Which I could tell them right now wasn’t possible.
I checked my watch. Shit. They were going to call the Slopestyle riders soon now that Big Air was done. I jogged down the rest of the trail, sticking to the back of the crowd so I could move quickly—and so there was less of a chance that I would run into Wyatt, his family, or my friends. I wove in and out of the bodies—some that were leaving the stands, some heading to them for the next event—when suddenly, I felt a chill down my spine. It wasn’t the chill that I got when Wyatt was around—no, that one was warm and intoxicating. This one was cold and calculating and it stopped me in my tracks. I glanced around for a few seconds, trying to find a face that I recognized, but I came up empty. And then the chill was gone.
It’s your nerves, Channing. Stop freaking out and just get this over with.
With that slight delay, it took me longer than I would have liked to get over to the training building. I was unlocking the door to the equipment room when I heard the announcer come over the loudspeaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to begin the Slopestyle event in a few minutes. If all participating riders could make their way over to the lift, we will begin shortly.”
I ducked inside, making sure the door was shut and secure behind me. Grabbing my duffel bag out from underneath the bench I started to strip. Under Armour, black snowpants, black jacket—all baggy, all-concealing. I dumped the miscellaneous gear—gloves, hat, etc.—onto the bench, reaching into the bottom of the bag for my rider tag and RFID card that they scanned to let you onto the lift.
Chance Ryder.
I swallowed over the lump in my throat, cinching the strap around my arm before I could think any further about it. I turned back to the bench. My last defenses. I pulled on the black helmet that was adorned with the same local sponsor stickers that Chance had on his. Everyone loves when twins wear the same things. Last came the mirrored goggles—the only spot of color on my outfit.
Unzipping the board bag, I pulled out Chance’s board, trying not to think about anything right now other than doing solid on my pass.
I took a deep breath, hand on the doorknob. Go big or go home.
I was on cloud-fucking-nine after finishing my Big Air pass. Everything had gone perfectly, not that I had expected anything different, especially because I knew my girl was in the crowd watching me, cheering me on, and most likely critiquing me—one of the things I loved about her. I could be the best—I was the best—and she would still push me to be better.
I looked for her in the crowd but didn’t spot that blue gaze. Usually, I waited near the end of the slope with all the other riders to watch the rest of the heat, but I wanted to be with her; I figured she’d be down here somewhere watching her brother.
I apologized as I pushed through the crowd, my snowgear making it even harder for me to move through the crowd with any appreciable speed. I didn’t see anyone that I knew, not even Zack and my parents or—
“Emmett!” I yelled, cupping my hands around my mouth. His fire buzz-cut was impossible to miss. Black eyes whipped to mine. He, surprisingly, stopped and waited for me. “Have you seen Channing?”
He smiled; I didn’t like that smile. “No, I haven’t.” His thumb came up and brushed over his nose. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find her easier once the qualifier is done.”
“Yeah, but I wanted to watch with her; I’m assuming she’s down here watching her brother…”
His face broke into a smile again briefly as he cleared his throat. Something was going on and this fucker knew what it was and wasn’t planning on telling me.
“Emmett, what’s going on?” I let a dangerous tone enter my voice—one that rarely came out, but was easily accessible for the woman who held my heart.
He shushed me. The motherfucker shushed me as the announcer came on, giving Chance’s name.
“Emm—“
“Watch,” he bit out. “If you watch you’ll find her.”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean? My mouth thinned in frustration as I looked around one last time; I didn’t see her anywhere. Guess I was going to meet up with her after the run was over after all. Turning my gaze to the giant TV screen, I watched my girl’s twin brother at the top of the slope, all in black, about to drop.
I’d never seen him this close before—I wasn’t a big fan of watching the competition. But now that I was, the similarities between him and Channing were insane. Their board stance, their posture… on the mountain, they were identical.
And that’s when it hit me.
Slow at first, a gentle tugging of my mind back to a dark place where anything was possible—anything like this.
It couldn’t be.
The rider—or Ryder—began to move down the course. The grind and rails told me nothing. The body moving with a smoothness that I’d observed for weeks now.
They are twins, Olsen. They’ve been training together since practically birth; of course, they are going to move the same.
My heart beat faster and much harder than it had all day. I watched as the camera panned as the rider approached the first jump.
Switch backside 1260.
Perfect execution. Nothing to tell me whether or not this rider was Chance or…
Switch double Underflip 900.
My eyes narrowed. I saw something as the rider came out of the jump, something that I recognized, but couldn’t remember; something that told me the pit in my stomach wasn’t unfounded.
Bile rose inside my throat as anger and hurt crashed in my stomach. The rider approached the last jump.
Frontside 1080 double cork.
What in the living fuck had I just seen?
My heart stopped. The doubles were what we’d spent hours on and fuck me if that flawless feat didn’t look exactly like Channing.
I would have bet my life that it was her on the board at that moment, carving triumphantly toward the end of the trail. But that wasn’t what convinced me. Yes, I knew her body and the way it moved on the mountain… and on me. But what solidified it had nothing to do with the jump or the double or her technique. What told me it was her was something so small that no one would have ever thought twice about it. No one but me. Because I saw her—all of her—down to every last worry or breath that passed through her body. And down to every. Last. Tick.
Including the one that I had teased her about the first time we were out on the park; the adorable little habit she had of wiping her glove off on her pants as soon as she stood from the landing.
It was adorable and it was her undoing.
I burned with rage as I turned towards Emmett who it seemed had been looking at me, smirking the entire duration of my revelation.
“Did you fucking know?”
“Of course I fucking knew,” he answered casually. Honestly, there was nothing else to say to him. I didn’t really give a shit if he knew; I wanted to know why I didn’t know and there was only one person who could—and would—answer that. I turned to walk away when his voice gave me pause. “Those Ryder women really know how to fuck you bigtime, don’t they?”
For a split second, I felt bad for the asshole. Trapped and tortured by his feelings for Ally that he would probably rather die than admit to. I, on the other hand, had no problem admitting how I felt about Channing and how much I needed her.
And yet, somehow, it seemed like we were both equally as screwed.
I BREATHED A HUGE SIGH of relief as soon as the bottom of my board smacked confidently against the landing of the last jump. And as soon as the breath was out of my lips, I immediately began to scan for Wyatt in the crowd. He wasn’t at the bottom with all of the riders; that was when the first hint of dread came over me.
No, Channing. It’s for the best that he’s not there.
Unless he was looking for me.
My board hadn’t even come to a stop before I was unstrapping from it, lifting it from the ground. I dove to the side of the crowd as my eyes scanned for the quickest way back to
the equipment room to change.
Had I left the door unlocked?
I pushed inside the dim room, rushing to my bag, and propping my board against the wall as the door shut. I turned around to go and lock it and I realized that I wasn’t alone.
Wyatt.
He was leaning against the wall opposite the door, arms crossed over his chest. He still had his snowpants on, but his jacket was missing, his cold gear stretched tight over the hard muscles of his chest—muscles my fingers itched to touch. But his face, his expression, it stopped my heart. If it were Ally, I would have seen disappointment; if it were Chance, I would have seen anger. In Wyatt, I expected both. Instead, I saw pure, unadulterated betrayal.
“That was an excellent run there, gorgeous.” His stare burned right through to my soul. “Or should I say, Chance?”
“Wyatt…” I exhaled his name because that’s what he was to me. Oxygen.
“That’s me, Channing. That’s who I’ve always been. But, I’m wondering just exactly who are you?” He stalked towards me. “And what could I have possibly meant to you for you to do this?”
“Please…” I begged. “You don’t understand.” I shook my head. I was frozen—like when I’d bombed the triple last year at the Open; I was frozen in failure.
“Don’t I? Because it seems pretty straight-forward to me.” He stopped inches in front of me, glancing over at the board against the wall. “You registered in the men’s Slopestyle competition under your brother’s name, which—“ he broke off with a laugh, “—ironically, probably wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for me.”
I tried to say something, but he cut me off, continuing, “And then, I began flirting with you and you realized what an opportunity you had—not just to get me to help you, but to distract me from winning the last Games of my career.” He swore, rubbing his hand over his mouth. “And you know what the most fucking fantastic part about all of this is? It’s all my fault.”
My head began to do that thing where it shakes back and forth because you want to deny so badly what the other person is saying, but you either can’t find the words or they won’t let you speak them. So, instead, it shakes ‘no’ over and over again, beating into your brain that you deserve this; that I deserved what he was saying. Tears streamed down my face like blood from the open wound of my heart being ripped from my chest.
“I was the one who got ‘Chance’ registered. I was the one who pursued you. I was the one who offered to help you with your triple. What a fucking joke that must have been; I bet Emmett got a good fucking laugh about how the asshole you were trying to beat just offered to help you do it. I was the one who gave in and fucked you. I only have myself to blame.”
“No!” I finally yelled, my hands quickly wiping over my face. “No… I didn’t… It’s not your fault.” Goddammit. Nothing was coming out like it should. “I registered Chance because he is gone.” It probably wasn’t the best thing to start with, but it got his attention. “Chance was injured and y-you were right, it was t-to the point where he couldn’t compete again. And then, o-one day, I showed up to the hospital and he. Was. Gone. Do you know what that’s like? Do you know what it feels like to have the one person who was literally a part of you from before you were born ripped from your life by choice?”
I sucked in a breath, my hurt and anger holding the sobs at bay. “Some days, I think it would have been easier if he had died because then I wouldn’t have to wake up knowing that he left me with no note, no explanation, no goodbye, on purpose. And I know that’s a horrible thing to think, but hell if I can help it. I want to sympathize, I want to empathize, but how can I do that with him gone? Without knowing what he feels or thinks? And for everyone else’s sake, I’ve been holding that anger and hurt in for months and finally, I realized that I couldn’t expect him to come back. But, I could still try to achieve our dream. Yes, Chance was injured, but I wasn’t. So, I registered under his name.”
My arms crossed over my chest, my hands gripping into the side of my jacket, not in anger, but in an attempt to literally try to hold myself together.
“I didn’t… plan on running into you—or your boards; I didn’t even know who you were at that point. I didn’t plan on you following me. I didn’t plan on wanting you. When I was with you, I forgot about the competition. You weren’t just helping me learn the stupid fucking triple; you were helping move past something so much deeper than that. I didn’t realize it at first and when I did, I knew just how hard I’d fallen for you. I didn’t plan on you, Wyatt; I didn’t plan on falling in love with you.”
“Then why are we here?” he ground out.
The tears began to fall again. “I was going to pull out—pull Chance out—after the night on the mountain but then Ally told me what Zack said; I thought you were going to leave and I felt like everything I had gained was ripped right back out from under me and the only thing left was the competition.”
“I told you I wasn’t going to leave you.”
“I was too scared to believe you.” I confessed softly. “I wanted it so badly to be true. But all I could think was how Chance left… my brother… my twin. He was never supposed to do that either. And when you and I finally talked, it was too late; I couldn’t drop out without it looking suspicious. Chance may never compete again, but I couldn’t ruin the name he’d made for himself.”
“Or risk your future in the sport?” he asked harshly.
“I don’t—“ I choked, unable to get the rest of the words out. I didn’t care about my future in the sport, but why would he believe that now?
“Why didn’t you just tell me, then?” His exasperation was evident. “Why didn’t you just tell me what you had planned? What did you think I was going to do—report you? Turn you in? The woman I love?”
My eyes shot to his. ‘Love’ not loved.
“I-I just thought that I would do it and forget about it; that you wouldn’t have to know. I didn’t want you to think…” I wiped away more tears. “Everything that you are thinking right now. Everything that I would be thinking right now if I were you.”
“And if you were me, Channing, what would you do now? What would you do knowing that the woman you’d give up everything for doesn’t believe in your love for her?” He laughed harshly. “No—even worse than that, what would you do knowing that your woman doesn’t even believe in herself? In her own worth?”
“I-I don’t know,” I replied, my voice wavering. He sighed heavily and turned towards the door. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.” He threw his hands out in frustration. “I have no fucking idea. You asked if I could imagine how it felt when your brother left? When someone who was a part of you left you and ripped away everything that you knew? How about when someone you love, who was going to the biggest part of your future didn’t leave you, but was never there to begin with? Does that count? Because they both sound a whole lot like someone who you thought loved you enough to trust you with their pain decided to leave you hanging up in the air.”
“Wyatt—” The door shutting behind him was his response. And I didn’t—couldn’t—blame him.
The sound was like the wind being knocked out of me. As soon as he was gone, the first pain of impact registered followed by the immediate assessment of my body’s damage; only after those first few seconds did I realize that the one thing I needed to survive had been robbed from me.
And I’d been the one to steal my own happiness away.
I didn’t stay. I ripped off my snowclothes—the stupid loose-fitting garments had never been so difficult to get off; then again, I didn’t bother to turn on the lights or try to stop the tears from falling from my eyes. I changed in a watery darkness and then fled.
I didn’t check to see if I had qualified, chances were that I did, but in spite of what Wyatt thought—I didn’t care about the Games anymore.
The drive back to my house had never seemed so long. In my distress, I forgot to put on the emergency brake in the
Jeep until I was halfway out the door and the car started to roll back. Get it together, Channing. I yanked the stupid thing into park; the next thing I knew I was opening the front door, my sobs distorting my reality.
The front door slamming behind me echoed through the empty space.
Empty—just like me.
Again, I blinked and I was in the kitchen, my footsteps through the hallway nonexistent in my mind. I didn’t remember what I came in there for. Water? A tissue? A frozen heart?
“Lil.” I halted. First, I wasn’t registering my movements and now, I was hearing things. I would have laughed in self-pity if I wasn’t already sobbing so hard. I needed to lie down, that would help. I needed to calm down and then figure out how to fix this.
“Lil.” I wasn’t imagining it. The sound—my name—was real; someone had said it, someone was here. Someone who never should have left.
I stopped breathing all together as I turned slowly towards the living room. My eyes registering the body that was sitting in the armchair next to the couch; I stared in shock at the eyes, the face, the voice that I’d known from before birth. I stared at myself—I stared at my twin. I stared at Chance.
My sister was the mirror of my disaster.
Channing looked like how I felt inside; she looked how I did months ago. Now, I was just better at hiding it.
Fuck. Why did I even come back here?
My jaw tightened. I wouldn’t say that I’d been happy in LA, but it had been easier to forget about here in a place that was the complete opposite of the one that I’d called home.
Her mouth fell open, the word ‘what’ barely escaping from it in shock. The only sound in the room was her uncontrollable hiccups from the abrupt stop of her sobs. I pushed myself up off the chair where I’d been lounging, wondering which sibling I would encounter first.
Channing continued to stare at me like I was a goddamn ghost. And I might as well have been for what my life consisted of anymore. Without being able to ride, I had nothing, I was nothing, and I just wished I could have been invisible.
The Winter Games Page 33
