Page 62 of The Big Race
“We’re not just surviving out here—we’re thriving.”
I smiled, because I was proud, too. But the wordthrivingstuck in my throat.
After a moment, I said, “Okay. Say we actually win the whole thing. All the legs, the million dollars, the title. What then?”
Ray turned to look at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean us.” I shifted on the bench. “We win this thing—great. But do we go home and slide back into the life we had? The one that wasn’t working?”
Ray frowned. “No. Of course not. We’d figure it out. We’d use this as a new start.”
“A new start with the same routines? Same silence? You back to client meetings, me working from home? Separate screens every night and polite conversations about dinner plans?”
He didn’t answer right away. I could see him thinking.
“I’m not saying we haven’t made progress,” I added quickly. “We have. I mean—look at us today. We didn’t fight. We trusted each other. But that’shere.In this pressure cooker, with a deadline and cameras and no one else in our lives.”
Ray sighed. “What are you saying? That none of this counts unless we come home completely transformed?”
“I’m saying we’re winning a race, but I don’t know what we’re winningtoward.” I looked out at the plaza, where flags flapped in the breeze and the second-place team was just now jogging into view. “What does success look like for us, Ray? Not just the race.Us.”
Ray was quiet for a long moment.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I used to think it meant getting back to where we were. The comfort, the rhythm. But now… I’m not sure I want to go back.”
I turned to him, surprised.
He shrugged. “I wantthis. Not the racing, necessarily, but the version of us that shows up, that listens, that has each other’s backs. I don’t want to be the guy who hides in a triathlon schedule and forgets how to talk. I don’t want to be roommates again.”
“And I don’t want to go back to fixing everything in silence just to keep the peace,” I said softly. “If we survive this—if we come out stronger—it can’t be just for the sake of saving what we had. It has to be for building something different. Something better.”
Ray nodded slowly. “Okay. So maybe we don’t know what success looks like yet. But we know what itdoesn’tlook like.”
“And that’s a start,” I said.
He reached over and took my hand, not like a victory gesture, but like anchoring himself to something real.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I think this is the first time I’ve really wanted to win something with you, not just for us—but because of who we are when we’re doing it.”
I squeezed his hand. “Let’s find out if that’s enough.”
We sat there together, quiet again, but this time it wasn’t avoidance—it was reflection. Outside the frame. Off-script. A moment not about strategy or saving face, but about wondering what might come next.
Behind us, the cheers of Fletcher and Adrienne reaching the mat broke the silence.
But we stayed in the echo of our own victory a little longer, letting it settle not just on our bodies, but in the space between us—where something new was just forming.
Over the next hour, the remaining teams checked in at the Stop'n'Go. Zara and Maddox were third, and Gemini and Blaine arrived fourth. George and Ernie were breathing heavily as they checked in at number 5, but grinning as they spotted us.
"Look who's still in this thing!" George called out, wrapping Ray in a bear hug that lifted him off his feet. "We knew you two had it in you."
Ernie gave me his own crushing embrace. "That snowshoe route was brutal. How'd you guys make it look so easy?"
"Years of practice falling down gracefully," I replied, earning a laugh.
Tyler and Brandon came in sixth, followed by the Alex and Ross, who somehow still looked camera-ready despite the grueling mountain challenges. The doctors, Anika and Raj, were nowhere to be seen.
As we waited, Julie gathered us near the mat where she stood with the Nordic ski champion who'd been serving as the local greeter. The sun was beginning to set behind the Alpine peaks, casting long shadows across the snow.
