Carry Your Heart by Audrey Bell Read Free Book Online

skiing.”
    “I feel like—I don’t know,” I say. “I think I have all these reasons. Like, I shouldn’t be able to go back out there. Or like, I’m tempting fate.” I shake my head. “I know none of them are real reasons, but they feel real. Or compelling enough for me not to compete, or ski. Or….” I bite my lip.
    Lottie watches me carefully. She’s always been an honest girl, the kind of person who would tell you if the pants made you look fat. It’s so easy to talk to her again. Seeing her, it’s impossible not to think of everything we went through and how easily we fell out of touch when I quit skiing.
    You didn’t fall out of touch, I remind myself, you ignored her and everybody else you knew until they left you alone.
    “Worst case scenario, you lose,” she says softly. “Finish last. That’s all that can happen.”
    I nod. I know that, too—but it doesn’t change the way the ground feels beneath my feet. Its never been so unsteady.
    Ryan used to always say that he always forgot about the world outside of elite skiing. I never considered how quickly both my worlds—elite skiing and the world outside—would move on without Ryan and Danny.
    ***
    Lottie stays in my room for two hours. She tells me everything—about the new competition—the long-legged seventeen year old who kept turning heads and winning races, a speed demon from Utah who made a quick recovery from a college injury, the new faces on the D team—and about all the old competition—Brooke McKenna and Laurel Bates, the girls I’d raced against and with, who I had loved and hated.
    She tells me about the downhill races she’s won, and how she finished first the US Alpine Championships last year and how Laurel never saw her coming, had been ready to open a bottle of champagne with her parents before the race was through.
    After a long while, she smiles. “It’s really great you’re back.”
    We walk over for dinner at the cafeteria in the ski center, a simple, no-frills place that serves a mix of junk and superfood.
    Lottie was living here in Utah, training with Mike, who worked with a small group of elite skiers. The race this weekend would be held here, one of the few all season that she wouldn’t have to travel for. The lodge was pretty empty, except for the athletes here for training. It would fill up later in the week, when skiers from out of town started arriving for the races.
    Lottie was one of the newest rising stars in Alpine skiing. The news I’d gotten back from USSA during my time off had been sparse—but Lottie’s outstanding performances and her win at US Nationals last year had both gotten back to me.
    When we collect our trays and go to get food, Lottie stays close by.
    “Ugh,” I grumble, seeing Hunter Dawson, sitting at a table. “I flew here with him.”
    “Hunter Dawson?” she smiles. “I’m jealous.”
    “No, you really shouldn’t be. He said I was a lost cause.”
    She giggles. “He’s kind of a jerk.”
    “Kind of?”
    “Maybe really a jerk. You know he used to be a skier?”
    “No, I didn’t know that.”
    “I mean, a really long time ago—like, maybe before middle school even,” she says.
    “Well, I’m pretty sure he snowboards now.”
    Lottie smiles at me. “You’re pretty sure Hunter Dawson snowboards now?”
    “Yeah. He had one on the plane. Thought someone was going to lose it.”
    She laughs. “God, you’ve missed a lot. Pippa, he practically swept the X-Games last year. He’s one of the best snowboarders in the country.”
    “Seriously?” I look at him. He seems way too pretty to be an extreme snowboarder.
    She laughs again. “I mean, not that I expect you to follow snowboarding or anything, but he’s like a big deal. He was dating that girl from The Real World Portland. ”
    “What girl?”
    “Oh, come on, you know the girl. From Real World .”
    “That’s still a thing?”
    “ Mackenzie ! He dated Mackenzie from Real World.”
    “I don’t know who that