Silver

Fenna had thought watching Marten would be difficult. The difficult part had been stopping. His race was over and she had to return to her own afternoon. Her body found that easier than her head. As soon as she got moving again, it wanted to go forward.

Gita asked whether she was ready. Fenna said yes and shifted her foot inside her shoe again. She didn't know what else she wanted to change. Madelon stood by their kit and said she'd been in the spectator seats with her parents. After the scratch race her father had asked whether everyone who didn't win still got a prize.

'That would be an expensive afternoon,' Fenna said.

'It was a practical question. I think he wanted to know whether he could go home early.'

They laughed. It helped that Madelon could simply make fun of her father while Fenna was so nervous. Nobody needed to say every word softly here.

She saw Saskia on the other side. She didn't look as though she already had the next victory in the bag either. She spoke to her own coach, glanced up and let her gaze rest somewhere by the track. Fenna ought to be able to take a heat off her. Preferably two. The desire came so easily that for a moment she couldn't understand how she'd thought about anything else.

Gita went through the preparation with her. Not the whole tournament again. She wanted to know whether Fenna understood what she wanted to try in the first heat. Fenna described what she had in mind. Gita asked one question, listened to the answer and nodded.

When they were ready, Fenna heard the announcer say their names. She knew hers, but through the speakers it sounded different, larger and rather impersonal. A hand rose among the spectators. She didn't look long enough to see whose.

Saskia was beside her. They'd shaken hands yesterday; now they were two people in each other's way again. They set off after the whistle. Fenna felt tension trying to settle in her shoulders and brought her attention back to the other bike.

At first less happened than her legs wanted. Saskia looked, waited, occupied space Fenna would rather have used herself. Fenna stayed with her and listened to her own tyres. She couldn't rely on her third-fastest qualifying time here. It had brought her to this heat; it wouldn't win it for her.

She thought she saw an opening. It wasn't imaginary. She could go for it, and did. Then she had to hold on to what she'd chosen. The pace rose. For a moment it felt as though she'd opened up the heat at exactly the right time.

At the bell Saskia drew closer. Fenna heard her before she could see all of her. She hadn't got her out of the heat. Now she had to stay faster than someone who apparently still had something to give.

Saskia was beside her on the last bend. Fenna wouldn't surrender the place and kept pushing, with the unreasonable conviction that wanting must be a separate source of power somewhere. The gap came anyway. Not large, but increasingly clear. At the line Saskia was ahead.

Fenna kept riding until she could come back. She already knew what Gita would say about the result; mainly she wanted to know how she'd seen the other part, the moment when it had looked right. She stood beside her and opened her mouth, ready to go through the whole heat again at once.

'I know,' she said.

'What do you know?'

'That I haven't won it.'

'Yes. We can talk about the rest.'

It helped that Gita wasn't finding a nicer name for losing. They looked at what had happened. Fenna could change something for the next heat, not suddenly exchange all her qualities for Saskia's. She ran her hands through her hair and drank. She still had a chance. Less pleasant than not having had to start yet, and much better than being finished.

Madelon stood a little way off. She raised two fingers, then folded one down, as though demonstrating an extremely complicated sum. Fenna shook her head. She knew what was needed. Win two heats in a row. She didn't need her friend spelling it out as well.

Before the second heat she felt tired in a different place. She'd ridden three semi-final heats yesterday. Saskia had had her own programme too. She knew that, but her body paid little attention to its fairness. She wanted her opponent to look tired. There was no visible sign she could use.

After the whistle Fenna decided sooner. She didn't want to ask the same woman the same question again. It grew faster, sharper. She saw Saskia react and felt sudden pleasure at being the one making demands now.

She didn't hold back to save herself for a third heat that might never come. She rode. Sound rose from the spectators, beyond anything she could make out. All she registered was when the sound swelled.

The bell rang. There was no starting again somewhere else now. Fenna stayed with what was happening beneath her and tried not to let Saskia pass her in her head already. She still had her own bike, her own legs, a few hundred metres where everything she felt could actually be used.

Saskia came. Fenna saw her hand, the piece of handlebar, her shoulder. She didn't want to look and had to see it to know where she was. She drove on. For a brief moment they almost stayed side by side. Then Saskia moved further ahead.

Across the line Fenna knew. She didn't need to hear anyone. She kept riding and looked at the back of the woman who'd been faster twice where it counted.

Back at their kit she got off and put her bike down. No swear word, no joke. Gita put a hand on her shoulder and let it fall. Fenna wanted to take her own thighs off and put them somewhere they could leave her alone for a while.

'Two–nil,' she said.

'Yes.'

She nodded. It was right. She sat down and loosened the things that had been tight round her. For a moment she was simply hot and angry and terribly tired. She'd already heard all the reasons to be proud somewhere, before anyone could give them to her. She wanted the last few metres back.

Madelon sat beside her. She said nothing. She didn't keep that up for long.

'My father thinks you deserve a prize.'

Fenna stared at her. Then she laughed, a short, ugly sound that made enough room for her to breathe again.

'Is he giving it to me?'

'Probably a leaflet for something. He picks them up everywhere.'

Fenna wiped her face with her wrist. The disappointment didn't leave. Something else came and sat beside it. She asked the time. Madelon told her and said she'd have to come back for the presentation soon. Silver really was second place here, with a result and someone about to say her name. She could hardly miss it because she'd wanted first.

Madelon asked whether Fenna wanted to join them for food afterwards. Her parents had already made plans and could easily add someone. Fenna shook her head. Today she could only gather her own wishes in small pieces. Change first, then the presentation, then home.

'Tomorrow, perhaps,' she said.

'I'm working tomorrow.'

Of course. Madelon hadn't put the rest of her life on hold for Fenna to finish this weekend. She said she'd already asked for time off for another race. It wasn't a big trip; she didn't have to become someone else for it. She simply wanted to ride better than yesterday.

Fenna looked at her. 'You will.'

'I thought so. Here comes something nice.'

'I'm terrible at this, so don't get used to it.'

Madelon nudged her knee. Fenna rested her hand over it for a moment. She'd wanted to tell her friend she'd miss her. More than the work and the riding together; Madelon would go on living somewhere Fenna no longer walked in all the time. She just didn't know how to say it now without sounding as though she was asking her to keep waiting.

'I'll come round this week,' she said.

'Call first. My place is small enough without you suddenly filling the doorway.'

Fenna nodded. She stood when Gita beckoned, and watched Madelon put her own programme back in her bag.

Saskia joined them before they had to go to the presentation. She held out a hand, but Fenna gave her a brief hug. Saskia was warm and smelt of the same hard afternoon.

'Well done,' Fenna said.

'Thanks. You too.'

'I'll be very mature about that later.'

Saskia laughed. She mentioned something in the second heat, a moment when she hadn't been sure herself. Fenna wanted to know which. They talked about it without changing the outcome. It was oddly satisfying to hear how hard she'd made Saskia work. Fenna didn't need a new result for that.

At the presentation she stood beside the winner and looked at the photographer, then the people behind him. She saw Gita and Madelon. Further off was Marten, his coat open. He clapped. He made no special sign meant only for her. She wanted to go to him and had to stay a little longer.

After the photographs came the other side of the weekend: gathering kit, thanking someone, finding a bag beneath another. She put the medal at the top of hers, away from the other things. By late afternoon she too was back among ordinary tasks.

There were messages from home on her phone. Her mother had been following the results someone had sent her. She thought Fenna's face looked very small in the photograph. Fenna sent a larger one and almost immediately got three exclamation marks back. Then her mother wrote that there was soup if she wanted to come over. Fenna wanted her own home. She said she'd bring the last boxes tomorrow.

Marten found her by the exit while she waited for Madelon. He looked first at the bag on her shoulder, then her face.

'There's a medal in there,' she said.

'I saw you with it.'

'Just warning you I might start swaggering.'

'You already were.'

She laughed. He was within reach. She didn't touch him. The familiar lightness between them made her feel all the more how much they still weren't doing.

'I thought it was beautiful,' he said.

She looked at him. He didn't explain what she ought to feel differently about her result. She could still see his own afternoon's disappointment in his face. Both of them stood here with something they'd wanted more from.

'I want to see you,' she said.

'You are.'

'Not here. Not always with a bike or a bag between us.'

He glanced aside. Madelon came out of the passage and saw them. She raised a hand and went outside. Fenna would follow in a moment.

'Tomorrow evening?' he asked.

She thought of her last working week, now behind her, the boxes she still had to take on Monday, and the rest of her agreed leave up to the end of her contract. There was time. She didn't have to rearrange something else to make room for it first.

'Yes.'

'At mine?'

'All right.'

His face changed. Nothing was solved yet, but she'd asked him for something that didn't require them to live in a sports hall together. She felt her body's tired strength again. It didn't want another sprint now.

Outside she walked with Madelon to their cars. Her friend asked nothing until the bikes were loaded. Then she looked over her open door.

'I've promised my father you'll look friendly in a photograph again.'

'This week?'

'Preferably this year.'

Fenna took the medal from the top of her bag. She held it up for a moment and pulled the most smugly satisfied face she could for Madelon's phone.