“Hey, I’ve got you covered, man,” I tell him. “How ’bout a piggyback ride?”
“Really?” he asks, eyes wide.
“Absolutely.” I turn to Luc, who’s been watching the whole exchange while Z barges the half-pipe with a truly front run. “Can you help get him on my back?” The last thing I want to do is jostle the kid around and cause him more pain.
“You bet.” Luc lifts Timmy onto my back, and for the second time today I can’t help being startled at how little the person I’m carrying weighs. The kid is twelve, lanky as hell, and yet he weighs almost nothing. Logan is skinny, but Timmy probably weighs forty or fifty pounds less than my brother. It’s terrifying, and just more proof that he really isn’t going to live much longer.
The hike to the top of the pipe is nothing, Timmy weighing only a little more than the backpack I carry when we’re boarding backcountry. But once at the top, instead of settling him down on the deck to watch me do a run, I set him on his feet and ask, “Hey, what do you say to doing a run with me?”
His eyes go wide as silver dollars. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I say, plopping the helmet Tansy and I had just retrieved from the resort down on his head, “what do you say to riding this board with me? I won’t be able to do any sick tricks, but we should be able to get ourselves around the half-pipe pretty well.”
“Yeah!” he shouts, and the smile on his face is everything I’d hoped it would be, and then some. At least until he looks
at my board in confusion. “But how is that going to work?”
“Well, Z and I used to do this a lot when we were kids. Craziest thing you’ve ever seen, but it’s a lot of fun, too. I’ll strap into the board first, then I want you to sit on the end and wrap your arms and legs around my back leg. I’m going to ride switch, so that my strongest leg is in the back to work against your weight and to help keep us balanced and moving forward.”
“Is that going to work?”
“Absolutely,” I tell him. “I told you, Z and I did it a million times. Cam and Luc, too. All you’ve got to do is hang on as tightly as you can. I’ll go slow, so even if you fall off, you won’t get hurt.”
He eyes the half-pipe for a second, his bottom lip sucked between his teeth. “I don’t want to go slow. I want to go really fast.”
“Dude, let’s just see how it goes first time out, okay? It’s been a while since I did this.”
“I want to go fast,” he says again, eyes bright as fucking stars. “As fast as we can.”
“I promised your mom we’d be safe—”
“I’m dying, Ash. I’ve got a few weeks, maybe a month to live, at the most. What’s the point of playing it safe at this point? I want to have fun! I want to do everything I can before I go.”
Jesus. What the hell am I supposed to say to that? I glance down at Timmy’s parents, who are watching us from their spot at the end of the half-pipe. His dad is grinning hugely while his mom looks anxious. If I do what Timmy asks, I’m sure they’ll both skin me alive—especially when I promised them I’d be careful. But if I ignore Timmy’s wishes, then I’m not that great of a Make-A-Wish choice, am I?
I wave at them, let them know everything’s okay. Then turn to look at Tansy, hoping for some kind of sign from her. We talked about my plan on the way back and she thought it was a great idea, but she’s the one who told me when I got up here to remember whose wish I’m supposed to be granting. There’s a part of me that wonders how she knew I’d end up in this position.
She doesn’t notice me looking at her, trying to catch her eye. She’s too busy talking with Logan, whose whole face is lit in a huge smile. He says something in response to her and then they both crack up. It makes me smile.
Still undecided, I strap into my board, then wait for Timmy to scoot forward and wrap himself around me like I instructed. I have to admit, I was a little worried about him being strong enough to hold on, but despite his illness, the kid has a hell of a grip. Good.
Z looks up from where he’s talking to Victor at the end of the half-pipe, and lets out a huge war whoop when he realizes what I’m doing. Timmy lets go of my leg just long enough to wave at him and the others, all of whom have stopped to look now that they see what we’re doing.
“You ready, man?” I ask Timmy as I sideslip us to the edge of the ramp that leads into the pipe.
“Hell, yeah!” he shouts.
I can’t help grinning at the enthusiasm. He sounds just like Logan the first time I ever took him into the half-pipe. “All right, then. Here goes nothing.”
I bend my legs, line up my shoulders, then use my knees, hips and the heel of my left foot to get us moving.
We drop into the pipe pretty smoothly, considering it’s been years since I’ve done this with another rider on my board. Not to mention the fact that I’m riding switch. But boarding is boarding and I can do a simple half-pipe run in my sleep.
I carve across the flat bottom of the pipe, then angle up the transition and the vert. I don’t jump like I normally would here, more concerned about keeping things smooth for Timmy than I am with building up speed at this point. But as we pivot and carve our way back down the pipe, I can feel Timmy all but trembling in anticipation.
“Go faster, Ash! Go faster.”
With a silent apology to his parents, I press down hard on the heel of my front foot to increase speed, then carve my way up the backside wall of the pipe. When we’re almost at the coping, I hop—it’s not a full jump, but it’s enough to gain momentum and this time when we carve down the pipe, we go twice as fast as we did at first.