Page 4 of Crashing into Love

Selma looked up and noticed Andy Weinman approaching the table. She put her hands on Drew’s shoulders, leaned down, and kissed her on the cheek.

“She didn’t believe me,” Drew replied.

“Hey, Selma.”

“Hi, Andy. I was just leaving. I only wanted to apologize.”

“Accepted,” Drew said. “Do you want to look at this, though?”

“Drew, I’m sure she doesn’t want to relive it just yet.”

“Actually… Yeah. Show me,” Selma said and sat down next to her. “I didn’t take the turn too tight.”

Drew pressed play, and they all took off on the screen.

“Your start was strong. You even kicked my ass.” Drew pointed at her phone. “And you were doing well here, but this is where you started to lose it. You took this turn fine, but you didn’t correct for the next turn. And here is where you clip me and knock me on my ass because you took the turn too tight and didn’t leave yourself space. My guess is your board was over-waxed, too. You should talk to your waxer. It’s why you couldn’t correct.”

“You just know all that?”

“I’ve been on a snowboard since, well, probably before you were born, so, yes, I know.”

“She just means that she knows a lot about boarding,” Andy added and moved her arm over Drew’s shoulders.

Selma looked away from the intimate gesture because as much as she saw Drew as her boarding hero, she’d never quite gotten over her mild-to-medium crush on the beautiful woman with short blonde hair that she currently had slicked back, piercing green eyes, and freckles dotting her nose and cheeks. She’d known Drew Oakes was a lesbian. She’d even known that the woman was dating a fellow teammate. Selma hadn’t seen them together until now, but it shouldn’t bother her because Drew could date whomever she wanted. Selma, too, had a significant other. She and her boyfriend had been together for six months now. She was almost ready to take some pretty big steps with him, but she’d been holding back, and with the Games coming up, she’d put most of her focus there and not on trying to figure out why she wasn’t ready.

“Well, I have a coach. He failed to mention any of this after the race, but I’m sure I’ll hear all of this from him when I get back home,” Selma said.

“I hope so. If not, he’s not doing his job,” Drew stated.

“He’s one of the best coaches in the world,” Selma retorted.

“I’m sure he is,” Drew replied and set her phone back down on the table.

“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll leave you alone and go book my flight home or find someone on the team administration to do it. I don’t even know how that works. God.”

“They’ll book it for you,” Andy said. “And you’re not staying?”

“No reason to. You won today, right?”

“I came in second, but yeah.”

“Congrats. And good luck.”

“Thanks,” Andy replied.

Drew didn’t say anything else to her, though, so Selma walked off, skipped dinner, and went back to her room to pack. She had a flight out the next night and was back home in her own bed by the following morning.

She hadn’t asked anyone to give her a ride home from the airport, choosing to delay the inevitable and sneak into her own room without anyone even knowing that she was home, which wasn’t at all how she’d planned her return trip. She’d figured she’d come home with either a medal or having raced well a few times with a good loss under her belt that she could live with.

At nine in the morning, she was woken up by a text from her boyfriend, who had no idea that she was home.

“Hey,” she greeted when he called after she texted back that she’d gotten home a few hours before.

“You’re home?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were flying back?”

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