Chapter 14
Shadows At Home, Shadows On the Slope
Playlist:
Imagine Dragons: Demons
Elaine Paige, Barbara Dickson: I Know Him So Well
Kitzbühel, Austria, March 10
Thomas
The living room feels too still, too big. Afternoon light cuts across the floorboards, throwing sharp rectangles onto the rug. The television hums like it’s the only pulse in the house.
Kranjska Gora. The course I owned last year, the course Luca Kostner owned five times in a row before that. The commentators keep repeating it—Luca, the legend, the standard. “And only Thomas Kern has matched that performance in the steep since.”
They don’t mean it as pressure. But it lands like pressure anyway.
I lean back on the couch, legs stretched, watching the replays. Some new kid from Austria nails the crisp, fluid, fearless second run. The crowd roars, the flags wave, and Austrian fans in the stadium and in the TV studio are happy. For a moment, I am too.
Then the camera cuts to Niko. My stomach clenches.
First run leader. Pure aggression, perfect split. Then, the second run, third gate. And he′s gone. Out of the course, out of the race. He sits in the snow, helmet in his hands, face hidden. Too much pressure, too soon. The commentator says it aloud, the way they always do: he didn’t stand up to it.
I know the sting.
The camera swings again, and there she is—Katharina—kneeling beside him, hand on his shoulder, voice low and steady. Not for the cameras. For him. She always knows how to thread words that soften a cut.
My chest tightens. Guilt digs in, sharp and merciless. I should have been there. Leader, mentor, golden boy… whatever they want to call me. Instead, I’m hiding in Kitzbühel, pretending a three-day break will fix me.
I kill the screen. Silence drops, heavy.
Rudi, my mental coach, in ten minutes. He’s known my head longer than most teammates. I tell myself I’ll be honest. I already know I won’t.
The laptop glows to life, camera on. My face looks pale in the box, hair sticking up, eyes still red from too little sleep.
The laptop wakes; the camera makes me look pale and puffy-eyed.
“Thomas!” Rudi booms. His lips move; my speakers don’t. I curse, toggle a setting; his voice comes back twice as loud.
“There you are. You look like hell.”
“Nice to see you, too.”
We circle the obvious. I say fine; he doesn’t buy it. Lukas’s crash rattled me. I stopped by Innsbruck, joked about nurses; he laughed, but seeing him strapped in steel hurt.
Rudi nods. “That would shake anyone. What else?”
I freeze. He’s not here to analyze me, not here to dig. His job is to keep me functioning, not strip me bare. Still, he sees something in my face.
“What else, Thomas?”
I deflect. Olympic pressure. The weight of expectation. The circus, the sponsors, the endless questions. I say the words fast enough to sound convincing. He listens, but his eyes narrow.
We circle, again and again, until I finally hear myself say it: “I got involved. I had an affair with our media coordinator. I… got too deep. It distracted me. Now I struggle to get back on track. But, I just need time, I guess.”
Rudi doesn’t argue. He just breathes out through his nose, slow, measured. Then he says one word, soft, almost lost to the static:
“Interesting.”
And that’s all. No lecture. No comfort. Just a word that tells me I may have missed the point.
But I end the call lighter anyway, convinced I’ve drawn a clean line.
No more distractions.
Just me. Just the snow.
***
Hinterstoder, Austria, March 17
Katharina
The Hannes-Trinkl-Strecke isn’t forgiving. It twists down the mountain like a blade, brutal in the compressions, demanding in every turn. Thomas used to eat it alive. Easy. Almost casual, like gravity bent for him alone.
Not today.
I watch his training run from the side fence, no laptop, just my little loyal notebook and my phone.
He doesn’t crash. Doesn’t even make a big mistake. He just… skis out. Mid-course, after a section where he would normally slice through without blinking, he eases off. The line dies. He lifts, drifts to the side, and stops. No fight, no fury, no Thomas.
The break didn’t fix him. If anything, it hollowed him out.
Being the best isn’t about winning once or twice. It’s the weight of having to do it again. Every week. Every hill. That’s what broke the last champion in the end. Luca Kostner from Italy used to be the greatest skier the circus has seen, but he retired too soon.
We all knew his success came from obsession, that feverish perfection that burned him up from the inside. Kostner was admirable, but Thomas was different. Thomas was ease, lightness, and fun until now.
Now the ease is gone.
And what can I do with that? Nothing. He won’t let me close anymore. Before, even when we weren’t together, I could still talk to him like a friend. Now it feels like we were never friends at all. Just teammates, just bedmates, just another secret that doesn’t survive daylight.
I tuck my notebook in my inside pocket, click into my skis, and head for the mix zone.
The guys line up under the sponsor walls, helmets in hand, faces pink from cold and frustration.
Martin, at least, salvaged a tenth. He’s charming enough to play it off, joke with the Germans about wax and weather.
Niko, though, got a DNF again. He stares at the slush under his boots, scowling, short with the journalists.
The kid’s lost his spark, and they’re circling.
Then Thomas steps up, still in bib, jaw locked, hair damp against his forehead. For three questions, he plays along. Measured, clipped, half a smile here and there. Then one reporter leans in, voice pitched to cut.
“Thomas, are we watching the post-Olympic slump in real time? You haven’t been yourself since Garmisch. Is this the start of the fall?”
I see his shoulders stiffen, see the retort ready in his mouth. Too sharp. Too reckless. I cut in before he detonates.
“Thomas has already explained,” I say smoothly, stepping forward. My voice is steady, warm, but firm. “It’s training. Everyone tests the line, everyone skis out. You’ll see the full run when it matters.”
The man smirks. “Of course. Training. Like in Garmisch, like in Kranjska. Maybe you’re just too close to comment, Katharina. You’re not his girlfriend anymore, are you?”
The air in the pen turns brittle, sharp. Cameras swing, microphones tilt. The other racers freeze, pretending not to listen.
Thomas bristles. His eyes flash and his voice drops low: “Watch yourself.”
I cut him off with a smile that isn’t a smile. “This is not relevant,” I say crisply. “We’ll stick to race questions,” I say. “If anyone wants gossip, I’ll end this interview.”
The reporter hesitates, weighing it, then mutters something about pressure and form. The moment passes, if only just.
I thank the press, redirect Martin toward the TV cameras, and usher Niko to the side before he combusts. Thomas is still glaring, heat rising off him like steam. I don’t meet his eyes.
I finish the job, hand off the last quotes, and when it’s done, I walk away without looking back.
We don’t talk. We don’t fight.
We just pretend.
The mountain is almost empty when I click into my skis. Early light drapes the Hannes-Trinkl-Strecke in pink and gold, the air sharp enough to sting my lungs. No crowd, no bibs, no radio static. Just the hiss of edges carving clean arcs into untouched surface.
For a few minutes, I’m not the federation’s media coordinator.
Not the woman with answers, with statements, with a hundred hungry microphones waiting to tear into me.
I’m just a skier again. The girl who used to sneak out for first chair, chasing turns before school.
My thighs burn, my cheeks numb, and for once, that’s all it is.
I stop at my favourite chalet near the base.
It is high enough up the slope to feel safe from the media turmoil down there, low enough to get the view of the magnificent mountain above me.
I unclip my ski boots, get a coffee from the bar, and carry it to the table.
The terrace is completely empty at the moment, and this bar is the only place open this early.
I sit down, lean back, close my eyes, and smell the coffee. Steam curls against the morning cold, the bitter smell grounding me more than the caffeine.
For a moment, I let myself pretend it’s simple. Just slopes and coffee. Just work and play, each in their box.
But it isn’t. Not anymore.
My heart hasn’t caught up with my head. I still feel him in the air, in the silence after the cheering stops, in the way my body tenses whenever someone says his name. And every time I step into the mix zone, I know the line between my job and my feelings is thinner than ice in April.
I sip, watching the sun climb higher over the ridge. Once, it was clear: athletes raced, I wrote. Distance was natural. Professional. Safe.
Now? The line’s blurred, and I’m the one who crossed it.
And no matter how calm the mountain feels at this hour, I know the chaos is coming.
Down the hill, the day is already sharpening its knives.
***
Thomas
The roar at the finish swallows me whole. Buzzing fans, waving flags, Austrian red and white in every direction. The clock flashes green by a breath — barely half a tenth. Enough to win. Enough to keep Matteo Bellini in second.
The team piles in, fists and arms, grins splitting their faces. I raise my poles, throw the practiced smile for the cameras, let them hoist me half off my feet. Winning. The thing I’ve been bred to do.
But it feels… hollow.
On the podium, champagne sprays, medals press cold against my chest. Matteo’s smirk is as wide as ever; the crowd adores it. The anthem rises, and for a moment I try to sink into it, let it fill me. It doesn’t. My head is already somewhere else.
Back to what winning used to mean. Back to her hands, dragging the medal from my neck, her laugh in my ear, her mouth claiming me like it was part of the prize. Winning used to be about her. Our deal. Our fire.