Chapter 16
The Scratch That Stayed
Playlist:
Bryan Adams: Nothing I Have Ever Known
Take That: I′d Wait For Life
Kitzbühel, Austria, May 1
Thomas
The flat is too quiet. Rehab gear leans in a crooked stack by the wall: elastic bands, foam rollers, and a balance board I still hate.
The table is cluttered with unopened mail, half-squashed nutrition bars, and one thing that doesn’t belong—her book on sports marketing, face-up.
I am not a reader and couldn′t care less about sports marketing.
And I sure as hell should not have fallen for a girl who writes books.
But just one look at the book and it makes me work harder. Perhaps so that I deserve her.
Though I kind of know now, winning is not the key, not to us, not to our fairy-tale ending.
I move through the room stiffly, each step reminding me I’m walking better, but not right. The limp lingers. It will probably stay with me for the rest of my life.
But that′s fine. I can limp while walking, as long as I can ski. That′s our life, ski racers′ life. Perverted but necessary.
The calendar on the fridge catches my eye. A red marker slashed across the Solden weekend, when I should’ve been racing. I almost hear the gates rattling, the cowbells clanging. Instead, silence.
At least Lukas and I had a drink last night. Light, just enough to take the edge off. He’s hobbling too, and we laughed about it; two broken bodies clinking glasses. Better than sitting alone. But we couldn't have drunk too hard; we need to recover.
Recovery is recovery.
I chuckle under my breath, dry. My own line, parroted by physios and doctors. I remember the day I said it to Niko, referring to my supposed one-night stand.
To the moment when Kat was just a one-night stand without a name.
It still hurts remembering our past. Complicates stuff, makes me think.
I hate thinking, it fucking hurts.
Katharina and I… we text. Short, neutral. A joke here, a reminder there. Nothing more. But it’s something. More than I deserve after how I treated her before my crash.
A knock. Sharp.
I freeze. No one knocks here. Leitner barges, Lukas shouts up the stairs. The knock comes again.
I hesitate. My heart does something my knee can’t—jolts, stutters, refuses to move smoothly.
When I open the door, it’s her.
***
Katharina
The door closes behind me, and for a moment I just stand there, coat still on, eyes skimming the room. Rehab gear stacked by the wall. Nutrition bars scattered across the table beside a pile of unopened mail. No photos. No softness. Just function.
"This place looks like you fired your physio and your cleaner."
Thomas leans on a chair, mouth twitching like he might smile. "Only one of those is true."
I step further in, slow, the space foreign under my boots.
I've never been here before, yet I feel the pull to move as if I had.
My eyes land on the book, my book, face-up on the cluttered table.
A knot pulls in my chest. He doesn't read.
He wouldn't keep this out unless he wanted to see it every day.
"I figured a little education never harmed anyone," he says, catching my gaze too quickly, the joke too thin.
I smile but say nothing. Some things don't need to be called out.
The silence scratches. I move toward the kitchen. Open the wrong cupboard, then the next, until I find the cups. The machine hisses too loud as I make coffee, my motions rehearsed, not natural. Pretending I've done this a thousand times, when it's really the first.
The fridge door yawns open as I search for milk. A familiar green label catches my eye. My favorite wine. I pull it out, turn it in my hand.
"Seriously?"
He only shrugs. No defense.
"I always had you for a beer guy," I add, putting the wine back into the fridge.
His mouth twitches, caught. "What do you want me to say, Kat?" His voice has that edge that's half-defensive, half-pleading — like he knows I noticed, and he doesn't want it shoved down his throat.
We sit at the table with our coffees, steam curling between us. Conversation comes in fits, polite, halting.
Finally, I clear my throat. "Sponsors asked me to check in. Make sure you're still aligned for spring commitments."
The excuse hovers in the air. True, but not the reason I came.
He knows it. I know it. Neither of us says it.
The coffee cools untouched, and the silence stretches, too raw for strangers, too brittle for whatever we were.
"I brought you something," I say, and get up to bring the long, black bag he must have noticed but didn't ask about.
I kneel, tug the zipper down, teeth rasping as the bag yawns open. The smell of resin and wax seeps out, sharp and clean.
Inside, wrapped in soft cloth, lies the prototype. The sponsor's tribute. A ski custom-cut, edges gleaming, the design sharp enough to cut skin.
Thomas leans forward, curiosity flickering despite himself. I slide the ski out and lay it across the table.
"If you agree, they'll start selling it. With your signatures, of course," I explain.
He picks it up, turning it in his hands. The graphics slash across the surface — angles, speed, a frozen image of him mid-flight. Heroic. Untouchable.
But then his eyes catch on it. The flaw. A small scratch, barely visible, right where the surface of another ski had split in the depot that night.
The night everything changed.
His fingers brush over it. The silence thickens, heavy with everything that mark carries.
"I told them to make it," I say quietly. "Said that it has emotional value for you."
His head lifts, eyes dark. The words hang there between us, sharp as the edge of the ski.
"It does, doesn't it?" I ask, almost pleading as he remains silent.
And just like that, the crack in the dam appears.
***
Thomas
Our hands brush as I lower the ski back onto the table. Her fingers catch mine for half a breath, not enough to call it a touch, but enough to freeze the air between us.
I look at her. Really look. The shadows under her eyes. The line of her mouth, soft but tense. The way she holds herself, like she’s bracing for impact.
“I thought you wouldn’t come,” I say, voice rougher than I mean it to be.
She swallows, eyes flicking away, then back.
“I told myself I wouldn’t,” she says, voice low. “But I wanted to. That’s why I’m here.”
Silence. Long enough for the hum of the fridge to fill it.
And then something shifts. No declarations. No apologies. Just the two of us, too tired to pretend anymore.
I lean in, slow, not sure until the last second if she’ll let me. She does.
The kiss is tired, gentle, honest. Not fireworks. Not hunger. Just us.
Not a reunion out of habit. A choice.
Later, we end up on the floor. A bottle of wine half-empty between us, a plate of cheese and bread picked over. The ski leans against the wall, a silent totem watching us.
No racing talk. No press talk. Just small things; Stories, quiet laughter, the kind of words that never make headlines but keep people alive.
She leans her head on my shoulder, and I feel steady for the first time in months.
She traces the rim of her glass. “This doesn’t erase the mess. The rivalry, the circus, the things we never said. It’s all still there.” Her eyes lift to mine. “But so am I.”
Good with words as always.
“I′m still me, I′m sorry,” I shrug.
“I′ll take it.”
She smiles faintly and brushes her fingers across my cheek.
Her gaze flicks to the ski, the faint scratch catching the light.
“It stayed,” she murmurs. “So did we.”