Chapter 12
CHAPTER
TWELVE
I wish I could say things are awkward when we get back to the athlete accommodations, but they aren’t really anything.
Kage and Matthieu keep up a steady stream of conversation in the van on the way into the village.
Austin’s watching something on his phone.
No one so much as acknowledges my presence.
When we enter the hotel, I go straight to my room.
There’s another string of text messages from my parents, and even a couple from Donna.
Mostly they ask how my day was, how Austin’s doing, and what our plans are for tonight.
Like I have any plans besides bed. I strip out of my clothes, and I’m basically asleep before my head even hits the pillow.
After two whirlwind days of traveling and this afternoon’s training, I have nothing left in me.
When I wake up again, it’s dark. Matthieu is in the other bed, snoring gently.
I check my phone and it’s three in the morning.
Nine o’clock at home. Jet lag sucks. I roll over, firmly shutting my eyes and try to go back to sleep, but even though Matthieu’s snoring is barely more than a loud exhale, it seems like the noisiest thing I have ever experienced.
Twenty minutes later, I’m stumbling around with only my phone flashlight to help me find my bags.
I slip into sweats and shoes, and let myself out of the room.
I’m not the only one awake. The main floor of the hotel isn’t exactly busy, but there are more than a dozen people milling around.
Some are in various national team apparel, but most are in faded and worn athletic gear.
We’re all wound too tight to lie in bed.
A few have found food, sipping on coffee and small plates of fruit.
The hotel must be prepared for the kind of hours we keep.
Two women walk past me, red faced and breathing hard.
One mops sweat from her brow with a towel.
“The gym?” I ask and she points down a hallway.
The gym was probably a conference room or something.
Big halogen lights illuminate the space, but the walls are panelled in golden wood, and the wooden floors have been covered in protective rubber mats to keep the weight racks and cardio equipment from scratching them.
Half the machines are in use, but I find a treadmill, pop in my headphones, and set a gentle pace.
I used to hate running. When we got to the point in our teenage racing careers where it wasn’t enough to show up on Saturdays and ski as fast as we possibly could down the hill, I was so disappointed to find out that our dryland training involved running.
If I wanted to be a runner, I’d have joined track and field.
These days, though, it’s not so bad. When it’s warm enough, I tend to stick to mountain biking for cardio, but sometimes a few kilometres on a treadmill are what I need to get my mind to go blank.
Also, it’s annoying that I still think of me and Austin and our racing careers—both teenage and otherwise—as a “we.” I don’t even know what we are anymore.
I’m the one who’s making things weird, but it’s not like he reached out to me much while he was rehabbing in BC either.
The occasional selfie. A text sent after I’d gone to bed because west coast time is three hours behind.
Beyond that, pretty much everything I knew was mom-to-mom gossip and the things I could find out from news articles and ski media like podcasts.
It was as though Austin had decided we weren’t a “we” anymore, when only weeks and months earlier he’d been promising he was going to turn our Olympic dream into some gooey love-swept confession.
Like he’s ready to prove my point, as I start to slow the treadmill again, feeling more grounded than I have in days, the door to the gym swings open, and Austin walks in, followed by a couple trainers.
It’s after four now and the gym is getting busier.
It’s not uncommon for athletes at our level to be up at five on a competition day, and that plus jet lag means we’re all keeping weird hours.
I catch Austin’s entry out of the corner of my eye, but either he doesn’t notice me or else he does but he’s still pissed about yesterday, because he and the trainers go to one of the benches on the other side of the room.
One of them pulls out some resistance bands, while Austin sits.
He’s in shorts, compression leggings and a T-shirt, which gives me a better opportunity to look at him as I step off the treadmill than I had yesterday while he was in all his outerwear.
At first glance he looks good. Like he always did.
Strong chest, thick thighs. His forearms are muscled, with tendons and veins stretching beneath his skin.
He looks like he did that night in my bed. Fit. Ready for anything.
But then the trainers start whatever regimen they’ve planned for him and it only takes a minute before he grimaces.
It’s not a face made from exertion, the one we all make as we push our bodies to their limits.
It’s pain. A restriction. Something that doesn’t bend or stretch the way it used to and even the small reminder of pain I only witnessed is enough to have me recoiling back so suddenly my heel bangs against the treadmill frame, and I have to put a hand out to keep from falling over in front of the world’s best snowboard and ski cross racers.
The sound of the treadmill rattling is enough to make Austin look up, and when our eyes meet, I feel like a prey animal who’s suddenly been spotted by an entire pack of wolves who haven’t eaten properly in weeks.
Never mind that his expression is more confused than hungry.
I can’t be here. I mutter an apology to no one and hurry out of the gym.
So, that went well. When I get back to the room, Matthieu is already awake.
“Work out?” he asks as I enter. I only manage a grunt before I shut myself in the bathroom, rattling soap and shampoo bottles together as I make a big production of showering.
By the time I’m out, he’s gone. I get dressed more slowly.
Take some time to stretch properly after rushing so quickly out of the gym.
I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I? Except I don’t know how to turn it off. Once upon a time, everything seemed so clear, and now the sight of Austin has me in a tailspin.
Deep breath. I flatten my palms on my thighs and focus on breathing.
I’m here. At the Olympics. It’s not how I thought it would be, but I’m still here.
Still had enough points to qualify on my own.
It was only a run of bad luck that kept me off the team.
So it’s time to stop overthinking and second guessing.
The thing with Austin doesn’t need to be resolved now.
There will be chances once the games are over.
Trying to figure it all out here, even if he remembered what happened, would complicate race preparations, which is the only thing that should matter.
Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. I exhale slowly and slide my hands down my shins until they hit the floor.
I feel better. It’s not like we were going to spend these pre-competition days walking hand in hand through cute mountain villages and having sexy snowball fights that turned into hurried blow jobs in wintery woods.
We’re here to compete. Everything else is for later. That was always Austin’s plan.
A knock on the door makes me jump. My hands shake as I reach for the knob. What if it’s Austin? What will I say?
It’s Ivan. His grizzled and permanently suntanned skin is unmistakeable, as is the faint sheen of silver along his jaw.
Ski cross wasn’t an official Olympic sport when he was competing.
Instead, he won in the downhill, bringing home a gold medal in 1980.
His racing and coaching career has lasted twice as long as I’ve been alive.
“Hi,” I say.
“Good morning.” His voice carries the gentle roll of early years spent in Ukraine before his family came to Canada while Ivan was still a kid.
Technically, he could have competed for the Soviet Union, but in every news clipping from back then, he’s always said Canada is his home.
Still, he had to have made some hard decisions to get his career moving in a winning direction, and here I am acting like a doofus because I can’t get my head out of my ass about a guy and a one-night stand we had months ago.
But Ivan has never been one for house calls, so if he’s here at my door this early in the morning, something’s up.
“Am I late for training?” I ask, though aside from a few more practice runs this afternoon, I’m pretty sure the official schedule is free for things like massage or physiotherapy. Can’t overdo it on these last few days of training before the race.
He squints at me, like he’s trying to read my mind. Sometimes I think he can. Ivan’s coaching style has always been firm and serious. He’s never mean and will tell you when you skied a shit race, but that’s more out of a desire to see you do better than an instinct to shame.
“You have an appointment with Adiola,” he says flatly.
My heart flutters in my chest. “Today?”
Adiola is the team psychologist. I don’t see her very often.
Or I didn’t up until this year. She’ll come in and give talks to all of us from time to time.
Things like how to manage burnout. Using visualization techniques and how to cope with things like losing and injury.
The things we all need to know. She also does periodic one-on-ones with team members, but in the past they were always pretty brief and informal.
How have I been? Am I feeling stressed? What else am I doing in my life to keep skiing from being my only priority?
The last question is always tricky, because skiing is my only priority.
It’s everyone’s. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.
But somehow that always feels like the wrong answer when Adi asks it.
We’ve spent more time together this year, since my races were all such clusterfucks. The physical trainers gave me the all-clear, so obviously the issue was a mental one.
“This morning,” Ivan says, tone still firm and making it clear he’s not here to debate this. “After you finish breakfast.”
So, like a bull stumbling through the proverbial china shop, I say, “I don’t think I saw that on my schedule.”
Ivan’s gaze flashes, the only warning he ever gives before he puts his foot down. “It’s on there now. Since yesterday, actually, when you decided to attack a teammate.”
My mouth drops open. “What? I didn’t attack anyone.
Who would—” Then I remember smacking Austin with my pole.
It wasn’t exactly a full-on assault. Just some misdirected frustration.
But Austin is the golden child, isn’t he?
The comeback king. And I’m the consolation prized shuttled in at the last minute due to someone else’s screw-up.
Of course I’m the one who gets to spend time with the psychologist. I clear my throat and square my shoulders before I face up to Ivan, but he cuts me off.
“I have tried to help you all season. If you can’t conduct yourself like a professional on this hill, you don’t get to race.”
My anger shrinks back. He’s not mad at me.
He’s never mad. Only disappointed. And he’s right.
Ivan’s sat me down for so many one-on-one sessions this year.
He knows there’s a problem and tried his best to help, along with the rest of the coaching staff, but I would only ever talk about skiing with them.
He even suggested I take some time off over the summer.
Like real time. Lie on a beach. Maybe go out to BC and see Austin.
But I insisted I was fine and ready to work, and he let the suggestion go.
Not that I didn’t see the look he gave me.
The one that said he knew I was lying my ass off but he would treat me like an adult as long as I behaved like one.
That time is over. My behaviour yesterday wasn’t very adulty and he can scratch me from the race if he decides to. He’s not here making polite suggestions or empty threats. This is not a negotiation.
“After breakfast,” I say. He nods once, and then he’s gone. My newly formed confidence and resolution go with him.