The Winter Games

by Sharp, Dr. Rebecca

  I stopped a few inches from her, so many—too many—emotions fighting inside of me, but they weren’t important right now. What was important was my beautiful sister, standing in front of me, shattered in a way I’d never seen her before.

  She breathed my name again, finally realizing that I was there and that I was real.

  And then she crumbled against me.

  My arms locked around her as sobs wracked her body, her tears drenching my shirt within minutes. I held her, my hand coming up to rub the back of her head as she cried. A new wave of guilt washed over me for leaving her.

  But I hadn’t had a choice.

  I don’t know how long we stood there, but I would have held her for as long as she needed. Channing had always carried too much weight on her shoulders; I’d hoped that by leaving, I wouldn’t have added to it. Instead, I’d come back to find her broken anyway.

  Finally, her cries began to subside, not because the pain had but because all of her strength had been sapped. I felt her pain, through the bond that we shared; I felt every excruciating crack of her heart crumbling inside of her.

  “W-why are you here?” Her voice as wet as my shirt. “W-why d-did you c-come back?” I felt her grip around me loosen as she pulled back to look at me.

  I exhaled deeply, knowing the answers to those questions went far deeper. “C’mon, Lil. Why don’t we sit? You look like you’re about to collapse.” I put my arm around her shaking shoulders and led her towards the couch. Once she was seated, I walked up to the entertainment center, opening the top cabinet, and pulled out my stash of Powers whiskey.

  She watched in exhausted silence as I grabbed two cups and filled them generously with the liquid. “Drink.” She needed to calm down.

  I took a sip, hoping it would incite her to take one as well. Instead, she stared at the liquid in the glass. “Ally called me,” I began, watching as her eyes immediately rose to mine. “She called and told me what you were doing—competing in my name.”

  “I’m sorry…” she whispered as her face turned red.

  I laughed harshly, taking another sip. “Don’t be. I don’t give a shit about that.” I leveled my eyes on her. “I do, however, care about you.”

  “So, you only came back to stop me?” she whispered.

  “Something like that.” I watched the amber liquid shift in my glass as I held it. “I thought I could just show up and withdraw my registration, which is why I came to the house that night looking for my letter and license…” I trailed off knowing the next part was going to hurt her. “But I didn’t find it in time.”

  “So you just wanted to stop me, but without actually seeing or talking to me?”

  I was a fucking asshole.

  “Lil—“

  “No! Why, Chance? Why come back? What did I do to you?” I could see her tears threatening to overtake her again. “Why are you running from me?”

  I didn’t answer, opting to respond with a question of my own. “Why did you enter under my name?”

  “Because I wasn’t invited.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Don’t be smart.”

  Her gaze fell to her glass and she finally took a long sip. “I-I don’t know. At first, I thought it was because you deserved it; you deserved to compete… even if you couldn’t. Then… stuff happened and I realized that maybe I had done it for myself—not because I realistically thought I could win or anything. I thought if I placed it would make up for the Open last year; I thought if I placed I would finally be as good as you; I thought that I should—that I had to—because it was our dream for… as long as I can remember. And I guess, maybe I also thought if I did, you might see and you might come home—that you might forgive me for letting you down.”

  “Fuck, Lil.” I speared my hand through my hair; it was a weird feeling—to have hair to run a hand through—since I’d always kept my hair as short as Emmett’s. “Why the fuck do you think you let me down?”

  “I don’t know. Because I didn’t place at the Open. Because you got hurt. Because I didn’t do enough to help you… to keep you here.”

  I groaned, wiping my hands down the length of my face. This was exactly what I didn’t want to have happen.

  “Channing.” I took control of the conversation using her full name. “First, you didn’t let me down. At all.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  There were a lot of answers to that—many that I was still unwilling to acknowledge—but there was one that I could give her; and it was the one she needed to hear. “You are right. One of the reasons I left was because of you—but,—“ I emphasized, seeing her eyes go wide, “—not because you did something wrong, but because I didn’t want to hold you back.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her expression echoed her sentiments.

  “Lil, when I was in the hospital I realized two things. One was what had happened before I got there and the other was what was going to happen when I left.” I refilled my glass; I was going to need it. “For a long time, maybe forever, it’s always been you and me, learning, riding, competing. And I wouldn’t have traded that for the world, but somewhere buried under our need to push each other has been a sibling rivalry. Not malicious, but no less real. And when I fell, I realized just how much of our lives it had consumed. Now, me, I had no choice; I couldn’t continue even if I wanted. But you, I saw you and I saw you still stuck in a cycle that neither of us knew how to break.”

  Fuck, I hoped I was making sense. The way she looked at me made me feel like I was speaking Greek to her.

  “The mountain is a part of you—a part of me—and that’s not wrong, but it’s also not everything and when I was injured, I realized that it had become everything—especially to you. I realized why I’d been so excited for you to land the triple, only to tell you not to do it in competition. Because you were pushing yourself farther and faster than was safe; I just thank fucking God you weren’t injured worse when you fell. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I asked, frustrated with myself. “Being as good as me, being the best, not letting me down—it’s consumed you. And I don’t judge you because it consumed me, too. So, part of me left because I wanted to break your cycle. If I stayed, you would have tried to continue to best me. I never thought though,” I paused to chuckle, “that if I left you would try to be me.”

  It was moments like this when I felt like there wasn’t enough whiskey in the world to ease the pain inside of me. Emmett would agree.

  “I know what you try to carry—all the jobs, the responsibility, keeping the house together, keeping us assholes in line. How do you think you would have felt going to the mountain every morning to ride with our friends knowing that I couldn’t? Competing knowing that I never will again?” Fucking fuck. Saying it hurt so much fucking more than thinking it had.

  “Guilty.”

  “Exactly.” I downed another mouthful of fire. “And my injury was in no way your fault, but you would have blamed yourself anyway. It would have been just one more thing for you to feel like you’d disappointed me. The mountain… snowboarding… it isn’t everything, Channing. I had to learn that the hard way; I don’t want you to have to.”

  I still hadn’t learned it. But she didn’t need to know that.

  The sadness in her eyes was as deep as the ocean. “I know, Chance,” she whispered. “I figured it out, but I was too late. I found something that meant so much more than the mountain, but, like every other time it seems, I didn’t have enough faith in someone who loves me to believe it.” She bit her lip and I knew she was trying not to cry again. “I should have believed you when you told me that I wasn’t ready to compete with the triple… just like I should have believed Wyatt when he told me that he loved me and that he’d never leave me.”

  Wait, what? Hold the fucking phone. “Wyatt… Olsen?”

  She nodded again. “It’s… a long story.”

  “Yeah,” I scoffed. And I was sure that I didn’t fucking want to hear half of it. “So that’s what Frost was
being so fucking shady about.”

  “Nick?” Her brows furrowed.

  I nodded. “I’ve been staying with him. And don’t—“ I gave her a hard stare, “—give him shit for it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “if you’re upset about Wyatt.”

  “I’m not upset, just protective. How do you know he wasn’t using you to get to me? Or you, posing as me?” I didn’t want her to be fooled. I may have left, but I would protect her at all costs.

  “Because I was the one who had to convince him to be in a… relationship.” I tried not to read into the slight pause. “He insisted on waiting until after the Games because he didn’t want me… or you… to think that.”

  “I see.” There is was again, the completely shattered look on her face.

  “What happened?”

  “Everything. Nothing.” Her self-deprecating laugh killed me. “He told me he loved me and that he wouldn’t leave me. And at the first test, I readily believed that at worst, he was moving back to Canada after the Games, and at best, that he was going to ask me to move with him. Turns out he was moving here… for me. But, I didn’t trust him, so I never pulled out from the Games.”

  “So, you didn’t tell him you were competing as me?”

  She shook her head. “I also had him help me relearn the triple. So now, not only does it look like I was trying to mess with his head just to win, but I also asked him to teach me how to do it.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  She laughed and her head fell back against the back of the couch. “Exactly.”

  “So how are you going to fix it?” Her head snapped back up and she looked at me like I’d just asked her how she was going fly to the moon.

  “I don’t even know if there is a fixing it.”

  “Seriously, Lil?” It was time for some tough love.

  “Yes, Chance!” she yelled. “I hurt him, I betrayed him. I didn’t use him, but he thinks that I did.”

  “Woah, woah, woah.” I held up my hands. “I don’t need to, nor do I want to know all of the details here, but there is only one thing that I need to know: do you love him?”

  Her head cocked to the side, looking at me with a face that said, ‘does a bear shit in the woods?’

  “Yes.” She let out a small laugh. “Yes, I do. I love him.”

  “Did you give up snowboarding the first time that you fell? How about the millionth time? Did you give up the first time you lost a competition? Or the time you bailed at the Open? How about the first time you got hurt? Or the tenth?” Now, I just took a swig from the bottle. “No. The answer is always and emphatically ‘no.’ We don’t give up when we fall, Lil; we get back up. We don’t ever give up on something or someone that we love.”

  Unless life forces us to—but that was my fucked-up story, not hers. What I told her was the truth—it just wasn’t a universal truth.

  A smack on the back of her head would have been just as effective and much less painful, in my opinion, but I did this for her.

  “So, what are you going to do about it?” I asked again. “How are you going to fix it?”

  She gnawed on her lip, staring at the black screen of the TV that wasn’t on. She sat there for minutes on end and I could see scenarios, plans, ideas flitting through her mind like snowflakes flying on the breeze. But I waited. I waited because I owed her this. I didn’t regret leaving; part of me regretted coming back. But none of me regretted helping my sister pursue a love that was her own.

  Finally, her head turned and her blue eyes met mine.

  Finally, she responded. Her tone that of dazed revelation, she said simply, “I’m going to fall for him.”

  WHAT THE FUCK. I PUSHED mindlessly through the crowd, heading for the parking lot.

  What was she thinking? What had I done?

  “Wyatt! Where have you been?” Zack ran up behind me and clapped his arm around my shoulder. “Mom and dad have been looking for you!”

  I kept walking towards the Range Rover. “I’m heading back to the condo.”

  “Wait, what? Don’t you want to celebrate? You ran fucking amazing out there, bro! You’re totally going to take both events tomorrow.” Zack laughed with excitement. We’d come a long way since our destructively competitive days. “What the hell is wrong?”

  “I’m a fucking asshole, that’s what’s wrong.” How could I have used her hurt against her? Yeah, she didn’t tell me what happened with Chance and yeah, I was confronting her about it but she still told me, regardless of how we got there. She told me about her pain and I threw it back at her because of mine.

  Zack stopped—but I didn’t, so he jogged to catch back up with me. “What are you talking about?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” When I looked at him, I saw Ally trailing a few steps behind us. “Ask your girl back there; I’m sure she does.” Zack glanced over at her.

  “Oh, no. Did she tell you?” Her soft voice drifted up to me.

  My jaw tightened. “She didn’t have to. I’ve spent hours out on the slopes with her; I know the way her body moves on the snow, over the jumps. No amount of snow gear is going to hide that from me.”

  Zack’s head jerked back and forth several times. “Wait… are you saying… Holy fucking shit. That was Channing out there?” He continued to look between us. “She signed up and is competing as her brother?” He at least had the decency to remain shocked; anything else might have tempted me to punch him if for no other reason than as an outlet for my frustration. “How? How do you even do that? What happened to Chance?”

  I laughed harshly. “Chance was never here. He was never competing; it was always her.”

  “Zack,” Ally caught up to us, “can I talk to Wyatt for a minute?”

  I groaned. I just wanted to get out of here and figure my shit out—and not have to deal with any Ryders.

  Zack looked between the two of us. “Ahh… sure. Guess I’ll just go let mom know that you’re heading back to rest for tomorrow.” And then to Ally, he said, “Text me, babe.”

  “Ally, I’m not trying to be a dick, but I’m not in the mood.” I hit the button to open the trunk of the SUV, waiting impatiently to be able to pack my gear inside and get out of here.

  “I’m… sure.” Her arms hugged herself nervously.

  Fuck. “Alright, what do you want to ask me?” I just wanted to get this over with. I slid my board into the back, before looking to her for her response.

  “The only important question. Do you love her like you said you did?” Damn, those blue eyes of hers only made me think of Channing.

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation, no doubt, no anger. Only ‘yes.’

  “Ok, then that’s all I need to know.” I shut the trunk, watching as she turned to walk away.

  “That’s it?” I was floored. I was expecting a whole conversation.

  She glanced back to me. “I only needed to know how you felt; you’re the one who has to figure out what to do about it.” And with that, she walked away, pulling her phone out of her pocket, probably to text my brother.

  I hit the radio button to turn the music off as soon as the car started; I needed silence. Pulling through the lot, I saw Ally at the edge of the cars. I almost stopped because she looked irate and was yelling at someone, but as I moved forward, I saw that it was Emmett whom she was yelling at.

  Channing had lied to me. She’d used me. She’d kept herself from me.

  It all sucked and it fucking pissed me off, but that wasn’t what hurt.

  What hurt was that she’d done it all because she was too afraid to trust that I loved her—that I would support her and wouldn’t leave her.

  And what had I done?

  At this first instance, this first test, I made her feel like shit for it and left; I proved her right.

  I could tell myself a thousand times that I was in the right, that I had no reason to feel guilty about how I felt or what I’d said, but that would be a thousand more lies to add onto her one.

  I
didn’t give a fuck that she was competing as her brother; I wouldn’t have given a fuck even if she won as him. I finally found something that mattered more to me than the damn competitions and that was the only thing I was fighting to win—her.

  Wanting something quick and easy, I stopped and picked up a sub on my way home, knowing there was no food at the condo.

  Ally had asked the only important question with the most important answer: I loved her.

  I loved her.

  It blew through every part of my body as I turned the car off and walked into the condo.

  I saw how truly afraid she was that I was going to leave her, which meant that the only way to prove to her that I loved her was to show her now that I wasn’t. No matter how angry and hurt I was, I wasn’t going to leave her or give up on her.

  I took my sandwich up to my room, groaning as I peeled out of my coldgear.

  I remembered one time when Zack and I were young, and my mom made spaghetti and meatballs one Sunday. I’m sure that we’d had it before, but I didn’t remember any time before that day; that Sunday, it tasted like it had come from heaven. We’d laughed, talked, played some games, and both cleaned our plates. Then, the following Saturday, we’d run up to her and asked, “we’re going to have spaghetti and meatballs again tomorrow, right?” The expectation had been built. It wasn’t just the food—it was family time, the conversation, the happiness, the delight—every event and emotion had coalesced into what seemed like a simple meal. One meal, one night, was all it took as we stood there unwilling to take no for an answer. From that day forward, until I started traveling so much for practice and competitions, we ate spaghetti and meatballs every Sunday because the expectation was there.

  I sat down on the edge of my bed, glancing around the room, and felt that same sense of expectation for love, happiness, and peace. All it had taken was one woman and that first night for me to know that I needed her every. Single. Night. It wasn’t just my desire for her—it was everything that she made me feel, everything that she inspired inside of me. I wasn’t willing to compromise and I hoped that, even after what I’d said, that she wasn’t either.