Logan throws the door open. “Yeah, Ash,” he says with a smirk in my direction. “Hurry up so we can get going.”
Z’s dressed in his snowboarding clothes, a backpack slung over one shoulder and his board under his other arm. Ophelia’s next to him, also dressed for the weather, which is pretty surprising considering how much Z’s girl hates the cold.
“You’re coming, too?” I ask, as my plans for a quiet day on the slopes disintegrate right in front of me.
“Fuck, yeah, she is. We all are. Dude, it’s been seven months since we got to really board with you.” He clasps my shoulder with his free hand, squeezes in a way I know he means to be supportive but that kind of just makes me queasy.
I love my friends, I really do. Can’t imagine how the fuck I would have gotten through most of my life—let alone the last six months—without them. But shit. It’d be nice if they’d be less supportive sometimes. Not a lot, just a little. Just enough so that I could breathe without them documenting it.
Across the hall, another door closes and then Luc is stepping past Z and Ophelia and into the room. “Hey, little man!” he says, holding his hand out to Logan for the complicated shake/fist bump combo the two of them have been doing for years. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
“Because Ash says I can’t go.”
I freeze as the three of them look at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind. And while I might be able to hold out against Logan’s pleas, I can’t fight them all. Especially not when Cam eases into the room and starts packing Logan’s backpack with extra gloves, water and some high energy snacks. Looks like I’m totally outvoted.
“I’ve already got a snowcat reserved for us,” Z tells me as Ophelia helps Logan into his jacket. “It seats twelve, so it’ll be a tight squeeze with everyone plus our gear, but it’ll work.”
“Everyone? Tansy and Timmy are going, too?”
Cam gives me a knowing look, then puts a soft hand on my shoulder. “That’s what we’re here for, right?”
“Yeah. Right.” Except I’m not ready for it. Not ready for any of it. I need more time to think, to get my head on straight. I need time to get ready to board, without worrying about Tansy and the way she looks at me. Or the way she cuddled up to Luc last night and how at home she seemed on his lap. I need—
“Come on!” Logan crows, wheeling toward the door with a huge smile on his face. “Let’s go.”
“Yeah, let’s go!” Luc echoes, as he shoves me toward the door. “Last one to the snowcat has to carry the gear to the top.”
Fuck. It’s like the whole world really is conspiring against me.
It’s a throbbing inside of me.
A clawing need.
An empty fucking hole that I never thought I’d fill again.
That I never wanted to fill.
Except I did. God, I did.
I’m standing at the top of Alto del Arpa looking down at virgin powder, a virgin fucking chute that’s never even heard the word piste. We’re way backcountry, in terrain loaded with cornices and ramps and my mouth is fucking watering, my whole body shaking with the need to drop in. The need to just fucking ride.
I knew it was going to be hard to do this, knew it wouldn’t be easy to stand up here and remember everything I’ve been fucking missing for seven long months.
But I didn’t think it’d be this fucking difficult, either. But it is. It’s torture.
Like fire skimming along my nerve endings.
Like razor blades skating through my veins.
Like coming unwound, my body shattering into a million pieces that can never be put back together.
That’s how badly I want it. And how badly it’s going to hurt when we leave here and I have to give it up all over again.
For a second, just a second, I think about not doing it. About not riding the chute. About not boarding at all. I think about saying fuck it and just walking away.
It’d be easier.
Less painful.