for photography that night.
Filled his camera roll with strikingly rich photos, and kissed a gorgeous girl at midnight.
Yes, she’d disappeared before he could get her number, but Drew had still left the party with the kind of hope reserved for the first day of the year.
As soon as he’d arrived back at the hotel that night, he’d opened his laptop and gotten to work.
Curated the best photos from the party and edited them until they resembled a digital version of a nostalgic photo diary.
When he sent it to the team at Zeus that had organized the New Year’s Eve party, they were so impressed that they shared his behind-the-scenes photo diary across their social channels.
The collection gave viewers what felt like a secret glimpse into one of the biggest and most exclusive parties of the year.
And so, within a couple of hours, his photos went viral.
People across the internet shared the hazy, dreamlike moments he’d captured, and rumors of the party spread like wildfire.
It turned out that Drew had photographed the kind of moments that ordinary people craved to be part of.
The photos were reposted and shared thousands of times within the span of a day, leaving the bigwigs at Zeus Athletics thrilled.
Which was how he’d ended up in St. Moritz with a press accreditation and an assignment to take photos for one of the biggest companies in the world.
Stories from the Village had dominated everyone’s feeds during the 2024 Summer Olympics, and Zeus wanted their brand to be all over the 2026 Winter Games.
So, they’d sent a team of seasoned photographers and social media managers to Switzerland three weeks before the Winter Games, and Drew had gotten a call offering him a last-minute accreditation pass to take photos as part of their online campaign.
He had mentally prepared himself to spend February questioning his life choices while sleepwalking around his childhood home in Wisconsin.
So, when the opportunity came, he accepted it without hesitation.
His family was already scheduled to fly to Switzerland to watch the Winter Olympics, so he figured that there was no harm in hitting pause on his quarter-life crisis and heading to St. Moritz to follow his dream.
The start of his year was working out better than he could have ever imagined.
But despite his best efforts, he hadn’t been able to find the girl that had set it all off.
He knew her secrets, but he didn’t know her last name or any facts to help him find her online.
So, after a few days of scrolling Instagram for leads, he’d decided to take her abrupt departure as a sign that she didn’t want to be found.
A part of him couldn’t help but wonder if her new year was off to as good a start as his was.
However, there wasn’t time to think too hard about that as he walked through the hectic atmosphere of the press office and listened to Luiz’s sage advice.
“Just make sure you have your accreditation on you at all times. They won’t let you into any of the buildings without it,” said Luiz as they meandered through the crowds of journalists frantically typing emails, taking loud calls, and grabbing extra battery packs.
There was so much going on that Drew could barely take it all in.
So, he just nodded, followed Luiz’s lead, and tried to absorb as much of his surroundings as possible.
This was the opportunity of a lifetime, he couldn’t mess it up.
“Take this,” said Luiz, handing Drew a piece of paper as they walked past two news producers having a hushed argument.
“Study this map like your career depends on it. If you think two ice rinks are ten minutes away from each other, assume it’s a twenty-minute walk,” he said.
Drew nodded emphatically, taking a photo of the map and mentally planning out his routes.
Luiz had been working for the Olympics since 2022, so Drew took each piece of advice he gave as gold.
“Arrive early, stay late, and take exceptional photos. Then maybe, eventually, they’ll stop thinking you got lost and went to the wrong building,” he said, making a joke of the fact that when Drew had shown up that morning, someone assumed he was a tourist who’d taken the wrong turn.
Now Drew watched as a film crew walked into the press office. He hadn’t felt this out of his depth since his first week of college. “When do you start feeling like you’re supposed to be here?”
Luiz went over to his desk and grabbed his walkie-talkie.
“There are natural talents, and then there are people like us,” he said.
“Are you saying I’m not a natural talent?” Drew joked, knowing just as well as Luiz did that he’d gotten into the Village by sheer luck.
“Neither of us are.” Luiz shrugged. “Success is mostly about ending up in the right place at the right time with just enough skill to pull it off. But look around.”
“We’re in the room now,” Drew said, the reality of the situation sinking in.
“Exactly. One day your work will be so good that you won’t walk in each day feeling like an imposter.
But up until then, buy the assistants coffee, befriend the volunteers, and get the security guards on your side.
That way, they’ll be more likely to help you when you lose your accreditation …
again.” Luiz picked up the lanyard Drew didn’t even realize he’d dropped.
Before he could say anything else, Luiz waved him goodbye and ran up the stairs to help a live news broadcast team hunt down five extra extension cords.
The press office was buzzing with activity.
Drew could hear an Al Jazeera journalist preparing for an interview with one of that year’s top speed skaters, and he could smell the drip coffee an ESPN reporter was drinking as he typed an article about an upcoming ice hockey game.
Busy journalists flitted around the press office as they prepared for the busiest two weeks of the winter sports calendar.
All against the backdrop of the large world clocks on the wall.
Each time zone was counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds until the opening ceremony began.
Drew wanted to just sit in the middle of the press office and soak it all in.
To observe the journalists around him and absorb all their wisdom.
But if he was going to be ready for the two weeks ahead of him, he needed to get to know the Village map like the back of his hand.
So, he zipped up his coat, hung his camera around his neck, and pushed the front door open until he finally stepped out into the blistering, icy cold of the Winter Olympics.