POV: Milan

Monday

Milan wished that he could be an anonymous teenager for just a day. Just one day without people staring at him, whispering behind their hands, talking about what happened. No endless stream of shocked comments on the video, no unlimited number of calls from newspapers and even two TV-stations. No sponsors, no friends he hadn’t seen in ages, no dickhead brothers who called to yell at him in anger.

No blond-haired guy nervously trailing behind him that very morning, ever since he got on the bus, all the way to their first class. Apparently, the blond guy was in his class.

Milan had first noticed him eagerly wiggling up and down, left to right, in his seat on the bus when he entered and sat next to Jacob in silence. Apparently, both of them were a bit overwhelmed by the amount of response the video had gotten. They only called on Saturday to exclaim a few ‘holy shits and fuck dude’s’ in shock, but they hadn’t actually discussed the content of the replies.

Milan had read about ten replies, before he felt overwhelmed and decided not to look at them for now.

Milan looked up from his notes, finding the blond guy sitting alone on the other side of the classroom, curiously staring at him while the teacher was droning on about some project.

“You’ll partner up with your neighbor for this project. Milan, why don’t you and Lennox work on this one together?”

Milan frowned, voicing a careful ‘who?’, since he didn’t know anyone in his class yet. But before the teacher was able to reply, the blond guy had jumped up, rushed over, and slid in the chair next to him.

“I’m Lennox. McAllister,” he said, offering him a hand while he seemed to be unable to sit still for three seconds. “You can call me Nox if you want. Or Len, or whatever cool nickname you come up with—”

“Lennox will do,” Milan replied, his frown increasing by the second, kind of surprised by his… energy, “I’m Milan—”

“Yeah, I know! Milan Lohmann!” He rapidly nodded his head, clapping his hands twice enthusiastically. “I’m probably your biggest fan. I’m so glad you came back! I laughed so hard at the video you made the other day. I wish I had a friend like Jacob because you two always have so much fun—”

“Lennox?” Milan said, grabbing hold of his arms to try and keep him still. “Kinda having a headache here—”

“Shit!” Lennox whispered with wide eyes, “is it because of the accident?”

No, it’s because you can’t shut up.

Milan shook his head in reply, turning towards his notes to see what they were required to do for the project. Lennox, however, wasn’t interested in that. 

Lennox gestured towards his own phone. “Are you gonna do it?”

“Do what?”

“Are you taking Ben’s challenge?”

“What challenge?” Milan frowned, biting his lip as he quickly took out his phone to see what Lennox was talking about. But Lennox had already opened the video of the accident, showing a comment from Ben, challenging him to compete in that season’s tournament to decide who was best, once and for all. Ben didn’t fail to mention the fact he had seen him ski the week before; he looked fine.

Physically, yes. Mentally? He was fighting terrible anxiety attacks if he even so much as thought about going back to the half pipe.

“So, are you gonna?”

“No, I’m not,” Milan replied coldly, turning towards his book, aggressively opening it, flipping to the right page. “End of discussion.”

“But…”

“I said, end of discussion.”

“Jeez, I just wanted to ask you how you were going to tell Ben. He is really adamant about competing with you again.”

“Yeah… well…” Milan weaky protested, “his insecurities aren’t my responsibility. I can’t compete, so, I won’t.”

“Still need to recover?”

“Lennox?” Milan rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Uploading the footage of that accident was kinda me, telling everyone that it is over. No more stunts, no more tournaments. I could’ve died from brain damage. I’m done. Stop talking about it.”

Lennox stared at him with a sad frown for a while, before he nodded, and silently grabbed his book to join him on the right page and start discussing topics for their project.

For the rest of the class, Lennox didn’t talk about anything else but their assignment. But Milan had a feeling that to him, the conversation wasn’t over yet. Which was why he was up and out of the classroom as soon as they were dismissed, speed-walking away from Lennox towards his next class. Avoiding fans was never really a thing he easily did. But until last year, it had been about fun conversations. It hadn’t been about his love for a sport he could no longer actively do.

It wasn’t making him cry like he nearly did during class. Nobody knew just how badly he wanted to take Ben up on his challenge and  be able to stand an actual chance.

The thing was, Milan had no clue just how much Ben’s challenge had changed the playfield. All he knew, until he sat down with his friends at lunch, was that Ben had challenged him to a face-off at the end of the season.

“Dude, things blew up,” Jacob instantly said as Milan sat down beside him. He got two phones shoved under his nose. One from Jacob, with an article that was posted the very same morning about a challenge between him, and Ben Welsh. The other phone belonged to Sang, and it showed an article in which they were speculating about him yes or no competing.

“Are they nuts?” Milan cried out in desperation. “Have they not seen the fucking video? For crying out loud, Ben commented under that  video to challenge me. What are they expecting?”

“For you to compete,” Evert wisely replied, waving a finger before showing his own phone. “Everybody saw you on the mountain the other day. Everyone saw the videos. You look fine.”

“I have crippling anxiety when it comes to fun parks and freestyle skiing,” Milan deadpanned, glaring at Evert. “Besides, descending a beginner slope can hardly be compared to tricks in a freaking half pipe and—”

“—and we know,” Jacob said, cutting him short, patting his arm a few times. “Calm down. I’ll go home with you, and we’ll write an official statement that you are physically, nor mentally, able to compete in any match. If needed, we’ll make a video in which you explain that it’s unrealistic and that Ben needs to go fuck himself for even thinking you’d be recovered enough.”

“But…” Cara hesitantly said, clearing her throat, “not to be rude, but haven’t you been cleared physically by doctors? I know you don’t want to head out there and compete. But technically, you could, right?”

“What’s your point?”

“Aside from what these idiots online are saying, what do you  want?”

“Go back in time, prevent the accident from happening and get my old life back.”

“Then why don’t you go for it?”