Chapter 1 #2
“You can’t abandon me,” I say. “Who will shout at you to put your weight on the outer ski?”
“The ski instructors, obviously,” Eva says. “Those we book to take us for our next trip. To a spa.”
Anna laughs. “She’s serious,” she tells me. “If you keep skiing like that, she’s filing for friendship divorce.”
“Fine,” I say. “Leave me. I’ll just stay here, do turns, and finally get my hip low enough.”
Eva squints at the slope below, where a fenced-off lane is set with a string of red and blue gates. Bright-colored race suits flicker between them, coaches clustered at the side with radios.
“Speaking of crazies,” she says. “Is that a training thing?”
“Yeah,” I say, my heart giving a small, stupid hop. “That’s one of the GS sets. Teams book lanes up here. Look, you can see the coaches shouting at them.”
“Do you think your boy is in there?” Anna asks. “The sad, hot Austrian.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But these are some juniors; the whole hill is packed with training groups of all levels at this hour.”
***
By late morning, the light has softened, and the cold has crept up through my boots. We duck into the Steieralm, a cozy chalet packed with other skiers, fogging up the glass as we push the door open. The air inside is a blast of heat and smells—coffee, fried onions, something sweet and doughy.
We squeeze onto a wooden bench by the window, helmets on the sill, gloves spread over the radiator. Steam curls from the mugs when they arrive: tea for Anna and me, hot chocolate with extra whipped cream for Eva.
Eva spoons cream straight into her mouth and nods toward the window. From here, we can see one of the training lanes clearly: red and blue gates marching down the hill, a racer coming through them with that precise, snappy rhythm I can feel in my own knees.
“Okay,” she says, “now I get why you dragged us here. That looks terrifying even from inside.”
Anna takes a careful sip of her tea. “The speed is terrifying,” she says. “The thighs I fully respect.”
I wrap my hands around my mug, letting the heat sink into my fingers, and watch the racer finish the course, skis skidding a little as they brake at the bottom.
“That’s probably a B team,” I say. “The World Cup guys usually go earlier. Less traffic.”
“Speaking of the World Cup,” Eva says. “If your sad, hot Austrian is out there somewhere, we need to discuss strategy.”
I blink. “Strategy?”
“Yes,” she says patiently. “We didn’t come all this way for you to stare at him from behind a fence and then go home to your race videos. What’s the plan?”
Anna leans in, eyes bright. “Imagine,” she says, “you’re in the hut, he comes in, he stands right there.” She taps the floor by the bar. “Helmet hair, race suit, tragic eyes because of his last races. What do you do?”
“Order another coffee and pretend I’ve never seen him on TV,” I say.
Eva rolls her eyes. “Wrong answer. Correct answer is: ask for a selfie, then accidentally sit on his lap.”
“I’m not sitting on anyone’s lap,” I say, grinning. “I have some dignity left. I’ll at least buy him a beer first.”
Anna snorts into her tea. “Okay, no lap. Yet. But you should at least get a picture. You’re a fan, it’s allowed. Once-in-a-lifetime content.”
“Oh, I know it’s allowed,” I say. “I also know he probably takes a hundred selfies a day. I’d be, like, fan number 5,206. He’d forget about it before we even got back to the apartment.”
Eva gives me a look that says she’s not buying it. “You,” she says, “are finally single on a ski trip in Austria. This is literally the moment for reckless decisions.”
“I am making reckless decisions,” I protest. “I’m timing my own runs with an expensive app. I’m sharpening my own skis. I booked this whole holiday without asking anyone’s permission.”
“Exactly,” Anna says, smiling. “You’re unhinged. Wild. I like this version of you.”
The word unhinged makes me laugh, but it also pokes at something sore.
For years, I’ve been the girl hovering at the edge of a group while Peter lit up the room, his hand on my waist like I was part of the furniture.
The night he joked about me “always looking like I just took a helmet off,” and everyone howled.
And I laughed too, because what else do you do when you’re the punchline?
“Imagine hooking up with your favorite racer,” Eva says, oblivious to the little bruise forming in my chest. “Snowstorm, stuck in a hut, you, him, his tragic season. I would absolutely volunteer as a consolation prize.”
“Oh, in my head I’ve already done unspeakable things to him, or other hot guys that we might meet here,” I say dryly. “But in real life? Please. I can’t even ask for extra ketchup. I’m definitely going to ask a world champ for his dick.”
They both choke on their drinks, then burst out laughing. Eva actually has to put her mug down to wipe tears from her eyes.
“Oh my God,” she wheezes. “There she is. My girl.”
Anna leans against my shoulder, still laughing. “You say you’re not wild,” she says. “Listen to yourself.”
I laugh with them, because it’s easier, because their joy is warm and loud, and I don’t want to spoil it by admitting my chest feels hollow for a second at the memory of those nights.
Anna’s laughter tapers off into a smile. “Seriously, though,” she says softly. “I love seeing you like this. Booking trips, talking about your races, making filthy jokes about ski gods. You were so… careful before.”
“Careful and miserable,” Eva adds. “Leaving that asshole was the best thing you ever did. I still want to send him a fruit basket that says Thank You For Fucking Off.”
“Please don’t,” I say, but I’m smiling, the hollow spot in my chest filling with something warmer. “He’d probably post it on Instagram.”
“Then we’ll send it to you instead,” Anna says. “Congratulations, you are now the main character of your own holiday.”
“Exactly,” Eva says, lifting her mug in a mock toast. “To Zlata: unhinged, wild, and definitely getting at least a selfie with her sad, hot Austrian.”
I clink my cup against theirs, the porcelain ringing softly. I still don’t believe I’ll do more than watch from a distance if I see any of my ski heroes, but for a moment, with my friends’ eyes on me and the mountains outside the window, the idea doesn’t feel completely impossible.
***
By the time we’ve done a few more laps, the morning crowds have thickened, and the snow around the base station is turning into gray soup.
We stop by the big piste map again, skis planted, helmets pushed back, breath puffing in little clouds. Eva squints up at the colored lines like she’s reading a legal contract.
“Okay,” she says, stabbing at the board with her pole. “We have now officially survived Reiteralm. I vote we go over to Planai and tick that one off too. It’s on all the posters in the hotel. I want my tourist photo.”
“Of the finish slope,” Anna adds. “So we can lie to people later and pretend we raced it.”
“You barely survived the last red,” I say. “And now you want to ski the Night Race hill.”
“Not race it,” Eva corrects. “Glide gently down it and then sit in a bar at the bottom. Very different strategy.”
She traces the connecting lifts with the tip of her pole. “Look, it’s easy. This lift, then that one, then we’re there. You can stay here with your fellow lunatics and do…” She gestures vaguely at the training lanes. “Whatever this is.”
“Serious skiing,” I say, but I’m smiling.
Anna looks between the map and me. “You don’t mind?” she asks. “Leaving you here?”
“Mind?” I laugh. “You two go play tourist. I’ll stay and actually get some good runs in. We meet back at the ski bus at, what, four?”
“Four,” Eva agrees immediately. “If we survive.”
“You will,” I say. “Just don’t follow locals into anything marked ‘experts only.’ And if you get lost, send me a selfie with a piste marker, I’ll guide you home.”
Eva groans. “Miss Race Skis is now our mountain call center.”
“You’re the one who booked a holiday with Miss Race Skis,” I say. “You knew what you were signing up for.”
She laughs and bumps her shoulder into mine. “We did. And we’re still very proud of ourselves. But we also want Schlager music and Aperol in Planai.”
Anna pats my arm through my jacket. “Honestly, we can’t keep up with you anyway,” she says. “You look happiest when you forget we exist and disappear down the hill.”
“That’s not true,” I protest automatically, but the little sting that comes with it doesn’t hurt. It feels… right. Seen.
She raises an eyebrow.
“Fine,” I concede. “Partly true.”
“See?” Eva says. “So everybody wins. You get to terrorize the black slopes, we get to cosplay as World Cup fans in Schladming. We’ll text you when we’re safely at a bar.”
“Deal,” I say. “Go, go. Before I change my mind and start drilling you.”
They clatter off toward the connecting lift, waving their poles, already arguing about which route to take. I watch them for a moment, two bright blobs in the crowd, and then they’re gone—swallowed up by the Thursday skiers and the lift queues.
Silence settles over me in a way it never does in a city. Not actual silence—the bullwheel still hums, kids still shout, snowboards still scrape—but everything feels clearer, like somebody turned down the background noise in my head.
This is my mountain now—my day.
I click into my bindings again, push off toward the lift I want, and let the familiar glide take over. No discussion, no compromise, no pretending I’m fine on blue slopes when my legs are itching for speed. Just me and whatever routes I feel like stringing together.
On the next chair up, I have the whole bench to myself.
My skis hang straight down, tips bobbing gently above the snow-covered trees.
Below, the Thursday crowd is thin—no weekend chaos yet, just a few scattered groups and, higher up, those straight, clean tracks where racers have already bitten into the slope and left their lines.
I mentally plot my next few runs: one more on the rolling red, then the steeper section under the training lanes, maybe a detour onto that black if it doesn’t look like a war zone. Long turns, clean pressure, no tourists to dodge. Heaven.
Of course, once my plan is set, my brain immediately betrays me by offering up an image of the sad, hot Austrian, Fabio Baier, on this same chair, boots knocking against mine, race suit under his jacket, that focused frown he gets in inspection photos.
I huff out a laugh at myself, breath fogging the cold air.
“Calm down,” I mutter. “He’s got better things to do than share a lift with you.”
Still, the thought unspools. What if he were here?
What if I saw that golden helmet with the sponsor stickers in the hut later, or at the bottom of a lane—would I actually walk up and ask for more than a selfie like Eva says?
Stand in front of him, phone in hand, while he does that polite smile I’ve seen a hundred times on other people’s feeds?
Would I ask for more? How does one even do that?
They say famous athletes have girls lined up for their beds. But how do you even become that girl—do you actually just walk up and ask for sex?
My stomach swoops, half thrill, half dread.
An image flashes across my mind, quick and bright and ridiculous: me, pressed up against some anonymous wooden wall with a race suit under my hands instead of my usual anonymous fantasies with faceless hot guys. My cheeks burn under my buff, but I don’t look away from the slope.
“Sure,” I tell myself dryly. “You can’t even ask for extra ketchup. You’re definitely going to ask a world champ for his dick.”
The thought should make me cringe. Instead, it makes me grin.
Because under all the self-mockery, there’s something else there too—a small, stubborn spark that wasn’t there a year ago. Not a plan, not even a real intention. Just the quiet, shocking realization that if a moment ever came where I could ask for more than a selfie, I might actually want to.
Because for the first time in forever, I’m not somebody’s plus-one on this mountain. I’m just me.