He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want me.
No big surprise there, right? It’s pretty much the story of my life. Too bad I never saw it coming from him.
Every ounce of self-preservation I have tells me to leave quietly. Just gather my stuff when he’s in the bathroom taking a shower, and slink out before he realizes what I’m doing. No harm, no foul. The last thing I want is a big melodramatic scene where he tells me we’ll always be friends.
That’s what my brain tells me to do, what I know I should do. What I do instead is something entirely different.
“Why did you fuck me?” I demand, following him into his bedroom. “Why the hell did you fuck me if you never wanted me?”
My voice is high and shrill and nearly unrecognizable, even to me. I never sound like this. I never yell like this, not at anyone. No matter how mad I am. But I can’t stop myself from screaming at Luc. It’s a train wreck, but one I apparently plan on riding as far as I can.
“Was it payback for what happened before? Did you do this to get even with me?”
“You don’t really believe that,” he says, looking shocked. Looking haunted.
“You don’t get to fucking tell me what I believe! I trusted you. I fucking trusted you!”
“And you can still trust me. Cam, I’m still Luc. We’re still best friends. I’m just tired.”
“Fuck you!” I scream at him, picking up a coffee mug from his nightstand and hurling it at him as hard as I can. It shatters against the wall, about an inch to the left of his head. “Don’t you at least have the balls to tell me the truth? If we’re best friends don’t you think you owe me that much?”
He stares at the shattered shards of the mug, dumbfounded. “What truth do you want me to tell you? Where is this coming from?” he demands.
“Are you kidding me? What did you think was going to happen? You were just going to let me move in with you for a little while, fuck me a few times, and then toss me out the second you got bored—”
“I’m not tossing you out! You’re staying here—”
“Like hell I am.” I grab one bag, heft it over my shoulder. Then grab the other and head for the door. I ignore the pain in my feet, the throbbing in my knee where I hurt it falling down the stairs earlier.
“Cam, come on.” Now he’s the one chasing after me, the one trying to get my attention. I ignore him, shrugging off the hand he lays on my shoulder, the fingers that clasp my elbow.
“Get away from me,” I tell him. “If you aren’t going to be honest, then stay the hell away from me.”
I open his front door, but he reaches out, slams it shut—hard—before I can get so much as a toe through it.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me the truth. What’s going on here? Why are you being so hot and cold? Why did you make love to me last night like we were the last two people on earth and then disappear for the whole day? Why are you giving me the cold shoulder now?”
I’m breathing hard by the time I finish hurling my questions at him and I can feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes. But fuck that—and fuck him if he thinks for one second that I’m going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Of making me cry. I don’t cry for anyone.
He doesn’t answer my questions. Instead he just stands there, fists clenched and face empty, like he’s waiting for me to do something. But I don’t know what to do, except leave. So that’s what I do. I grab the door handle and pull it open, this time getting my shoulder and bag in there fast, before he has a chance to slam it shut on me again.
I’m halfway through the door when he asks in a voice that’s little more than a whisper, “Do you have a date with Josh Greene this week?”
At first I think I’ve heard him wrong.
“A date?” I repeat, searching his face for some kind of clue as to what’s going on here. “With Josh?”
“Do you?”
“Of course not! Why would I make a date with him when I’m sleeping with you?”
“I don’t know. Why would he think you’ve made a date with him if you didn’t?”
“Is that seriously what you’re going to do here? Answer every question I ask you with another question?”
He just raises a brow. Inclines his head. Waits for my answer. Like I’m a defendant in some court case and he’s the judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.
“I have no idea why he would think we have a date. He texted me earlier, told me he had a lot of fun with us last night and that we should do it again. I agreed that it was fun. That’s all the interaction we’ve had.”
I take a step back into the apartment, let the heavier of my bags slip through my fingers to the floor. “Is that what this is all about? Are you jealous?”
“I’m not jealous. I just need to know where I stand with you.”
“Where you stand? I thought we were best friends who were finding a way to become lovers.”
My gut clenches even as I give him the description. Because, to be honest, I don’t know what we are. I know what I had hoped we were—friends cruising carefully toward being boyfriend and girlfriend since there’s a lot of past between us—but obviously, I’m the only one who felt that way. Why else would he be doing this? Why else would he think I’d start dating someone else the second his back was turned? Not even turned—he was right there at the bar with me last night when I was talking to Josh.
His face falls. For long seconds he doesn’t say anything, but then he whispers, “Is that what you really want?”
“I think I’ve made it fairly obvious what I want,” I tell him. “You’re the one who’s all over the place.”
“Can’t you just give me a straight answer for once? Please. Stop complicating things.”
“I gave you a straight answer. You just choose not to believe me. Besides, I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You’re here because you have nowhere else to go, not because you necessarily want to be with me.”
His words slash at me, cut like jagged knives.
“So that’s what this is about then? You think I’m using you?”
“What am I supposed to think?” he demands, shoving a frustrated hand through his hair.
“Why else would you avoid me for months and then show up here the way you did if you had anywhere else to go?”
“For the record, you’re the one who avoided me for months. And what? I’m sleeping with you as some kind of twisted payback? So not only am I a pathetic loser, I’m also a whore?”
“Stop putting words in my mouth.”
“Dude, I don’t have to put words in your mouth. You’re putting them there all by yourself. After everything we’ve been together, after all the shit we’ve been through, you don’t trust me. And you sure as hell don’t trust what I thought we were trying to build together.”
He looks pained, but he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t deny it. And that is the final nail in the coffin for me. Snow bunnies are a dime a dozen out here. If all he really wants is to get laid without any complications, he won’t have any problem doing just that. I ignore the pain the thought causes me as I bend down and pick up the bag I dropped earlier.
“I can’t do this,” I tell him. “Not now, not with you. I’m done, Luc. Done. I’m so fucking done.”
This time when I open the door, he doesn’t try to stop me. But then, I never really thought he would.
Chapter 14
Luc
3 MONTHS LATER
I wake up to the sound of snow falling. Pushing back the covers, I untangle myself from the pillow I was clutching and the covers I somehow got wrapped up tightly in when I slept.
I don’t remember much about last night or what happened after I got back here. I went out with Ash—he told me he was sick of watching me sit at home drowning my fucking sorrows. So we went out to eat and then caught a movie—something with plenty of blood and violence—and things were going pretty well, I think, at least
until I saw a girl with red curls from behind and for an instant—just an instant—thought it was Cam.
It shot the whole night, and I ended up at the closest bar, drinking myself into oblivion. Again. And yes, I’m aware of just how fucking pathetic that sounds. But I’ve never been one to hide from the truth and right now, the truth is, I am fucking pathetic. Exercising all day so that I don’t think about her, drinking all night so I can forget about her. It’s not a great system, but it’s working well enough. At least it staves off the loneliness for a little while, lets me sleep. All of which is way better than the first month after she left, when I couldn’t shut my brain off enough to sleep for more than a random hour or two at a time.
And the side effects—the hangovers in the morning and the inability to even look at myself in the mirror—are minor enough. At least compared to the crushing pain that slams through me every time I think about the fact that Cam really isn’t coming back.
A glance at my phone tells me it’s early. Really early, which is why it’s still pitch black outside. Still there’s no way I’m going back to bed now. Not when the first snow of the season is going on right outside my fucking door. Not when, for the first time in three months, I feel a glimmer of something besides despair.
I ghost into the kitchen, grab some orange juice and a couple Advil. I let myself out onto my patio to watch the show.
It’s fucking beautiful.
The streetlights give just enough illumination to make the snowflakes look like little drops of silver as they float slowly to the ground. Stepping outside the cover of my patio, I hold my arms out wide and tilt my face up to the sky. These snowflakes are big and misshapen, and they feel cold and wet against my cheeks, my arms, my eyelashes.
I love it, love every fucking snowflake and every fucking second that I’m out here with them, alone. I stick my tongue out, laughing a little as a few land there and I get my first taste of winter.
Thank God.
Thank God.
A sob rips through me then, harsh and painful and so totally unexpected that it nearly brings me to my knees. I let myself have this moment—this one beautiful, devastating moment—and then I fight it back, shove all the shit down deep inside of myself and lock it away for another few months.
The wind picks up, and now it’s whipping the snowflakes against my face. But I’m okay with that too. Hell, I’m okay with anything that will get me on my board—making it through these last three months without the release of snowboarding has been fucking brutal.
Not anymore, though. The snow is sticking, the ground beneath my bare feet already coated with a thin layer of powder. If this keeps up, I’ll be on my board in no time.
It’s cold out and the wind is fierce, but I don’t go back inside despite the fact that all I’m wearing is a thin T-shirt and a pair of sweats. I like the cold—like the bark and the bite of it.
I like the distraction of it.
I don’t know how long I stand out here, arms spread wide in worship and supplication as the snow continues to fall. Long enough for my shirt to grow damp from melting snowflakes. Long enough for the bottoms of my feet to begin to ache and burn with the cold. More than long enough for the need to board to grow from an itch into a necessity that I can’t walk away from.
As the sky slowly turns an inky kind of purple, I walk around the side of the building to the large storage unit where I keep my boarding equipment. I have a ton, so I store a bunch of it at my mom’s house, too, but my favorite boards and wax I keep here—along with a balance bar and some other stuff I practice on during the off-season.
I pull out a couple boards—including my favorite Burton—and some wax, then head inside to get my gear. I usually wax my board in my laundry room—less of a mess if the wax gets on the tiles in there—so I set it down on my waxing station. Then I pull out my iron and get it preheating while I rifle through my waxes. I’ve got six or seven different kinds in here, all meant for different conditions and different performances. Since I’m doing streetstyle today, I pick a bright green one that’s highly fluorinated to help me go fast.
When the iron’s hot, I press the bar of wax against it, then run it above my board so that the wax drips down onto the board. Once I’ve got enough wax on it, I set the bar aside and start ironing my board.
A lot of guys don’t like this part of boarding, but I always have. Because I hit the pow so much, I wax my board every few days, which I admit, can be a pain since it’s so messy. But on mornings like today, when it’s been a few months since I’ve been on the snow, it’s kind of nice. Especially since it lets me go over the tricks I want to do in my head, lets me kind of visualize them before I’m actually out in the fresh powder.
I get dressed while the wax is cooling down, pulling on a pair of black snowboarding pants, a long-sleeve T-shirt, and a hoodie. Normally I’d wear a jacket as well, but it’s not that cold yet and I won’t be out that long—people will be waking up to go to work in another couple hours or so—so I don’t bother.
Once my board is cool, I scrape the wax off, making sure to get all the excess. The last thing I want is a bunch of residue slowing my board down—or worse, catching on a rail and sending me spinning. I brush the board down twice, making sure it shines, then run a Scotch-Brite pad over it to make sure it’s perfectly buffed.
I finish up just as dawn is creeping across the sky, which is nice because I’m not suicidal enough to snowboard in the dark. At least not in an area that’s not on the mountain. And while I could go up to the resort Ophelia’s aunt and uncle run—it’s our home resort and they pay me, Ash, Z, and Cam to ride there—that’s not the kind of riding I want to do today.
So I leave my car keys on the counter, gather up my stuff, and head out through my parking lot and out onto the main street. I don’t have far to go to get where I want to be—there’s an old-timey looking strip mall a few blocks from my house, one that has low slanted roofs and high staircases and—if things haven’t changed, a dumpster in the perfect position for what I want to do.
The snowplows are already out, clearing the street of the eighteen inches of fresh pow that’s fallen overnight, stacking it up on the curbs I’m walking along. I love the look of the snow all piled up, the sound of my boots crunching through it. Hell, I even like the smell of the snow—all fresh and clean and pure—so different from how I feel right now.
When I get to the strip mall, I immediately head around to the side of the building—and the built-in ladder that runs up the edge of it. I swear, whoever owns this place has to be a boarder too. The setup is just way too perfect otherwise.
Before I climb, I check out the dumpster, make sure it’s where it’s always been. I run my hands along the rims, make sure they’re clean and unhindered. Then I run up and down a couple of the different sets of stairs, checking out the railings, making sure they’re good too.
I’d never do this on the mountain, but then I wouldn’t have to. There are people at the resorts whose only job is to make sure the courses are in tip-top shape. And when we’re boarding backcountry, the surprise is part of the thrill of tackling nature head-on. But in the city, boarding streetstyle, surprises can get you killed. I learned a long time ago to make sure I knew the course was in good shape before I tried to board it.
Adrenaline is pumping through me by the time I sling my bag over my shoulder and start the climb to the roof. I haven’t boarded since Chile and I can’t wait—cannot wait—to feel the pow under my board. It’s been too fucking long, man, and my head is too fucking messed up. I need to barge a few runs if I have any hope of clearing it.
When I make it to the top of the roof, I look out over the parking lot. The sky’s lightened up a little more and everything has an early morning haze around it, like all the harsh edges are just a little blurred. I love this time of the day, especially when there’s fresh powder on the ground. Everything is stark and beautiful and yet somehow less harsh than under the full light of day.
It’
s as if the imperfections in the world around me are softened somehow, less blatant and in your face. I think I like it because I hope it does the same thing to me—makes me look less like an untalented douche—and more like a guy who’s got something going for him. Wishful thinking, but there it is.
What is it about being all alone in the middle of new snow that turns me philosophical? Whatever it is, it needs to stop because time is running out—and there’s no way I’m going home until I jib a few rails.
I drop my bag on the apex of the roof, then carefully buckle into my board. When I’m all fastened in, I get myself balanced, take a deep breath. I bend my knees a little, hold my arms out, get the feel of the board underneath me for the first time in way too fucking long. It’s a long way down and the last thing I want to do is fall off this fucking roof before I even get a chance to barge a Salad or a Smith.
I take a few more seconds to steady myself, to find my center. And then fuck it—I can’t wait any longer. I get in my stance and press the board forward so that I’m gliding down the steep peak of the roof.
I do a slow 180 off of it, hit the dumpster just right with a backside Lip Slide that has me coasting fast along the edge of it until I 540 off the back corner. I’m frontside now, so that when I jib into the tailgate of the truck parked two spaces away from the dumpster, I hit it hard before flipping off its edge and onto the fresh pow.
Fuck, yeah!
I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the run that pops my cherry after a long, dry spell—and I’m grinning like a fucking gaffer as I coast the ten feet to the first flight of stairs. And then I’m right there. I do a Switch Butter, then put my weight on my back foot, and pop the front of my board up. I hit the rail frontside and grind my way down, going fast thanks to the high fluoride wax. I’m flying by the time I hit the bottom of the rail and I rodeo it off the back.
My landing’s a little off—I didn’t get quite enough air—and I asspass my way across a good twenty feet of snow before I can dig in my board and drag myself to a stop.