Epilogue #2
“Yeah.” He tips his head toward the hill. “You can see it in your upper body. You get a little tight. Breathe after the delay gate, then attack again. Don’t try to fix it all in one turn. Let them stack.”
One gate at a time.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Breathe. Stack. Got it.”
He takes a sip of his own tea, grimaces, and sets it in the snow. “Mentally,” he adds, “you’re still skiing like you’re apologizing for being here.”
I flinch, even though he keeps his tone light.
“I am apologizing,” I say. “In my head. To… everyone.” The words feel stupid out loud, but this is why I pay for therapy.
Might as well use the practice elsewhere.
“I’m scared of looking like an idiot. Of failing, and you and Max thinking this was a waste of a day.
Of…” I wave my cup vaguely. “Existing too loudly in front of people who actually know how to ski.”
He doesn’t answer immediately. When I force myself to meet his eyes, they’re softer than I expect.
“You’re allowed to ski like you’re the fastest one here,” he says. “Nobody can see inside your head. They only see what your skis do.”
I snort. “Unless I cry at the finish.”
“Then they’ll think you care,” he shrugs. “Most people here know what that feels like. No one thinks you’re stupid for trying.” He pauses, then adds, quieter, “And I definitely don’t.”
Something in my chest loosens a notch I didn’t know was still tight. I look down at my hands wrapped around the plastic cup, at the little tremor still buzzing under my skin.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll… try to ski like a maniac then.”
“Please don’t ski like a maniac,” he says. “Ski like you do in training when nobody watches. That’s enough.”
He shifts on the bench, turning toward me, and for a moment his hand hovers in the air like he’s not sure what he’s allowed to do. Then he cups the back of my head, fingers slipping into damp hair, and leans in to kiss my forehead.
It’s a small kiss. Warm and brief, right at the point where my helmet usually presses.
It hits harder than any podium make-out ever could.
Hook-ups don’t get forehead kisses on a bench between runs at a Masters race. Girlfriends do. Partners do. People you plan races and summers with do.
I close my eyes for a second, let my head rest against his hand, and feel the panic and joy and terror and pride swirl together into something I can stand on.
“Second run,” he murmurs. “One gate at a time. You’ve got this, Golden Girl.”
***
FABIO
Second run, I’m more nervous than I was all two weeks ago in Courchevel.
Not for me. For her.
From my spot by the fence halfway down the course, I can see maybe twelve gates and a lot of nervous Masters dads trying to impress each other.
The snow’s gone from firm to porridge in the time between her first run and now.
Ruts everywhere, soft piles that will happily grab a ski and spit you out in front of your friends.
The starter’s voice floats down—numbers, names, categories. Kids, old guys, one woman in a suit so bright I need sunglasses. I know Zlata’s bib by heart. When “seven” goes into the gate, my heart rate jumps like I’m back in a World Cup start.
I can’t see her face from here, just the outline of her body above the wand.
Even at this distance, I can tell she’s doing the little shoulder roll she does when she’s trying to shake off nerves.
I know exactly what’s in her head. Half standard race panic, half “don’t make an idiot of yourself in front of Fabio. ”
The beeps hit. She pushes.
The top gates I can’t see at all, just the occasional flash of her helmet between trees. Then she drops into my field of vision, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
She’s higher than the first run. Cleaner. Not guarding.
“One gate at a time,” I mutter under my breath, as if she can hear me. Maybe she can. Sometimes it feels like she has a wire straight from my brain to her skis.
There’s a nasty little rippled patch just above where I’m standing, where everyone today has either gone too straight and panicked, or too round and bled speed. First run, she’d done the cautious version—round, a bit defensive, the way you ski when you don’t quite believe you belong.
This time, she goes for something in between. For a second, it looks like too much. The outside ski hooks in the rut, bounces. Her hip drops, and her inside hand reaches.
Come on.
I see the moment she could back off, play safe, settle for “clean.” She doesn’t. She takes the hit, breathes, and stacks the next turn on top instead of trying to fix everything at once. It’s not pretty, but it’s committed. I hear someone next to me suck in air through their teeth. I grin.
“Yes,” I say to nobody. “That’s it.”
She disappears over the next drop, into the lower part of the course, and I lose her in the maze of B-net and people. The speakers are too quiet down here to hear her name called at the finish. I have to wait for the little board at the bottom to update.
Those ten seconds feel longer than my whole second run in Adelboden.
Then her time pops up. Faster than the first run. Position—ten.
Tenth, in a category that doesn’t make TV, in a race that doesn’t count for any globe.
I don’t give a shit.
I’m already moving, clattering my way down the edge of the hill, skidding around the back of the finish to where the Masters racers slide out, pulling up in soft snow, breathing hard, peering up at the board like it can give them their whole worth in three red digits.
She comes in hot, sprays a little more than necessary. Helmet still on, goggles up, hair plastered to her forehead, cheeks bright with cold and adrenaline. She looks first at the hill, like she can still see the line she took. Then her head turns, searching.
Our eyes lock. Whatever was on her face—panic, self-doubt, that old flinch—is gone. What’s left is tired and wired, a little scared, and absolutely alive.
I forget I’m supposed to be the calm one. I throw my arms up over my head like she just won Kitzbühel.
“Zlata!” I yell, loud enough that a couple of dads look over, and I don't give a damn that their eyes go wide, as I remove my sunglasses, and they realize who's standing next to them. “Racer girl! Yes!”
She laughs, shakes her head at me, but there’s water in her eyes. I don’t know if it’s tears or wind.
She glances up at the board, then properly. I see her read her own name, the number next to it. The little intake of breath when she realizes how much time she just cut from the first run. I can almost hear the calculator in her head comparing it to every beer-league result she’s ever had.
New PB.
She slides over, skis squeaking in the soft snow, and stops so close I could reach out and unbuckle her boots.
“Tenth,” she says, like she’s testing the word. “Out of… what, twelve?”
“Fourteen,” I correct. “And I saw the girls you beat. They’re going to be annoying about it at the bar later.”
She snorts. “You’re insane.”
I shake my head. “New PB, racer girl. That’s a trophy.”
She rolls her eyes, but the way her mouth pulls says she believes me at least halfway. That’s already huge.
I yank my phone out before she can argue, flip to the camera, and take a photo of the little scoreboard where her name and time sit in red. Max appears at my shoulder, peers at the screen, and gives a grunt of satisfaction that means more than any of my words ever could.
“Look at that,” I say, turning the phone so she can see. “Proof. Next time you tell me you’re not a real racer, I’m sending you this.”
“You wouldn’t,” she says.
“I absolutely would,” I say. “I might even print it out and put it on my wall.”
She laughs, then, properly. The sound sits warm in my chest, louder than any stadium I’ve been in this season.
***
Later, after the little prize-giving with medals that look like they came from a toy shop and bottles of local schnapps for the podium, the hill finally starts to empty.
The sun’s gone behind the ridge, the snow is firming up again in the shade, and the parking lot looks even more like a battlefield of damp socks and tired children.
We walk back to the car with our skis on our shoulders, tips bumping gently, boots clunking through the afternoon slush. I carry hers; she tried to protest and lasted about three steps before her racing legs gave up. My own knees are grateful I’m not in plug boots for once.
We look like any other pair heading home from a long day. Two people in too many layers, damp hair under hats, cheeks chapped, half-arguing about a line choice between the second and third gate in the steep.
If I squint, I can already see next year’s version of this. Different hill, different bib number, same stupid grin on my face when she comes through the finish.
She nudges my hip with hers. “So,” she says, breath puffing in the cooling air, “next year I’m aiming for top five.”
I shift the skis on my shoulder, let the weight settle, and glance sideways at her. Her eyes are bright, not with fever or panic or self-destruction, but with something that looks a lot like hunger in the right direction.
“Good,” I say. “And I've got a little trophy for you.”
She laughs. “Like a gift?”
I set her skis on the gravel next to a car, reach into my pocket, and fish out the small black box, then hand it to her.
“Don't worry,” I add with a grin. “It's not a ring, and it's not even diamonds.”
Her eyes narrow with worry, but she takes the box and opens it slowly. The silver earrings I bought in Kitzbühel catch the evening light, and she blinks.
“You got these for me in Kitz,” she says. “And didn't have a chance to give them to me cause I…”
“We both needed the space you got us,” I stop her. I don't want to spoil the moment, but I also mean every word.
“Next year I'll be there, in Kitz,” she says finally. “Cheer for you, be there for you.”
“Great,” I say, cupping her chin and pulling her close. “I'll finally have a proper date for the impossible posh party that follows. My PR will be over himself that I'll bring a decent girlfriend this time.”
She snorts. “Careful. That sounds dangerously like a happily ever after.”
“There’s no such thing,” I remind her. “We’ll fight tooth and nail for this. We’ll screw up. We’ll have bad races and worse days.”
She tilts her head. “But?”
“But,” I say, stroking her cheek with my middle finger, “if walking through slush with you, talking about your tenth place, isn’t a happy ending for today, I don’t know what is.”
She bumps my shoulder again, closer this time. “For today,” she repeats.
“For today,” I agree.
Then I lean over, kiss the side of her head through her beanie, and we keep walking toward the car, two skiers with tired legs, a stupid photo on my phone, and next season already drawing its first line in the snow.