Chapter 11 #2
For example, being able to make eye contact with Austin when Ivan inevitably pairs us for the final pursuit is a challenge all on its own.
“You ready?” Austin asks, grinning playfully as he holds out a gloved hand for me to bump.
It’s a ritual we’ve had for years. A reminder that even though only one of us can win, we’re in this together.
But my smile feels wooden and when I go to bump him back, I miss, knocking against empty nothingness before my hand falls uselessly to my side again.
Austin only laughs. “Holy air ball. You sure you’re up for this? ”
I roll my eyes. Today is the first time we’ve been on the hill together since .
. . then. That awful day. I don’t know why he’s being so casual about it.
My knees nearly buckle as I slide into the gate and my knuckles ache where I grip the handles too hard.
I’m already behind before the barrier drops and my poles clang against the metal, meaning they’re in the wrong position as I try to push my way through the opening rollers.
The whole thing is terrible and I’m going to hear about it from Ivan later.
By the time the course opens up into the first pitch, Austin’s already way ahead of me.
He moves so fast, body position perfect.
The whole point of a pursuit is to practice with a competitor trying to overtake you.
But I’m so far behind he might as well be skiing alone.
He’s like poetry in motion. Austin always had flawless technique.
I got through the early years of our training on speed because I wasn’t afraid of anything.
Austin always had a sense for the snow and the hill that meant he could find a line no one else knew was there.
It seems, despite everything, he hasn’t lost that gift.
I tuck down, making up enough ground that I don’t lose him from view as he hits the next jump and drifts downhill.
I wince when he hits the ground again, remembering impacts in the forest that shattered bones.
Never mind I didn’t see the accident. I’ve dreamed about it so many times since then, I know every tree stump and rock he hit between the time I looked back and he wasn’t there and the moment I found him crumpled on the ground.
“Wooo!” Austin lets out a long, joyful cry as we fly down the mountain, and for a minute everything is like it’s always been.
Friends. Brothers. The two of us headed toward victory, side by side, or as close as we can be.
But as quickly as that joy pours over me like warm water, it turns to ice when his cry turns into an alarmed sound.
His left ski lifts off the ground and his arms swing.
He’s going over. There isn’t even anything here to make him fall.
No turn, no jump. The snow is perfectly even, but he’s wheeling and leaning and my heart swells so hard in my throat for a minute I can’t breathe and my vision goes black.
Not again. I can’t see him get hurt again.
Then he’s sliding over the line, both skis back on the ground and he cheers for himself, arms raised over his head in celebration. He’s elated, and his happiness hits me in the gut worse than any rock or tree stump ever could.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I ask, pulling up to a stop in front of him, so close he has to stop short, throwing his weight onto his poles to keep from crashing into me.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, but the lingering smile in his eyes only makes me angrier.
“Is this a joke to you? We’re days from competition and you’re fucking around on the hill?”
Austin’s brow pinches together. His face scrunches up and he tugs his buff down, so it hangs around his neck.
“Fucking around?” he asks, pursing his lips in confusion.
The gesture highlights how his mouth is slightly lopsided in a way it didn’t used to be.
I can’t see it, but somewhere along his jaw is a scar where they had to cut him open after the hairline fracture in his jaw got bigger and they went in to screw it back together.
I wasn’t there, of course, but I heard about it, because along with team gossip, my mom and Donna have basically created a two-woman colour commentary team.
They’ve documented and relayed every single detail of his surgeries and rehab.
Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t start a podcast, because every phone call I’ve had with my parents since the accident has included what I’ve come to think of as “the Austin Segment” where Mom tells me about her latest conversation with Donna and all the updates from his doctors and therapists.
I’m sure she meant it to feel comforting to hear that Austin was making progress, and maybe she was surprised I hadn’t heard it directly from him, but every time she talked to me about it, it let me relive the terror of finding him and only amplified the sense of how separate we’ve been ever since.
“You nearly fell,” I say, anger rising inside me.
“That?” Austin shrugs carelessly. “It was nothing. Didn’t matter anyway, with how far behind me you were.
I had lots of time to recover.” He bangs playfully at my shins with a pole, which should be a signal that it’s time for a little friendly roughhousing, but his lack of concern sends me flying into a rage.
I swing a pole at him, but instead of aiming low like he did, I swat at his arm, hard enough it might bruise, even with his layers of clothing.
He gasps, hopping back as his eyes get big in shock. “What the fuck?”
“Exactly. What the fuck, Austin? This is serious.”
“You think I don’t know that?” His voice rises, and my blood goes with it. Maybe a fight is what we need. Get it all out there. “After everything I’ve been through to get here?”
“After everything you’ve been through?” Only my feet still clipped into my bindings keep me from launching myself at him.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Hailey calls behind me, reminding me we’re not alone. You’re never alone at events like this. Except for once, when it was only the two of us in a hotel room. That’s where it all went sideways and now we’re here.
I’m breathing hard, and the cold is making my nose run, but a screaming match right now will only land us on Ivan’s shit list, along with tonight’s highlight reel for any sports network who happens to have a reporter roving practices for potential stories, and more than a few social media feeds.
Now isn’t the time, like it hasn’t been the time for months and months.
I spit a goober of snot into the snow, closer to the tips of Austin’s skis than I probably should.
He slides a few more inches back, head tilted to one side before finally his expression clouds and he laughs once.
“Fine. Whatever, Zed. Sorry we interrupted your two-week vacation.” Then he pushes off, sliding past me and heading back toward the lift.
We don’t say anything on the ride back up. We don’t even ride together. I watch the back of his head from my chair, while my whole body shakes with fury.