Love at First Tracks | wlw | Seasons 1&2

12. Mirror Talk

Summer had admired Juniper for so long before she ever met her. Admired her as a ski racer, as a woman unafraid to live her truth, as an object of attraction. She had spent so many years chasing after her - trying to beat her race times, her career milestones, trying to beat her - that Juniper James had become more myth than human.

But Juniper wasn't a myth. She was just a woman with as many flaws as anyone else. She'd admitted that herself. But she had also taken Summer's feelings seriously. She had apologized for hurting Summer even though she hadn't meant to.

All those easy smiles hid more self-awareness than Summer had realized. And also a shocking amount of self-doubt for someone who had achieved the things Juniper had.

Summer had never claimed to be perfect. Was it fair that she'd spent so long being upset that Juniper wasn't, either?

After one long, particularly gruelling training day, Summer stood at the mirror in the change room, washing her face and ignoring her legs, which begged for her to sit down. "When will you go back on the snow?" she asked over the sound of Juniper's shower.

"Don't you know that you're not supposed to ask me that?" Juniper emphasized her faux outrage with a lot of splashing. "I'm in my sad girl era. You're supposed to coddle me."

"Sorry. I don't do coddling."

"You don't? Fuck. I knew I should've read that friendship contract more carefully."

The word friendship tingled against her skin, so Summer rinsed her face and reached for the next bottle in her post-workout skin routine. The reflection in the mirror showed Juniper's clothes heaped on the bench and her feet under the shower door. Plastic slides slapped the wet tiles when she moved. Her toenails were painted vibrant blue, which was surprising in the same way her sweet tooth had been surprising.

Summer had thought she knew everything there was to know about Juniper, but she didn't. She hardly knew anything at all. That was a little bit thrilling. It gave her the same buzz she got when Juniper had called her an incredible athlete.

She thought she might like Juniper more as a woman than as a myth.

After their conversation by the waterfall, Juniper had chatted with the team coaches and brought back a plan to transition their ad-hoc gym sessions into a formal buddy training system.  They weren't on the same program, obviously; Juniper's training was tailored to her years of experience, while Summer was still getting back to peak condition after her surgery. But they had built a schedule that put them in the same places at the same times so they could be both cheer team and taskmaster for each other.

It felt different from what they had been doing before. More intentional. They'd set some ground rules: when positive encouragement was best and when shit talk was okay. She wasn't sure she could forget how it felt when Juniper looked at her with resentment, but she was glad they were finally talking openly. She had given up on ever having friends on the team. Juniper seemed determined to prove her wrong.