Lylah Herring was the fastest female skier in the world, but after a terrible crash at the World Cup left her in a hospital bed, she was lucky to be alive. Two years later, she's back and she's ready for redemption. The only thing on her mind is get...
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"Damn it! No good son of a..."
"Gramps?" I called, peaking into the maintenance room to find my grandfather hovered over an ancient hot water heater fiddling with the knobs. Dressed in his signature navy blue puffer vest, red plaid button up and jeans, he glanced up, looking surprised to see me.
"Oh hi, sweetheart." He grunted as he stood up, holding on to the railing for a little support. He would be seventy-five in a few months, but he still insisted on doing everything around the Inn himself. "Hot water went out this morning. I think the moron who fixed it last month must have screwed something up."
Gramps rubbed his forehead as he slung his arm over my shoulder, leading me back toward the lobby. A mix of cigarette smoke and his winter pine cologne filled up my nose--even though he was supposed to be trying to quit the cigarettes. I didn't have the heart to reprimand him over it. He worked hard his entire life, and who was I to tell him to stop something that he enjoyed at this point in his life? One of his favorites things to tell me was that there were plenty of other ailments that would kill him before the cigarettes did. I wasn't convinced, but Hank Herring was a tough man to argue with.
"Are you sure it's not time to replace it?" I suggested, noticing the rust dirt accumulating on it.
"Nah! It's still got a few good years left." He grinned. "I didn't know you were coming by today. No practice runs?"
I shook my head. "Peter let me have a day off. To clear my mind."
After my disastrous run yesterday, he used a little bit more colorful language, but Grandpa didn't need to hear that.
Peter and I hit the back bowls early yesterday, and it was a good thing because if the media saw my mistake filled runs, the narrative around the Olympics and I would be seriously shifted. The moment I started, I could feel it. I was shaky and all over the place. My turns were too wide, and my skis bounced all over the place. It was worse than the first time I got back on the mountain after my accident, and it was just days before the entire world would be watching with bated breath.
I needed to find some way to block out all the noise. To focus on the mountain and nothing else. I thought I was doing a good job of it, but it was proving harder and harder to do as the race got closer. It was one particular race that had my nerves jumbled, and that was the Super G. It was the one I crashed in at the World Cup, the one I was going up against Kennedy in, and the one that held the most at stake for me. If I didn't start winning again soon, my sponsors would start pulling their support and after how hard I worked to make this happen, I couldn't let that happen now. It wasn't just a race. My entire career rode on the outcome, and right now, I felt about as confident as a toddler learning to walk for the first time.
"Are you feeling nervous?" Gramps asked, sliding me a cup of his famous mint hot chocolate.
"No, I'm not." I said a little too quickly. "And I wish people would stop asking me that."
