I open my mouth, then, and say the only thing that feels right, the only thing I can say and still look myself in the mirror.
“Yes. I’m keeping the baby.”
Chapter 18
Luc
“Let’s stomp this shit!” Z calls as he races up the mountain to the top of the jump we’ve spent the last five hours building. It’s a monster thing, absolutely huge, with a gradual slope into one of the steepest inclines we’ve ever built. It’s a serious jump meant to do serious tricks on and if it were any other day I’d be dying to try it out—dying to get my board on the fresh pow and just barge this thing until I’m so cold, my nuts are in danger of falling off.
But it isn’t just any day. It’s two days after I found out Cam was pregnant, two days after I found out that her snowboarding dreams for this year are pretty much dead in the water. Two days when I’ve texted her numerous times only to be ignored again and again.
I know I fucked up when I saw her last, know that I should have been more understanding and less messed up, especially considering how freaked out she was. But I was pretty freaked out myself—am pretty freaked out—and I couldn’t help what came out.
“You ready?” Z calls from the top of the jump.
He’s in position now, his board strapped to his feet and his grin a mile wide. We’re in the backcountry, on a jump we built with our own hands, and nothing makes him happier. Besides going off the side of a mountain with absolutely no warning and no plan.
But he’s stopped doing that since Ophelia came into the picture. Oh, he’s still a daredevil, still a show-off, but the risks he takes are more moderate, less insane now that he has something to live for besides the guilt that’s eaten him alive for way too many years. I’m grateful every day that Ophelia came into his life—and not just because of Cam. I know Ash and even Cam feel the same way.
I’m at the bottom of the hill, my camera trained on him, while Ash is at the top of the jump with another camera. We learned early on to always have a camera focused on Z because you can never tell when he’s going to bust out with something totally broadway. We’ve missed too many ace tricks through the years not to watch—and videotape—him like hawks.
Ash must get tired of waiting for Z to get his shit together, because he calls, “are you going to stand up there like a huge pussy all day or are you actually going to do something?”
Z flips him off, his bright red gloves making quite a statement against the backdrop of white snow. And then he’s jumping in, quickly gathering speed as he boards down the hill and into the upward curve of the jump. He goes off the lip and then he’s spinning backward, backward, backward, backward into a perfect Double McTwist 1260.
He nails the landing, and we’re all whooping and hollering—what a way to wake us the fuck up after a long damn summer.
“Nice move,” Ash tells him. “But I can totally beat it.”
“That was just a warm-up,” Z answers as he glides over to me and unbuckles his bindings before reaching for the camera. “Wait till next time.”
I head up the hill, my board under my arm as Ash waits impatiently at the top for me to take the camera. I get his frustration. Usually there are four of us out here and it makes everything go faster with two of us a the top of the hill, one of us at the bottom and one of us climbing as whoever it is does the trick.
But we’re missing Cam today, will be missing her all season, and it’s throwing us all off our game a little. It’s been years since we’ve boarded backcountry without her and it totally blows. Judging from the looks on Ash’s and Z’s faces right now, I’m not the only one who feels that way.
I think about texting her, about telling her how much we miss her. But that seems too much like rubbing salt in a brand new wound. Besides, it’s not like she’ll answer me anyway.
Still, I grab the camera from Ash and set myself up to shoot whatever crazy shit he comes up with. Z might have only been warming up, but he’s definitely thrown down the gauntlet and Ash can’t help but to pick it up. I focus on him, tell myself I’m excited to see what he does. And do my best to ignore the fact that Cam’s absence is like a hole in my fucking gut.
Ash starts a little slower than Z, but then he always does. Z goes hog fucking wild, does whatever the hell comes into his mind as soon as it hits him. Ash thinks it all through so that every move he makes is planned, deliberate, as perfect as he can make it.
This time is no different.
He’s riding switch when he hits the jump, gliding smooth as silk through the snow, and up into the curl. When he launches himself off, he crosses his arms, does a Cross-Rocket Lando-roll that has him spinning ass over teakettle in two different directions at once. 360, 540, 720, 900, 1080…
He lands with a flourish, popping the nose of his board up and spraying snow in all directions.
“Fuck, yeah!” he yells, punching the air as he cruises down the mountain.
He and Z high-five and I shout my kudos down the hill at him. Holy shit. No one does that trick crisscrossed like that. It’s too fucking dangerous if it goes bad—you’ve got no protection, no way of getting your hands up to protect your face and head. And Ash just throws it down like it’s fucking nothing.
Z’s riding an adrenaline high at this point—when isn’t he, really—so it only takes him a couple minutes to run his ass straight up the hill at me.
“Do us proud, bro,” he tells me as he grabs the camera with one hand and offers me a fist bump with the other.
Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen. Still, I’m out here with my friends. It’s a beautiful fucking day and the conditions are stellar. I might as well go up there and just have a good time. I may not be able to bang out the tricks they can, but I can still have fun.
There’s a tree not far from the jump, its branches bare of leaves and jutting out straight at us. I think about glancing off of it, pulling out a 540 or a 720 on the way down. But then I decide, fuck it. I’m just going to do the jump straight, spin it out and see how far I get, how many degrees I can spin before the ground fucking rises up to meet me. I’ll pull out before I get too low, but I’ve been strength training like hell and I think I should be able to pull out a Triple Underflip without too much trouble. If the universe—and my body—cooperates.
“Are you gonna go, or are you going to stand there like a little bitch?” This time Z’s heckling me the way Ash heckled him. I give him the same one-finger salute that he gave Ash, then bend down and check my bindings as I visualize the trick in my mind.
The jump has such a sharp curve to it that it’s almost vertical—which is why we’re all going backward off of it. It’s hard to get any good air going frontward on a jump like this. Plus, backward tricks are just way more fun.
I’m not planning on corking this one, just doing a straight Underflip—again, it’s not as sexy as Z’s McTwist or Ash’s Lando-roll, but it gets the job done. Or at least, I hope it does.
“Are you going?” Ash yells up to me, “ ’Cause I’m going to start filming one way or the other, and I have no problem putting you on the website looking like a scared little kid.”
Knowing he means it, and since the last thing I want to do is look like a total gaffer on film, I take a deep breath and push off. The moment I drop into the jump I can tell this is going to be a good run—I can feel it in the way my board coasts along the powder like butter, and in how easy it is to pop the front of my board up with barely any pressure at all.
I go into the curve switch, just for the hell of it, making sure to keep my stance clean with my knees bent and my shoulders lined up with the board. Three spins, I tell myself as I launch. I’m fucking not coming down without a 1080. It’s a matter of honor.
I get great air—I mean, fucking great air—and I use my thighs to propel myself even higher as I start my first backward roll. 360, 720, 1080—there it is. I did it. I look to come down but there’s still more air to catch, so I fucking do it, underflipping one more time—and coming out
of it with a full 180 Twist that lands me perfectly positioned on the pow.
For a second, I can’t believe what just happened. I start going over the spins in my head, certain that I’ve fucking miscalculated—certain that I’ve counted 540 degrees too many.
But then Z is running down the hill and Ash is running up the hill and they’re both screaming like a couple of fucking banshees—or gaffers who’ve never seen a decent trick before.
“Was that—” I start to ask, but Z cuts me off.
“Holy shit! Where the fuck have you been hiding that?” He punches my arm. “I mean, seriously. Where the fuck did that come from?”
I look at Ash for confirmation—he’s definitely the cool-headed one of us—but he’s all but jumping out of his skin.
“A 1620. A fucking 1620! How the hell did you fucking land a 1620?”
He’s incredulous, absolutely fucking gobsmacked, but I’m not insulted. Because this is way more about the trick than it is my inability to ride as well as my friends.
“Are you sure it was a 1620?” I demand. “I flipped four times, which is a 1440, but—”
“You did a half twist at the end,” Z breaks in, waving the camera in my face. “I know it’s a 1620, but I’ve got the camera right here if you want to check.”
My head is reeling. I’m trying to play it cool, but I can’t. How can I when I just landed a 1620? A fucking 1620? Only one other person on the planet has done that and though we’ve all been nipping at his heels—Z and Ash included—it never once occurred to me that I’d be the one to duplicate the feat.
A 1620? I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it until after I’ve seen the proof with my own eyes. And maybe not even then, because this is me. And snowboarding. And a trick almost no one else in the world can do. It doesn’t make sense.
But Luc and Ash are crazy excited. They’re whooping and hollering and already pressing replay for the footage on both their cameras, at the same time. I don’t know where to look—they’re both holding their vids up at the same time and yelling for me to watch. So I end up going back and forth between the two cameras, hands clenched and body tight as I count the rotations of my body.
One, two, three, four—with a twist at the end.
Holy fuck. Holy fuck. HOLY FUCK! I really did just do a 1620. A 1620. It wasn’t a Cork, was just an Underspin which doesn’t have as much style, but holy fuck! That doesn’t matter. Not right now.
“How the hell did you do that?” Z demands. “It’s nearly impossible. Like seriously nearly impossible.”
I don’t argue, because he’s right. It is nearly impossible. Z can’t do it. Neither can Ash. And—I realize reluctantly as we watch the footage a second then a third then a fourth time—neither can Cam.
Holy fuck!
“Can you do it again?” Ash demands. “The footage Z has is good, but I really want to get a better shot of it before I upload it to the website.”
“You’re not really going to upload it, are you?” I ask, because it’s not normally my stuff that gets spontaneously uploaded. Oh, there are plenty of videos of me on the website and online, but the uploads that happen when we’re boarding backcountry are almost all Z and Ash and Cam. Because they’re the talented ones. They’re the ones who can do the crazy sick tricks.
“Hell yeah, I’m uploading it. You just did the second 1620 in history—and it’s the first Switch Quadruple one like, ever! Once I get it up, it’s going to spread like wildfire. The whole world is going to know by tonight!”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I can do it again.”
My mind is blown, is boggling at the idea that I did this. I did this. Not Z. Not Luc. Not Josh fucking Greene. Me.
“Yeah, well, you didn’t think you could do it the first time, so get your ass up there and try,” Z tells me, half-walking, half-shoving me up the side of the mountain. “If you can’t, who gives a fuck? You did it once. But I want to see you do it again.”
“We both do!” Ash calls even as he moves back and forth, trying to find the right spot to record my second try.
“Yeah, all right,” I tell them, but I’m shaking my head as I finish the climb back up to the jump. “You know I’m going to end up falling flat on my face and making a total ass of myself like I usually do.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Z demands, punching me in the arm, hard. “One, you nail a hell of a lot more tricks than you fall on. Two, remind me of all these supposed times when you think you made an ass of yourself? And three—”
“You know I fall a lot.”
“We all fall a lot, bro. It’s the nature of the sport. I’ve broken thirteen bones through the years, you know that.” The look he gives me is half-incredulous, half-disgusted as he continues. “Besides, it’s just Ash and me out here. Who the hell are you going to make an ass of yourself in front of?”
I shrug, look away. Pretend to be totally absorbed in the view, which is pretty spectacular if I’m being honest. And try not to think about all the times Z and Ash have done things so much better than I can ever dream of doing them.
Except Z’s not having it. He’s absolutely not having it, which I discover when he grabs the front of my jacket in both his hands and hauls me around to look at him.
“I’m sick of this shit!” he tells me, his voice loud and echoing through the mountains around us. “I’m sick to death of you thinking you’re not good enough or not talented enough or not hip enough to do whatever the fuck you want!”
“Not hip enough?” I raise a brow.
“Whatever. You know what the fuck I mean.” He doesn’t let go of my jacket. Instead he uses his grip to shake me a little, like he’s trying to shake some sense into me, or something. “You’ve spent the last six years trying to live up to completely unreal expectations for yourself. Expectations you’ve set, expectations your mother set. And it’s enough. It’s more than enough. You’re one of the best boarders in the fucking country—”
“That’s not true!” The words are torn from me. “You’re one of the best boarders in the country. In the world. Ash is. Cam is. You don’t need to bullshit me to make me feel better. You think I’m blind or something? I know exactly how talented—or not talented—I am.”
“Jesus. Are you fucking kidding me?” Ash is in on the action now. He’s standing next to Z, shaking his head and looking more disgusted than I’ve ever seen him. “You’re the one who just landed a 1620, bro. Not Z, not me.”
“It was a fluke—”
“It wasn’t a fluke! When are you going to get that through your fucking head?” Z demands. “I get that you’ve had it rough. I get that your mom has done a fucking number on you. But you’ve been boarding with us for years. You’ve been to the same invitationals, barged the same tournaments. When are you going to get that this whole I’m-not-good-enough attitude is just in your head? No one else has it.”
“Cam has it.” The words come out before I have a clue I’m going to say them.
Z and Ash share a look.
“She doesn’t,” Ash says after a minute.
I snort. “Way to sound convincing there, bro.”
“I shouldn’t have to convince you—it’s right there for you and the rest of the world to see.”
Rarely has Ash looked so serious.
“What? Her disdain? The fact that she wants nothing to do with me? The fact that she’s probably going to abort my baby because she has so little faith in me that she can’t stand the idea of me being the father to her kid? How about the fact that she won’t even talk to me about how she’s feeling or what she wants or even what’s going on in her life. I had to find out about the baby from Z, for fuck’s sake.”
“Maybe I jumped the gun there,” Z says. “Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut and let her tell you when she was ready.”
“Aren’t you listening to me? She never would have told me. She doesn’t talk to me. She doesn’t want anything to do with me—”
“Now you’re just be
ing a melodramatic asshole,” Ash tells me matter-of-factly. “The girl just needs some space. She’s messed up—this baby is fucking with all her plans—with her whole career. She can’t board while she’s pregnant. She’s worried about losing her endorsements and if she does how she’s going to support her kid—”
“She has to know I’ll take care of her. I’d never let anything happen to her or the baby—”
“She probably does know that deep down,” Z says. “But she wasn’t exactly thinking rationally the other night. Her whole world is going up in flames around her and she’s fucking scared. Who wouldn’t be? She worked her ass off for this season and now it’s all disappearing right in front of her. I guarantee it’d stress me out if something happened that fucked with everything I worked so hard for and that’s without the whole, holy-shit-there’s-a-baby-inside-me aspect to deal with.”
He’s finally relaxed his grip on my jacket, and I take advantage of that fact to slowly amble away—to look over the edge of the mountain and hide the fact that I’ve got fucking tears in my eyes.
“It doesn’t have to. Not if she has an abortion.”
I can’t believe how much I’ve fucked this up for her, can’t believe how much she must hate me. Just the thought nearly brings me to my knees. I love her so much and she won’t even look at me, won’t even talk to me. It takes every ounce of self-control I have not to start blubbering like an idiot.
“Is that what you want her to do?” Ash asks.
I turn on him.
“Of course it’s not what I want her to do. What I want is for her to come back to me and have the baby and let me take care of the both of them. But how can I ask that of her—”
“How can you not ask it of her?” Z demands. “She’s your woman. She’s carrying your kid. She needs you to let her know that you’re going to be there for her no matter what happens or how bad things get.”