Page 27 of Love Worth Gold
True. Yet incomplete. But safe.
The reporters nodded, scribbled, and moved on. None of them noticed the way her fingers tightened around her poles when the Swiss skier’s name was mentioned.
On the podium, the anthem played. Blaire stood center stage with the gold medal resting heavy against her chest. The two women beside her—silver (German) and bronze (Austrian)—radiated their own versions of joy. Cameras flashed in waves. The crowd roared.
This was the moment she’d trained for. The vindication. The proof that she could still claim the top step when it mattered most.
She lifted her hand in acknowledgment, smiled for the lenses, and felt the victory sit wrong in her chest.
Somewhere in the mass of athletes and staff below, Isaline was watching. Not on the podium. Not holding a medal. Just another racer who’d come close and fallen short by hundredths against someone else’s perfect race.
Blaire’s hand closed around the gold, the metal warming under her palm.
She’d spent twenty years believing this—standing here, anthem in her ears, weight of winning solid against her skin—would fix everything. Prove everything. Make every sacrifice worth it.
It didn’t fix the hollow ache spreading under her ribs. It didn’t erase the memory of Isaline’s time flashing into fourth as her own name claimed first. It didn’t make “one night and one race” feel any less like the lie she’d been telling herself since St. Moritz.
She was ecstatic. She was hollow. Both truths existed at once, and they were knotted so tightly together she couldn’t pull them apart.
The ceremony ended. She descended the steps with her medal still around her neck and found a quiet corner near the athlete exit. Alone for the first time since crossing the finish line, she let her hand close around the gold and felt its weight.
Loving this sport had always meant taking something from someone else.
She just hadn’t expected that ‘someone else’ to be the one person who nearly made winning feel like loss.
Chapter Twelve
Isaline had known Blaire’s run was gold before it finished. Knew it in the first split time that flashed green, in the way the cameras tracked Blaire’s line through the compression, and in the roar of the crowd that built as she hit the final pitch. When Blaire crossed, her name shot to the top. HOLLIS. First place. Gold.
Below Blaire’s name, Isaline watched the rankings reshuffle with brutal efficiency. An Austrian racer’s earlier time claimed bronze. Her name slid from third to fourth.
Fourth!
The cameras panned away from her toward the leader’s chair where Blaire stood, already surrounded by celebration. No one needed footage ofalmost.
Isaline walked toward the mixed zone with her bib half undone and her skis over her shoulder. Reporters found her anyway. The Swiss media found her first, then the international media. She cycled through answers in German, French, and English, hitting every note her media training had drilled into her.
“I’m proud to be here. This is my first Olympic Games, and I’m happy with how I did.”
“The course challenged everyone today. I gave everything I had.”
“Fourth is hard, yes, but the downhill is still coming.”
Isaline had thehow to handle the mediapart down perfectly… Smile. Nod. Thank the team. Mention her father’s support. Redirect to the next race.
Behind the lights, she could see Blaire in the center of her own media scrum, after stepping off the podium with the gold medal around her neck. The American looked composed,gracious, every inch the champion the world expected. Isaline felt no bitterness watching her—just a hollow, physical ache, like missing a step in the dark.
She’d been close enough to touch it. Close enough that fourth felt exponentially worse than tenth ever could. Tenth was anonymous. Fourth was the medal that almost was, the proof she belonged printed next to the reminder that belonging didn’t guarantee taking any hardware home.
When the last microphone dropped and the reporters moved on, Isaline walked out of the mixed zone alone. Her legs felt heavy. Her throat was tight. She had no idea if she wanted to scream, cry, or replay the entire run in her head until she found the missing hundredths that would have changed everything.
On the bus down from the venue, the Swiss team kept the mood respectable. Teammates congratulated each other on strong top-tens, swapped notes about wax and conditions, and made plans for recovery sessions before the downhill. No one pushed Isaline to talk. Someone passed her a water bottle. Someone else briefly touched her shoulder.
That almost made it worse.
Inside the village housing block, she peeled away with a polite “I just need a shower” before anyone could suggest team dinner or video review. Her room was exactly as she’d left it hours earlier. Her bed was made, and the photo of her and her mom was still tucked in the drawer, waiting for the moments she needed to remember someone had believed in her long before she was racing for gold medals in the Olympics.
She dropped onto the mattress still wearing half her race gear, boots unlaced but not off, bib crumpled on the floor. The empty space where a medal should’ve been around her neck felt heavier than any hardware ever had.