The anthem wasn't mine, but I couldn't help smiling as I stood next to Filip Haugen. We weren't friends -- elite competition makes friendships hard -- but I respected him, and I believe that he respected me, especially after our race. As you'd expect from the world-record holder he'd gone out like a rocket, but I was reeling him in over the second half. If it had been 16km instead of 15km I'm sure I'd have won gold. But silver felt amazing, especially since it broke up a Norwegian sweep.
No way was I going to wear a beanie on the stand, so the wind that ruffled my hair also stung my nose and ears a bit as we took the obligatory pictures. Filip invited Markus Amundsen and me up to the top of the podium. Markus and I held up our bouquets in our outside hands while Filip draped his arms around our shoulders. Cheesy, but sincere. Nordic skiing doesn't have many divas. Neither does Scandinavia.
I hugged my folks after the ceremony, and even the old man was puddling up. Mom couldn't stop touching the medal, and if she told me once how proud she was of me she told me a hundred times. They joined me for dinner with my two coaches and a handful of my teammates. Not everyone was drinking, but I was. I had no other events left, which is one reason I went so hard in my race, and I was very happy when they poured me into bed that night.
I looked over at that big, beautiful silver medal hanging from the lamp next to my bed. I was so proud of my race, and that medal would always show everyone that I came second in the world championships that day. Second in the entire world!
But my last thought before I closed my eyes was not about my medal. Instead, like always, I thought of Anna. I relived the voicemail she left after watching my race on streaming.
"Oh, you did it! Silver medal! And you almost won! You were so close! I'm so excited for you. I can't wait to see you. Oh, this is just amazing. Come home soon!"
I smiled again. It's always been Anna.
* * * * *
"Dude! This is Anna. Anna, this ugly douchebag is Chase."
Todd was my cousin, and he was my best friend too. But he had a potty mouth, and he loved to embarrass people. Especially me.
My given name was Charles, but ever since I started skiing I was Chase. Because that's what I did: I chased until I caught the leader.
Back then Anna was short and slender, and her enormous blue eyes were clear, curious, and appraising. She had a big smile that she'd grow into. Years later she was still short, but she had filled out and was the female form perfected, an hourglass figure that attracted all sorts of male attention.
I was smitten with Anna Carson from that first moment. We met as freshmen in high school. Sadly she relegated me to the friend zone almost immediately, since she herself was smitten with a series of boys taller, wider, and far more popular than me. At our small rural high school she was the smartest, the cutest, and the liveliest girl, so she had her pick of guys. She didn't pick me.
It took me the entirety of our first year to accept that she was just not going to give me a chance. I was always super competitive -- Chase, right? -- but never stubborn, so I dated several other girls that I liked during high school. I think that actually helped me feel comfortable with women. Since the relationship stakes weren't high for me I could listen and interact without freaking out and doing stupid or crazy stuff. I did the sexploration thing with a couple girls senior year, which went pretty well. There wasn't much drama at the end of those relationships, so all in all I escaped high school emotionally unscathed. I always longed for Anna though.
Like most of the kids in our school who went on to college, we attended UVM and luck put us in the same dorm. But while she still had plenty of game, the it-girl from high school was no longer the smartest, the cutest, or the liveliest. Well, except maybe in my eyes.
I was still solidly in the friend zone, and perhaps that's why she gravitated to me. I guess I was her window into the opaque world of young men, her trusted counsel on all things male. But we were both more than sex-crazed teenagers, so as we spent more and more time together we deepened our friendship without the distraction of sex or romance. It was wonderful to spend time with her, but it was awful too, because I fell deeply in love with her while all she wanted to talk about was Paul, Craig, and Big Jim. I think she was most infatuated with Ted, but I had to break it to her that he was actually quite gay.
Coming from the same part of the world, we had similar values and outlooks, but we complemented each other too. Anna was deliberate, considered, but a bit unfocused. Teamwork was her superpower. She had a talent for listening carefully, assimilating important information, identifying the key issues, and then creatively suggesting solutions that maximized the benefit for the most people. Everyone who knew her wanted her in their study groups, because she contributed way more than anyone else. But she struggled a bit when she didn't have someone to help her define goals.
I, on the other hand, was uber-focused and relentless. I was very good at setting goals, and I was willing to suffer greatly to achieve them. But usually only for myself. Some would call me selfish; I think of it more as myopic. I'd get so wrapped up in my own stuff, especially my skiing, that I didn't have much room left to think about anyone else.
Except Anna. I thought about her a lot.
So we made a great team. I was very good at seeing where we needed to go, and Anna was brilliant at getting us all there together. We were studying different things -- she was majoring in psychology and I was pursuing business -- but we did have a couple gen-ed classes together, and I think she saw me a bit differently as our freshman year came to an end. She seemed a lot warmer to me after she saw that I was willing to work as hard for our groups' success as I was on my skiing.
We shared a car back to our hometown for the summer. I was hoping that we could further our relationship, but instead she reconnected with a lot of her friends. I was doing out-of-season training for the ski team along with driving a van for my mom's flower shop, so Anna and I only saw each other a handful of times. We did text every couple days, but nothing heavy, just funny gifs and random stuff that reminded us of college. We picked up our friendship once we got back to campus though. I was hopeful she would look past our friendship and see that we could make a nice couple.
But then she found my nemesis.
* * * * *
"Chase! I just met the man I'm going to marry!"
Anna's eyes usually went a little manic when she found a new object for her affections, but they were almost spinning when she gushed all over me at the Davis Center.
Brad Thornton wasn't a bad guy, which kind of made it worse for me. I could see why Anna liked him. He was an average-looking guy, but he had a ton of charisma, an everpresent smile, and a nice streak about a mile wide. It seemed like he knew everyone, and he had a kind word for each of them. The sun just kind of followed him around and shone on him all day long, but he was still as down-to-earth as they come. He'd corral people into doing things, and they'd all have the best time doing whatever it was he suggested. He was the pied piper, just without the malice.
