Page 14 of On the Edge

She sighs, because she knows I’m not going to give her any more information.Two can play this game.

“Your file says you became a vegan after the infection?”

“I did,” I confirm. “My specialist and I agreed that there was enough evidence showing that a vegan diet can help with kidney issues to warrant giving it a try.”

“How long did that last?” She barely contains her eye roll. The man she dated would never have been a vegan, but I’m not really him anymore.

“Well, I guess it’s been about fifteen months or so.”

Her head snaps back a bit, like she’s been slapped.

“Wait? You’re still a vegan?” Her eyes move from my face, slowly scrolling down my body. Her look is impossible to read. That’s new. She could never hide her emotions before, a reality that was sometimes difficult for her when it came to interviews with the press after a bad race.

This closed off, guarded look she has now is probably hard earned, and I can’t help but wonder if I was the cause of this new skill set she’s developed. That possibility twists my stomach with guilt again. I didn’t do anything that wasn’t necessary at the time, but it kills me that I’ve caused her pain and that I’ve missed these years with her.

“Yes, still a vegan. You seem surprised.”

“I didn’t think ...” She pauses and her eyes sweep down across my arms and my chest. “You have more muscle mass than I would have expected given the lack of animal protein.”

“I think you’ll find I’m stronger than ever. Better endurance too,” I assure her with a smirk.

“Hmph,” she responds, looking back down at my medical file, her cheeks turning pink. It’s good to know that a bit of sexual innuendo still has the same effect.

There’s so much we need to talk about, but she’s closed off and I’m going to have to slow roll this. She needs to trust me before she’ll open up at all, before she’ll allow this to be anything more than a strictly professional relationship. Plus, she has a boyfriend—for now. I relax into the chair, accepting that this is the beginning of a long uphill battle.

Her silence gives me the opportunity to scan her office, looking for clues to who she is now, and what the past few years have been like for her. Her undergrad degree from Danforth is hanging on the wall, and I was there for that graduation, but next to it is her doctorate from the University of Utah, where she eventually got her PhD in physical therapy. While we were still together, she’d already been taking grad classes online during the off-season, so she must have decided to pursue the doctorate after she recovered from her accident. I was out of the picture by then.

On the credenza behind her desk, under her single, large window facing the mountains, sits a row of picture frames. Most of them are blocked by her chair, but the one on the end catches my eye and I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. It’s a picture of Jackson and my mom, about a month before she died. We were in St. Moritz for a race, and my parents flew over to Europe because it was a crucial race for Jax, and because they’d met at a race in St. Moritz back when my mom skied for Canada’s National Ski Team.

Jackson had come in second that day, giving her enough race points to move her into first place overall for the season. We were wildly happy and given that both sets of our parents were there, I’d wanted to propose to her at dinner that night. I’d already been carrying the ring around with me for a year at that point. But she’d caught onto my plan before we left the hotel room to head out, and she reminded me that I promised I’d wait until she secured an overall World Cup title. It was the same fight we always had, me ready to put a ring on her finger after seven years of dating and her setting her own goals and expecting me to adhere to her timeline. Dinner was tense that night, but the photo of her and my mom, their heads tucked close in conversation and both of them with huge smiles on their faces, makes me realize that maybe that dinner holds different memories for her. She’d always had a special relationship with my mom, who loved Jackson from the start not only because they had so much in common, but because Jackson brought out the best in me. That weekend was the last time she saw my parents.

Jackson must have looked up at me while I was staring at that photo because when my eyes turn to her, she glances over her shoulder to see what I’m looking at. It takes her a moment to turn back to me, like she’s trying to figure out whether this is a conversation she wants to have.

She closes the file folder on her desk and abruptly and stands. “All right, let’s get your first training session over.” She sighs.

Okay, so we’re not talking about why she has a photo of her with my mom framed in her office then.

“I thought you said you’d never work with me.” My voice is teasing as I repeat her words from last night, but I’m actually trying to get a sense of how hard she fought to get taken off my case.

“Nothing’s certain yet. But Coach McCarthy did ask me to make sure you’re physically fit enough to undergo the training regimen we’ll put you through.”

Nothing’s certain my ass. Theonlything that’s certain is that as long as I’m on this team, Jackson will be my physical therapist. Coach was practically salivating at the possibility of getting me back into racing after he saw my times on the courses he set when we met up at Whistler this past winter. My one condition was that I be allowed to work with Jackson. Negotiation isn’t normally part of the invitation process, but I’ve known Matt McCarthy for a long time. Once he saw my race times, he was willing to do whatever it took to get me here to Park City. And being near Jackson was what it took.

“Okay,” I say, standing, “let’s do this.”

* * *

After my training session with Jackson yesterday, in which I’d blown away any hope of hers that I might not be fit enough to race, my luck continues. I round the corner in the cafeteria at lunch and see Sierra sitting at a table in the corner scrolling through her phone. She’s absorbed in whatever she’s doing, so I’m able to sneak over with my tray and slide into the seat across from her. Her head snaps up, her face friendly, until she sees that it’s me.

“Nope,” she says. “You can’t sit there.”

“Why not? Is this seat taken?”

“Jackson’s my best friend, Nate. And I’m not having lunch with her ex.”

“You’re not eating, so technically we’re not having lunch together,” I say as I gesture at her empty plate.

She pushes her chair back to get up, but I reach across the table quickly and rest my hand on her arm. She stops, her eyes landing on my hand. “Don’t touch me.”

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