Chapter Text
Somewhere, Canada — Six weeks before the Olympics
“Okay! Good job, guys!” the coach exclaimed to the players, his previously serious, concentrated expression breaking into a wide smile. He gave a passing, exhausted Follo a hard slap on the back and let out a laugh. “We’ve really got the best of the best here, huh?”
Follo smiled - that same old smile that had been tattooed onto his face for years. It always calmed people down, he’d learned a long time ago, and it meant they didn’t ask questions he wasn’t sure he could answer without breaking into a mess. He followed his teammates into the locker room. It felt like a fever dream to call them that -teammates - these were the players he’d grown up idolizing, looking up to, and now, somehow, he was representing his country alongside them. People seemed to think they were all on the same level.
The men chatted excitedly, peeling off their sweaty uniforms and stepping into well-deserved showers. They were in good spirits, ready for the challenge. Follo didn’t understand how they could be this relaxed, this playful. Were they pretending, too - just like he was? Were they also fighting the urge to vomit every time a thought about what was coming slipped into their minds, the way he was every five minutes?
He didn’t think so. They were confident. They knew what they were capable of. They weren’t losers like him - a stupid kid straight out of school with no idea how he’d even gotten here. He’d trained hard, yeah. He’d wanted to be the best, to help make his team the best, to be recognized for his hard work. And this - being chosen to represent his entire country at the Winter Olympics - he’d thought it would feel good. Make him proud. And it did, for a few hours, until the high faded and left him alone with the anxious, doubtful cage that was his mind.
Gris ruffled his hair while passing by, making it even messier than it already was, as if he’d noticed the thunderstorm forming in Follo’s head. He smiled - a real, genuine smile, the kind that belonged to someone who understood people - and playfully tossed a towel over Follo’s head.
“Go shower, man.” He gave him a knowing look. “It’ll ease you up.”
The shower helped, a little. Hot water on his aching shoulders, steam fogging the air, loud enough to drown out his own thoughts for a minute. Then the water would shut off and someone would yell something about food, and the noise of the world would come rushing back in, and with it, the thoughts.
You don’t belong here. You got lucky. Someone’s going to notice.
He got dressed quickly, the way he always did - it was another kind of shame to be self-deprecating while naked. By his stall, his phone lit up on the bench - a bunch of unread messages, the popularity that used to feel like validation, now just felt like a big weight pushing him down. He didn’t bother to look. He knew what would be in it. His mom, with her sweet and proud messages, always worrying if he was eating enough. Probably his weird uncle Cam, with a THATS MY BOY in all caps. Guys from his junior team, guys who used to be better than him, now typing proud of you man underneath a screenshot of the announcement, his name sitting there between players whose posters he used to have on his wall.
He put the phone in his bag without reading any of it.
“You good?” Michael asked, toweling off two stalls down, not even looking over, the question tossed out the way you’d ask someone to pass a bottle of water.
“Yeah. Tired” The smile again. Automatic.
“You did good today, kid.” Michael said it easy, like it cost him nothing, like he hadn’t thought that Follo would spend the entire competition beating himself up to live up to the compliment. “Coach wasn’t lying. You’ve got something.”
I don’t know what I have, Follo thought. I don’t know if what they say I have is real or just luck.
“Thanks, man,” is what he said instead.
Outside, the walk home was quiet, or as quiet as it could be with music blasting through his headphones and the city just starting to wake up into a Saturday night. Somewhere down the block a group of people laughed too loud outside a bar, taking the sidewalk like they didn’t have anywhere in particular to be. He envied that, just a little
He kept his hood up the whole walk, hands shoved deep in his pockets, letting the bass in his ears drown out everything else.
That night, lying in his childhood bed surrounded by walls still covered in posters of his favorite bands and players, he le himself think the thing he’d been swallowing all day:
I don’t want to be the reason we lose. I don’t want them to find out I was only ever good enough for junior leagues and that I am going to disappoint them, at some point.
He didn’t tell anyone that. He wasn’t sure who he’d even say it to.