Saturday

Milan frowned, staring at the computer screen Jake turned towards him. Mass’ plan to film his session on skis to show his parents that he could ski wasn’t exactly successful like they had hoped. Jake, obviously, was very excited and borrowed him some skis right away. But his parents weren’t all that pleased that he went behind their back to ski.

Even when they showed the footage, to show them things actually went well, and told them Milan didn’t have any pain as a result, they still weren’t excited.

But Milan understood; they were probably just as scared as he was that the next time he would fall, things wouldn’t end well at all. Next time, he could actually suffer from head trauma that wouldn’t get better overtime.

Luckily, they had not forbit him to go back out there. He even got a hesitant permission to go practice every so often. Just not all day, every day, like he used to.

Milan anticipated on them to be angry, and to find them hesitant was already a huge relief. What he had not expected, was for the footage to actually blow up online.

The thing was, Jake and he had agreed not to publish anything, because he didn’t want to face reactions from anyone just yet. The footage Jake was showing him, was a near complete compilation of one of their descents, made by others on the mountain. Even if he was nearly unrecognizable due to scarf, helmet, and goggle, they all seemed to know exactly who he was.

“Everybody still loves to see you back out there,” Mass said, patting his shoulder with a proud smile on his face. “They waited for this.”

“I’m not even that  famous,” Milan mumbled while he felt his face heat up. Sure, over the years he had gotten himself a huge fanbase, all over the world. But he had been pretty sure eight months of silence would’ve decreased the number of fans and followers quickly.

Apparently, it didn’t.

Of course, with this amount of publicity and response, eventually the negative side presented itself as well. Three local newspapers and websites had written a short article about his session two days prior. They called it disappointing, boring and spoke about lack of interest. They claimed Milan was too full of himself, only just now returning for what they called an ‘exploratory first ride of the season’ which was late according to them.

If only they knew.

The thing is, he still didn’t feel like telling them exactly why he only just now returned. Why he had been gone, why he didn’t show interest in practicing. Not because he felt too good; on the contrary. He didn’t feel like he was recovered far enough.

But in between the tons of replies from excited fans and critiques, one stood out most. It was a reply from his biggest rival Ben Welsh. The guy Milan had always admired. Who had pushed him to be even better, train harder, learn more tricks. Because Ben was super talented, and Milan couldn’t afford to slack off if he wanted to beat the guy. Ben had been a huge part of his motivation.

Ben, secretly, also happened to be the reason Milan started realizing he was interested in guys in other ways than just being friends. Every time he saw Ben from a distance, his heart would skip a beat, his throat ran dry, and his body heated up. Milan had been crushing on Ben for way too long already, and his reply was what caused him to panic in that moment.

Ben was calling him out.

He was stating Milan ‘chickened’ out the year before, and that he deserved one final chance to show he was better than him. He was calling him out to defend his title at the End of Season tournament.

“I’ll request for those comments to be deleted tonight, when I’m home, okay?” Jake said, turning the screen back towards him. “There’re not that much so it won’t be much—”

“Upload the footage,” Milan said with a strained voice, his jaw clenched. He wasn’t a fucking chicken. He loved competing in tournaments. He didn’t feel too good  to compete, or train for that matter. He wasn’t stuck up, he wasn’t spoiled.

“What?” Jake said, nearly chocking on his breath as Mass send him a weird look.

“Upload it. The accident. Show Ben motherfucking Welsh I’m not a chicken. Show those critics I’m not stuck up. Show them exactly why  I quit with my dream out of the blue.”

“Are you… sure?” Jake asked, still opening the page with all the footage they ever uploaded. The only one who had never been public, was the one on which his accident could be seen.

“Can you, I don’t know? Edit some footage in from the first weeks off recovery? Show them I’m incapable of competing. Get them of my back. I’m done with the staring, the whispers, the rumors. Let’s show everyone exactly why.”

“If you’re sure, I will,” Jake said, nodding his head while his finger hovered over his mouse, ready to start uploading the footage. “Once it’s up there, you can’t take it—”

“I said do it.”

Jake simply nodded, pressing the button to upload the one video Milan had kept from his audience for the pettiest reason ever; because he got too upset whenever he watched it.

But while the video was being uploaded for the world to see, everything crashed down on him and realization hit that he had it easy. He wasn’t out there, facing tons of people who were all asking questions.

It had been his closest friends, his parents, his brothers, who had been out there, facing them each and every day, not allowed to talk about what happened. At first, because Milan needed peace and quiet while he was in hospital. His parents had been busy taking care of him, arranging accommodations for him to stay during recovery and taking care of everything else, like school. They didn’t have time to be flocked by media and fans with questions.

But once Milan moved to the best clinic in the country—four hours away from home—they could’ve easily explained everything to end the questions.

But only now that he was out there, facing the same people, being confronted with the same questions, did he realize how hard it must’ve been to them. He was being called out, not just by Ben, and he needed to show people he wasn’t a pussy. He needed to show that his friends and family had been taking care of him all those months and tried to act in his best interest.

No more questions.

No more rumors.

No more secrets.

And that was when the video popped up on his empty page—which still had nearly two million followers—with the date of the accident as the title, and it remained silent for the duration of the video. It was probably the only video Jake hadn’t edited to make it look cooler. It was just raw footage without added music. Just the sound of wind, skis slicing through snow, and eventually sounds that went with the crash. Jake curses loudly over and over again, sometimes yelling profanities at the skier who cut Milan off—and left the scene right away—until he reached a knocked out, bleeding Milan, and the video ended.

Milan swallowed, waking up from his stupor as sounds told them reactions started to roll in slowly.

“You okay?” Mass hesitantly asked, placing his hand on Milan’s shoulder.

Milan replied with a few nods of his head, his throat too dry to speak up. But at least he didn’t end up in a crying fit after seeing the full video; which was progress.

“Let’s go do something fun,” Jake suggested, “we’ll look at the comments later.”