Page 37 of Love Worth Gold
From anyone else, that might have been praise. From him, it landed like a tragic diagnosis.
She opened her mouth to defend herself, then closed it. He was right, and they both knew it.
“You backed off in three places where you could have pressed,” he continued with his voice level. “Not because the snow was bad. Not because your line was wrong. Because you chose safety over speed, Isa.”
“I stayed upright.”
“You did.” He leaned back, fingers laced. “And tomorrow, if you ski the same way when it counts, you will finish respectably. You will thank your team in the mixed zone. You will go home knowing you were at the Olympics and didn’t embarrass anyone.”
The words cut cleaner than anger would have.
“Is that what you came here for, though?”
She looked away, and her chest felt heavy. Through the window, she could see flags snapping in the wind. The mountain sat above it all, indifferent and waiting.
Matthias let the silence hold, then spoke again. “Seeing someone crash the way Blaire did today, that shakes you. It should. This sport bites. But if you let today’s fear set tomorrow’s agenda, you will look back on this race and wonder who you might have been if you’d trusted yourself and your talent.”
Isaline swallowed hard. The image of Blaire disappearing into the fence flashed behind her eyes again, but this time her father’s voice in her head threaded through the scene…the arena isn’t just the podium.
“I don’t want to ski scared, Dad,” she said quietly.
“Then don’t.” He reached over and tapped her knee once, firmly. “You know the race you want. You’ve skied it in your head a thousand times. Tomorrow, when you stand in that starting gate, decide if you’re racing to survive or racing to fly.”
He stood and gave her a hug like a dad, not a coach. “Eat. Rest. And remember what it felt like the first time you pointed your skis down a real mountain and didn’t touch the brakes.”
“That’s the best way I know how to ski,” she said as she hugged her dad back. She went back to her dorm, showered, and dressed in team sweats. With her phone glowing in her palm, Isaline sat cross-legged on her bed. The room was quiet except for the distant chatter from another room. Blaire’s name sat near the top of her messages. Their thread was a mix of tactical chatter, teasing, and the unspoken weight of everything between them.
She drafted and deleted several versions of a message. The first was too soft—practically a confession that watching Blaire disappear into the fence had terrified her in a way that had nothing to do with competition. The second was too sharp with anger aimed at Blaire for scaring her. Which wasn’t fairgiven that crashes were part of the deal they’d both signed when they chose this sport. Another tried to pretend she hadn’t been watching at all, which felt like a lie her thumbs refused to send.
Finally, she typed something simple and honest.Saw your flight lesson today. Glad you stuck the landing (eventually). Don’t you dare scratch from the downhill—I still want you in that race, not on the sidelines watching me take the gold. Also, next time you decide to redecorate the safety netting, warn a girl first.
It threaded the needle between concern and challenge, exactly the way they’d always pressed each other on the hill. She hit send before she could second-guess it.
The reply came back sooner than she expected, three dots appearing almost immediately.Was just lying here running that same scene through my head. Bruised, not broken. Takes more than one bad fall to bench me, rookie. I’ll be in that gate, going for gold. You better make me work for it.
A second message followed that was softer around the edges.Thanks for checking. Means more than it should.
Isaline stared at the screen as a dangerous heat spread through her chest. She typed back quickly.Good. I didn’t survive two blown knees just to race America’s second string.
She paused, then added one more line before she lost her nerve.Also… ski your race tomorrow, Goldilocks. Not mine. Not anyone else’s. Yours.
The response was a single word.Deal!
Tomorrow was the downhill. One last race. One last chance to prove she belonged in the arena. Not because of her father’s name or media narratives, but because she’d chosen to show up and fly.
After the text exchange, Isaline crawled under her covers and looked up at the faint pattern of light on the ceiling. Streetlamps filtered through the opening in the curtains, andthe shadows the lights made shifted with the wind. Her father’s words about the arena echoed quietly, braided now with Blaire’s message and the image of her standing after the crash, battered but upright.
She still wanted the medal. She still wanted Blaire. But the thing that settled deepest was simpler. She wanted to ski the way she’d always imagined she would if she ever got this chance—brave, smart, fully present. Not shrinking from the risk because she’d seen how bad it could go.
Her heart still thumped a little too fast when she closed her eyes, but the feeling had shifted. It wasn’t just fear now. It was anticipation and excitement. She accepted that she might fall. She accepted that she might slip into fourth. She refused to let the possibility of either keep her from stepping into the starting gate as herself and going all out for the gold.
Isaline rolled onto her side, pulled the thin blanket up to her shoulders, and let herself imagine—for just a moment—the downhill run of her life, Blaire’s name somewhere on the board beside hers. With that image warming the cold edges of her nerves, she finally drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
Blaire woke with the familiar pre-race nerves in her muscles feeling different now that she knew this was the last Olympic downhill she’d ever race. The bruises from the training crash ached when she sat up. It was a dull reminder of how close she’d come to ending her medal-filled career the wrong way. She went through her routine slower than usual, not out of hesitation, but because every motion felt like a small goodbye: pulling on her base layers, taping the same ankle she’d taped a thousand times, checking her phone one last time before setting it aside.
Isaline’s text from the night before still sat at the top of her thread.Don’t you dare scratch from the downhill—I still want you in that race.