Page 117 of Crashing into Love

“But you’re sad because you’re not talking as much now.”

“Yes, I am. We have some things we need to talk about.”

“Mom, it’s okay. I know you have to take care of me and that you’re always worried about me because you have to work a lot and are gone and stuff, but I think Drew is good for you, like Grandma.”

“Grandma told you that?”

“No, but I heard you two talking about it when you were in the kitchen.”

How was her kid always hearing this stuff when they thought she was out of earshot?

“Gia, Drew and I are together already, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“You are?” Gia asked excitedly.

“Yes, we’re dating.”

“Mom, that’s awesome! Drew is awesome! When is she coming back? Can we go to the zoo then? Drew said she likes animals, and elephants are her favorite, but I told her that I like the giraffes. We could go to the zoo and see them. Do you know that you can feed the giraffes? They eat lettuce and other leaves, and I could give them some.”

“Okay, baby. Just… first, I have to go to work because I’m going to be late as is. We can talk about this more later, okay?”

“Okay… But Drew said she lives on a mountain, too, and that she gets to ski and board all the time there. Can we go?”

“Gia, I have to go right now. Later tonight, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” the girl said, no longer sounding excited.

“I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

Selma hung up the phone and stared at her screen for a moment before she stood up and grabbed her bag again. She had to go snowboard in a semifinal that morning, and if she made it through that, she’d board in the final that afternoon. So far, she had barely made it through the two preliminary heats, coming in third and second, respectively.

It was a Team Canada exhibition event for charity, so it didn’t matter in regard to her overall standings, but she still wanted to win. They would soon be telling a few of the women they’d initially selected for the team that they wouldn’t be called up for the next team event, and while Selma felt comfortable enough that she would be fine, given her most recent win, she never felt one-hundred-percent until she got the call that she’d been right. After that, the team would choose the athletes who would compete and the ones who would be the alternates on the team, and Selma didn’t want to be an alternate. She had messed up in the last Olympic Games, but she’d gotten so much better over the past three and a half years or so, that she hoped those performances and her newly gained experience would help her make the team again and get to perform on the worldwide stage.

While a lot of other boarders saw the Olympics as just something cool to compete in because snowboarding wasn’t always an Olympic sport and so the culture developed outside of the Games, Selma had grown up knowing that she wanted to represent her country in the Olympics one day, so it mattered to her more than even the World Cup.

Before the start of the semifinal, though, Selma had a hard time getting Gia’s words out of her mind. She took off and managed to go into the first turn in the lead, but she struggled to keep it and was lucky to come in second place. She joined everyone for lunch but didn’t participate in any conversations outside of offering some small talk here and there, thinking of Drew, who was probably bored out of her mind, lying in bed with her knee elevated. It was structurally fine, according to the doctors, but Drew was still supposed to rest. Selma wanted to be there with her, to lie beside her, and to bring her ice or anti-inflammatories. She wanted to hold her when Drew slept, wake up with her, make her coffee, and do everything else girlfriends would do for each other when they were in the same place.

When the final started a few hours later, Selma was in the third gate of the six. She knew a win wouldn’t matter much because no one wanted to get injured before the next important event that would count for their rankings and points, so they were going hard, but not their hardest. Still, Selma wanted this win. She kept picturing Drew lying in bed, maybe watching this event on the live stream provided by Team Canada and rooting her on, but then, she worried that Drew wasn’t watching at all.

And why would she watch? They’d hardly talked since Drew had gotten home and injured. They texted, yes. They talked at night most nights, too, but things were awkward now. She felt like Drew was just waiting for her to confirm that she was ready for what Drew wanted, and she was sure Drew probably thought every night that Selma would tell her that or end things between them. They hadn’t had a real conversation in weeks, and she hated it.

She barreled down the course and managed to stay in second place for most of the race, but then, she took her last turn a little too loosely and ended up getting passed by a seventeen-year-old rookie on the team and a thirty-nine-year-old vet, who would likely not make the Olympic Team, but this was an exhibition event, so the woman was racing more to have one last go at it. When Selma made the final jump, she landed upright and didn’t make any effort to pass the third-place racer, even though she probably could have, so she ended up coming in fourth place in a race she could have easily won.

???

“Did you win?” Gia asked the moment she walked in their room later that night.

“What are you still doing up? It’s late, Gia.”

“Grandma said I could wait up for you.”

Selma dropped her bags by the door and moved to her daughter, who was sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table.

“Hey, baby.” She sat down next to her, pulled Gia’s head to her, and kissed her temple. “What are you doing?”

“Reading the book Drew got me. Well, you don’t really read it; you experiment with it. I’m just trying out different things.”

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