Page 8 of Off the Edge

I’d known we had something special together, and that knowing had been cemented every time I stepped out on the ice with Zoe. She was stunning, but Ren had been another level.

In reality, I probably wasn’t ever going to dance with Ren again.

It had been eighteen months, and just like the press who kept asking, I needed to let him go.

My flight to Japan couldn’t depart fast enough.

I’d imagined Japan a hundred times since I’d received the confirmation of being selected for the Winter Olympic Games.

Neon, crowds, noise, bustle. Street food, or tiny restaurants squeezed between huge skyscrapers. Cherry blossoms, because Japan. I knew the country from TV documentaries and movies.

But nobody had mentioned the snow.

I looked out the coach window and found white. So much white. Snow-covered rooftops, buried parked cars, mountains in the distance, their tops hidden by cloud.

“Damn.”

Zoe looked up from her phone. “What?” Casey had joked that Zoe looked like a female version of me. She had also been blessed with messy blonde hair and an always smiling face. Even now, when she had to be exhausted from travelling, she smiled easily.

“I was expecting sushi,” I told her.

She blinked. “What?”

“I dunno, more Japan and less snow.”

“You’re Canadian.” She snorted a laugh. “You’ve definitely seen snow before, idiot,” she teased, and went back to her phone.

Yeah, but Canadian snow was different. Everything looked cleaner here. Quieter. People hurried along the sidewalks wrapped in thick coats, scarves covering half their faces. Every now and then we’d pass an isolated vending machine, as though it had been left there unintentionally. Who put vending machines outside in freezing temperatures? Japan did.

The coach turned off the road into a security checkpoint, and up ahead, multicolored rows of flags flapped. Canada, Italy, Korea, France, Britain, America. They lined a broad walkway between modern apartment buildings, that all looked alike and would definitely get confusing. I was so getting lost the second I stepped off the coach.

The Olympic Village. Where every athlete got to stay for the next three weeks during and after the Games.

I fired off a quick text to Saga, with no idea what time it was in Montreal.

Japan is clean and snowy

Have fun, mon beau, send pics and don’t do anything I wouldn’t

I laughed. There wasn’t much Saga wouldn’t do.

Outside the foggy coach windows, athletes wandered everywhere, dragging giant suitcases. Some carried skis over their shoulders. Jackets had their flags splashed across their backs. Someone in a bobble hat walked by our bus, carrying enough kit to open a sports store.

Holy shit, I was really here. The Winter Olympics. Sapporo. Japan.

Nobody looked special, nobody was taking selfies or acting touristy, they were just going about their day, getting settled in.

“Finally here, man,” Casey said, from the seat behind me.

“Crazy,” was all I could think to reply with.

The coach stopped, air brakes hissing, and my nerves fluttered. I still wasn’t sure how I’d gotten to be sitting on a bus with Team Canada in Japan. It didn’t feel real. Someone was going to come up to me and say there had been a mistake, some other Canadian should have been in my spot. Someone better than me.

The coach doors opened, and a blast of cold air sucked out all the heat from inside.

I hauled my Canadian red-and-white jacket on, clambered from the seat behind Zoe, and stomped down the steps to collect my bags from the coach’s cargo. Packed snow crunched under my boots. The cold air made my lungs ache. I blew into my gloved hands.

The Winter Olympics.