Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Two Canadians walk into a bar. Actually, there were more of them.
A whole ski team’s worth, looking for some karaoke to let off steam after finishing their season.
Some were looking to celebrate. Others to lick their wounds.
They talked about the day, and the coming weeks and months of training and preparation.
At some point, two Canadians walked out of that bar, confident in their future.
So confident that one gave up on his plan to keep his feelings to himself until a more appropriate time and impulsively kissed his best friend.
And then our trail veered over the edge and plummeted into unknown and dangerous territory.
But somehow, we are now exactly where we always planned to be. Side by side in the gates. A lifetime of preparation putting me and Austin next to each other and going head-to-head. Only two advance. It has to be the two of us.
Our two rivals are from Japan and Sweden.
They’re good. Everyone here is good. As the Japanese skier works with his tech to get his boots clear to step into the bindings, I close my eyes, visualizing the race.
I’ve done it twice already today. Three more and I’m golden.
Beside me, Austin’s doing jump squats, letting out explosive breaths to keep his body and mind alert.
The last thing we want is a second of hesitation when the start comes.
When the barrier falls, we drop onto the course and push over the rollers.
Our arms and breaths come out perfectly synchronized.
Japan and Sweden are on the far side. I can see Sweden out of the corner of my eye, but then we drop over the first rise.
Austin comes with me, tucking in. Racing strategically is illegal.
You can’t block an oncoming racer to give a teammate an advantage.
Not officially, anyway. But you can block him to hold your own space in the race, and Austin knows the plan.
First and second don’t matter, as long as it’s the two of us together.
Someone’s coming on my left. Not Austin, who is still crouched in tight behind me, drafting until he finds his chance to break out.
I push us higher up the turn, hoping to force the passer into the softer untracked surface.
The unseen person curses and grunts, but the sound of his skis fall away.
We take off over a jump, so the only sounds I can hear are the wind in my ears and Austin’s breathing behind me.
Our takeoff was perfect, so our landing should be . . .
Whap.
. . .
Whap.
Shit. The interval between our landings is farther apart than it should be, and Austin’s is quickly followed by the sound of two more. We’re barely more than a second apart, all four of us.
Another figure appears in the corner of my vision, but the red bib makes me breathe.
Austin. He’s coming up alongside me. But with his approach comes the scrape of new skis as someone tries to ride his path past me.
We’re coming up to a small uphill section.
I can’t afford to lose any speed by pushing the others higher here.
It’s something we talked about during training this week.
Instead, I tuck in tighter, trusting Austin can hold them off.
Stick with the plan. All the training and practice. No space for doubt. We can do this.
As we come down the last section before the final pitch, the crowd is already roaring.
There’s no time to look. I’m still in front and Austin’s beside me, but I have no way to be sure where the Japanese or Swedish skiers are.
They’re close. The last jump and how we land it will determine who moves on and who calls it a day.
Whap.
We all come so close together I can barely distinguish mine from the other three. The spectators scream and shout, bells ringing and whistles calling to us, bringing us down the last few seconds. My gaze is locked on the finish line. Nothing to do now but hold on. It’s all happened in a blink.
I come to a stop in a spray of flying snow. Austin’s right in front of me, wheeling around so we finally rest face to face. His mouth is open, chest in his tight-fitting race suit pumping hard as he fights for air.
“Did we do it?” I ask, though the question comes out as more a strangled gasp than anything intelligible. Our gazes swing to the board, straining to make out the results.
There’s nothing. On the screen, a photo of the four of us coming over the line.
We might as well be doing an acrobatic dance routine.
The precision is so impressive. The crowd stills, murmuring in anticipation, but even from the picture it’s hard to say for sure.
Me. Maybe Austin? The Swedish skier can barely be seen, but I can’t tell if that’s because he’s crouched next to one of us and invisible to the camera, or so far behind he’s out of the frame that has captured a specific thousandth of a second.
A cry goes up, so loud it makes me jump before I go back to the leaderboard.
1. GRIMM, A (CAN)
2. BERARD, C (CAN)
3. OHASHI, S (JPN)
4. BERG, J (SWE)
The difference in our times is less than four tenths of a second.
My arms fly up on their own, and the shout that erupts from my lungs is pure triumph.
I might as well have won the whole thing.
Beside me, Austin slumps over his poles, jamming them into his armpits to keep himself from pitching over entirely.
Ohashi and Berg offer congratulations. Their race is done.
We shake hands, then, once they’ve moved on to the media pen, high-five and celebrate a few seconds longer before we follow.
No Tara this time. Everyone has questions now. I repeat the same words over and over.
“I’m trying to race the best race I can.”
“Everyone skiing at this level has a shot at winning it all.”
“I’m focused on the next race, no further than that.”
My head spins. It’s a whirlwind, and the time between races gets shorter and shorter as the field gets cut by half.
We head to the lift and my stomach growls. Everything feels like it’s happening too fast.
“You okay?” Austin asks, standing by my side as we wait for the chair to pass so we can push into the loading area.
“Yeah.” Only I’m not. My pulse is racing.
My brain is a tornado of thoughts and scenarios.
I play a mental highlight reel of Ivan pointing out things to remember.
Places where the run will get slower in the afternoon as the snow softens infinitesimally in the cold winter sun.
The best places to pass and what to do when someone else knows the same thing and tries to pass you.
I shake my head. “No. I’m not. Can you take the next lift? ”
Austin doesn’t question. He leans into his poles and watches as I slide into the loading area and sit back onto the chair.
The silence as I pull out of the base and rise into the air fills me with the same relief as the best orgasm of my life. I close my eyes. Focus on breathing. In for four, hold it for four, out for six, hold for four.
The litany of chatter between my ears fades away.
Fuck. For all this is another day on the mountain and another race, this is the most intense thing I’ve ever done.
I glance over my shoulder. Austin’s sitting in the chair behind.
I give him a thumbs-up, and he responds with the same.
We don’t speak. The joking from the past days, Austin grabbing his ass and telling me the pain is my fault.
It’s all gone now. We are fully locked in.
Two more races.
Matthieu’s out. Came third in his quarter final. I’m so focused on my race I don’t even think to ask, but when we reach the top of the hill, Kage is there, standing alone and he tells us.
“But you qualified?” I ask.
He bites his lower lip. “There were two Americans in my quarter final. They took each other out in the chicane.”
A win is a win. It could have just as easily been him wiping out through those tight turns.
At least he’s not in our semi. Wouldn’t it be wild if he made it to the Big Final and we had a one-two-three Canadian podium?
I shut my eyes and shake my head again. One run at a time. I can’t be worrying about Kage’s race.
There’s a pause before the semis. One of the Austrian skiers takes a bad fall, though that’s all we hear.
No one wants the distraction of imagining injuries and the sight of ski patrol loading someone we’ve raced alongside all season and even for years into a sled.
I have enough of that in my memories of Austin’s accident.
Finally, though, we get the call. Ivan’s been talking through our progress so far, reviewing video of our runs. Even the smallest adjustments can be the deciding factor between making the Big or Small Final now.
“You’ve got this,” he says as the officials round us up.
Austin and I get placed on opposite ends of the gate. Between us are an Italian and a German skier. I allow myself one look down the line as we get into position, but all I can see are Austin’s knuckles wrapped around the handles as he waits for the start.
The barrier drops as I’m still turning my attention forward.
Fuck. I push off fractions of a second behind the others, cursing and swearing inside my head the whole time.
Fuck. It’s not even one race now. One feature.
Rollers. Jumps. Don’t worry about the finish line when we’re barely through the start.
But I’m still on the inside, and somehow as we drop out of the rollers, I’m ahead, even if only by half a ski length. I take a deep breath, re-centering myself. One turn. One heartbeat, then the next.
The German is right on my ass. He’s beaten me before.
Recently, though that’s not saying much given the state of my World Cup season this year.
I hit the first jump in the exact spot Ivan and I discussed and come down fast, building my lead.
He’s still there, though, hovering behind my shoulder, waiting for his moment.
Where’s Austin?
We go through the chicane, where Kage’s Americans fell.
I push hard, risking a little contact to force the German off his line.
He grunts, but stays close, slipping farther back.
Someone else is coming up. For a second, I think I see the red and grey of Austin’s race suit, but I can’t be sure.
The German comes up beside me as we do the uphill, then falls away when he takes the next jump later than he should.
I’m back on the snow and moving fast before he lands.
In the distance, the bells ring, urging me on.
Austin. He’s there, right? I can’t hear or see him. Not for sure. It’s lost in heartbeats and breath, the scrape of skis on hard packed snow and the grunts as we take flight again and come down hard.
The last pitch. I’m alone out front. Holy shit. This is the biggest lead I’ve had all day. Nothing to do now but bring it home.
A flicker of motion comes up in the corner of my eye. Then the German blows past me, crossing the line only millimetres ahead. He throws his arms up in victory and I watch in shock.
He came first. So I came second. And that means . . .
I whip myself around, looking back up the hill. It should be empty. Fractions of a second. That’s what separates first and fourth place. By the time I look, Austin should be over the line.
Only there’s only three of us down here in the finish area. I look back up the hill and spot the form on the snow, two thirds of the way down the final descent. He’s missing a ski and finishing a spiralling fall that leaves him face down in the snow.
It’s Austin.