“It’s down the ridge a bit.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I have better service here. Let me call again.” He lifted the phone to his ear and had another conversation with the 9-1-1 operator. They didn’t get cut off this time, and after he hung up, he looked at me, those dark eyes blazing with something new—pride.
“They’ve already alerted personnel here. They’re coming to start the lift.”
I nodded, tears pricking the backs of my eyes. I wasn’t sure when I’d cried last, but I was so tired, and so emotionally spent, and the tears just came. “Let’s go wait at the lift. Then we can be there when Darren gets off.”
We’d taken two steps when a shout sounded up ahead of us. Four people walked toward us. One veered to the right to start the Dollar lift and the other three continued toward us. All men, and two of them carried medical bags.
Grayson waved away medical attention while I asked, “Do you have anything to eat?”
One of them passed me a bottle of water and I drank it greedily. He ripped open a granola bar and handed it to me, switching out for the empty water bottle. “He hurt his knee.” I nodded toward Grayson, who’d gone several paces ahead with one of the men.
“I’ll check him.” One man jogged ahead, while one stayed with me.
“My name’s Derek,” he said. “Tell me how you got to the bottom of the mountain.”
“We skied.” My head pounded and the water I’d drank sloshed in my stomach. “The lift started as we went down, and we thought the resort had opened.” I finished explaining everything as we approached the lift.
“We sent a medical patrol down to the bottom,” he said. “We’ll get them up.” His face radiated kindness and assurance, and I accepted it.
Several minutes passed and then a seat arrived with a pair of skis attached to the side. “Those are mine,” I said, another rush of relief tingling through my system. My knees swayed, and Derek grabbed onto me.
“Whoa. Do you need to sit down?”
I gripped his arm and steadied myself. “I’m okay.” The thought of sitting in the snow in my already wet clothes sent a shudder through my muscles.
My skis got unloaded, and Grayson’s arrived a couple of seats later. Right after that came Loretta sandwiched between the two boys. She had one arm around each of them, and when they saw the crew waiting for them at the top of the lift, a smile bloomed on her face.
It was over.
I sank to the ground as Grayson limped forward to be there when Darren stepped off the lift.
It was finally over.
* * *
Back at the cabin, I stood in the hot shower watching the clear water run down the drain. Luke, Josh, and Melissa all showed signs of anxiety and evidence of crying. Well, not Josh, but he’d still clung to me like he’d never let me out of his sight again. Luke cried freely into Grayson’s shoulder before disappearing into his bedroom, and Melissa drew us both into a group hug that left me feeling awkward.
So I’d escaped to the safety of the shower, citing that I just needed to get warm. Thirty minutes later, and I still didn’t want to step out of the spray. Grayson’s cabin had an enormous amount of hot water, and somehow that thought got me to turn off the shower and wrap myself in a towel.
I looked into my eyes in the mirror, expecting to see someone different. The girl staring back at me looked the same physically, but everything was different now. It seemed impossible that ten hours could change so much.
I turned away from my reflection and poked my head out the door to make sure no one would see me dash across the hall wearing only a towel. With the coast clear, I hurried into my bedroom and closed the door behind me.
Dressed, warm, and properly fed, I settled onto the couch between Josh and Grayson. Melissa handed me a mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and a couple of painkillers. I sipped enough to swallow the pills and then relaxed into the couch, a soft sigh escaping my lips.
Josh, who seemed light years better than he had that morning, lifted his arm and tucked me against him. No words spoken. None needed. I rested my head against his chest and matched my breathing to his. Before I knew it, I fell asleep.
* * *
Snow blew through my dreams. A long, icy ski run spread before me like a silver shoelace, with two dots on the horizon. Grayson and Darren. I had to follow them. The mountain beneath me shook, and I had enough time to scream, “Avalanche!” before the ground beneath me vanished.
The snow became liquid, and I had no choice but to go with it as it crashed down the mountain. Eventually I came to a stop, a chilling blue haze tingeing everything around me. I tried to lift my hand and couldn’t.
Something dripped onto my face and I realized it was the snow as it melted from my hot breath. I blinked, but the snow stayed only six inches from my eyes. I’d been buried alive. I opened my mouth and screamed.
* * *
I woke when someone swiped their hand across my forehead and said my name. I startled, sucked at the air, and scrambled to get myself upright. My skin felt clammy and the cold from being buried in an avalanche sunk all the way down into my bones. Deep, deep, deep.
“Josh?” It was so dark, I couldn’t tell who’d woken me.
“It’s Grayson.” The couch shifted as I tried to figure out where I was. “You fell asleep, and after today, we thought it best to leave you on the couch.”
I rubbed my face, a sigh passing through my lips in a long hiss. “Sorry to wake you.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
It took several long moments for me to comprehend what he’d said. “Couldn’t sleep?”
A half a chuckle sounded in the darkness. “Not really, no.”
“Yeah.” I eased back into the couch cushions and Grayson lifted my feet into his lap.
“So,” he said. “You wanna talk about…I don’t know.”
My eyes drifted closed, making it easier to say, “That kiss?”
“Yeah, sure, we could start there.” His voice sounded slightly choked.
Under the cover of darkness, and feeling brave since I’d conquered a mountain, I decided to ask what I’d been wondering. “Was it real?”
“It was for me.”
I didn’t detect any sarcasm, any insincerity, in his voice.
“I kinda like you, Eden,” he said, a playful bent to his tone now. “I told you that on the mountain.”
He had said that. I’d said we’d been friends forever and that I liked him too.
“You also said I was like your sister,” I said, the words slicing through me as harshly now as they had then.
“Yeah, well, maybe that was a lie.”
“And I didn’t even call you on it.”
Text from Eden:
I’m not going today.
Response from Grayson: Come on. The resort is open today. I already checked. No avalanche danger.
Four minute delay.
Eden: Josh is feeling better. He’s going with you.
Grayson: I don’t want to leave you here alone.
Seventeen minute delay.
Eden: I want to be alone.
16
Grayson
I flipped over my phone after Eden’s last text, my muscles twitching like they’d boost me from the breakfast table and take me upstairs to the bedrooms. At least she was communicating with me, even if it was only through texting.
After I’d told her last night that I liked her, admitted that I’d lied about her being my sister, the silence had been piercing. I hadn’t been able to think of anything to say, and Eden didn’t even move. I’d finally slipped away into the darkness, hoping she’d fallen asleep. But as I’d walked away, I heard her whisper something. I hadn’t dared pause and ask her to repeat it.
I was being stupid anyway. Starting a relationship with Eden mere months before leaving for college was pretty much the dumbest thing I could do—which was exactly what Josh had told me last night after we’d left her sleeping on the couch.
I hadn??
?t even said anything, either. Somehow Josh knew about my renewed feelings; he could scent it on the air, see things I supposed invisible.
I doused my oatmeal with more syrup, hoping to cover up the actual taste of it. Didn’t help, and I couldn’t put another bite in my mouth. I stood, leaving most of my food behind and said, “I’m gonna go shower. We’ll go in thirty?”
Josh reached for another sausage link and nodded. Luke lifted his hand in agreement and Darren hadn’t come down for breakfast yet. I met him on the stairs. “Hey, bud.” I ruffled his hair. “Sleep all right?”
“Yeah.” He gave me a watery smile that hid something. I’d seen it enough to know—on my face, on Luke’s, and now on Darren’s.
“What’s wrong?”
“Dad texted this morning.” He looked up with worry in his dark brown eyes.
I sucked in a breath and rocked back on my heels. “What did you tell him?”
“I haven’t answered.”
“We don’t want him to know about the lift thing,” I said. “He’ll make us come home.”
“Maybe he’s…”
I waited for Darren to finish, already knowing as the youngest, Darren still held onto the most hope.
“Maybe he’s what?” I asked.
“Maybe he’s convinced Mom to go into treatment already.”
I exhaled, the familiar burn of bitterness coating my throat. “I don’t know if that’s even possible, Darren.”
He nodded, short little bursts of his head, his eyes dropping to the ground. “So what will Dad do?”
I’d asked my father the same question, and he hadn’t answered. He’d simply speared another piece of Kung Pao chicken and gazed over my shoulder. It was one of the rare times I’d seen my father anything but cool, confident, and calm. He’d seemed…troubled, and I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“I don’t know,” I finally answered my brother. “But no matter what, we’ll be together, all right?” I hooked my thumb over my shoulder. “Melissa has sausage and oatmeal. You gonna come skiing with us?”
The weight of our mom’s alcoholism lifted from Darren’s face as he smiled. “Yeah, as long as the lifts are running.”
“They are today. I triple checked.” I returned the grin and continued upstairs, my mind churning through the threads of my life. None of them seemed tied off, connected to anything, and as soon as high school ended, I felt like I’d be lost, blowing in the wind, forgotten.
And if there was one thing I didn’t want to be, it was forgotten.
* * *
I managed to keep Eden far enough from my focus to enjoy the day skiing. It helped to be surrounded by my brothers and Josh, who’d been like a brother for a long time now. Even Luke seemed to sense that I needed him close, and he kept shooting me sheepish glances.
I hadn’t spoken to him about where he’d been yesterday morning, what time he’d snuck out, how much he’d been smoking. I wasn’t his father, and I wanted him to keep talking to me. Problem was, our father wasn’t acting like a father, and I wanted Luke to be smart too. I’d need to say something soon, but I didn’t know what. Or how. Heck, I didn’t even know how to talk to my best friend about his sister.
Back at the cabin, I found Eden looking prettier than I thought possible. Her hair reminded me of a shiny penny, and I wanted to touch it so badly. Step close to her, maybe press my lips to her temple, breathe her in. Her hazel eyes practically beckoned to me, and I thought sure she could smooth all my rough edges.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.” I stacked my skis and stood them up in their slot. I stepped past where she waited in the ready room, her arms crossed over her chest and a tiny smile riding her lips. “I’m starving.”
“Melissa has dinner ready,” she called after me, but I didn’t even turn around. I felt petty and foolish, but maybe Eden needed a taste of her own silent treatment. Thankfully, with six people around the dinner table, and four of them male, I could blend in by laughing when Luke said something funny and agree when Josh talked and talked and talked about the way the refs had cheated the Seahawks out of their Super Bowl win.
Eden didn’t participate much, but she looked at me loads of times. I skated my eyes across her face, unwilling to lock my gaze with hers because then she’d be able to see that I was lying about how I felt. Again.
Plus, I didn’t want to embarrass myself any more than I already had. What had I been thinking, kissing her out there under the winter sky? As much as I didn’t want to, I added it to the list of my mistakes, hoping I could fix it before I graduated and wouldn’t see Eden anymore.
She disappeared upstairs before dinner ended, so I stayed in the kitchen and helped Melissa box up leftovers and load the dishwasher. She acted like my behavior was completely standard, and I managed to grunt answers as she talked about her classes in college. Hopefully Josh and Luke would have a movie chosen and already playing by the time I arrived in the living room.
“So what’s the matter?” Melissa asked as I turned to leave.
I faced her. “Nothing.”
She cocked her eyebrow, and I didn’t like the challenge in her eyes. “Give me some credit. I can’t remember you staying to help me clean up dinner, ever.”
“Oh, come on.” I turned on the charm. “Surely I’ve helped one time.”
That got her to smile. “Something with you and that girl?”
My jaw twitched. “No.”
“Something you want to happen between you and that girl?”
“Her name is Eden.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Melissa, it’s nothing.”
“Mm hm.” She plucked the washcloth from the sink and began wiping the already clean counter. “I’ve had a crush or two, you know.”
“I—” I gave up trying to argue. “I did something stupid, and now she’s not really talking to me, so I’m—”
“Still being stupid,” Melissa interrupted. “Don’t layer stupid on top of stupid, Grayson. You want to talk to Eden? Go talk to her.”
I’d already tried that, but I simply nodded and got the heck out of the kitchen. Still, as I took the steps two at a time up to the living room, I acknowledged that it felt good to talk to someone about my life, my problems, even if they were self-inflicted. With my mother sequestered in her bedroom all the time and Dad away from the house for days on end, I’d been left to deal with everyone’s problems but my own.
Resentment filled me and I detoured into the bedroom so I wouldn’t take the negative cloud of energy with me into the living room. Whenever I felt this tangled, this frustrated, I hit the gym. It was convenient I’d convinced my dad to put a workout room in our basement, with a TV room on the other side of the wall. I could keep Darren close while I ran, or lifted weights, or just blasted the music loud enough to keep the poisonous thoughts at bay.
The cabin didn’t have a gym, and with darkness already covering the mountain, I couldn’t leave without answering a lot of questions. So I did what I’d been doing for as long as I could remember. I inhaled, stuffed away all evidence of my personal upheaval, and put on my happy face.
Part of Eden’s letter from her father:
I have every confidence you’ll leave behind the mark I wish I could. That because of your drive and determination, you’ll be able to make me proud.
17
Eden
I stared at my dad’s letter, the words swimming through my head. I’d carefully kept the letter in the original envelope, tucked between the pages of a Little House on the Prairie novel—the last book he’d read with me before he passed away.
Once, I’d almost typed up the letter as the creases were starting to wear away some of the ink.
Now, though, I curled my fingers into a fist and crumpled the paper, the words I’d spent the last eight years preserving protesting with crackles and pops.
Anger flowed through me. Anger that my dad had died. Anger that he expected me to leave some sort of legacy. Anger that
I had to make him proud.
What kind of messed up letter was that?
I stood in my bedroom, the minutes ticking by before I’d be late for school. Everything was murky between me and Grayson, and I didn’t know what to do to fix it. He’d clammed right up, put on that plastic mask of fake smiles, and blasted near-rap music the whole drive home.
Things at the Poco Loco Casa had allowed me to hide my turmoil. Mom asked lots of questions about the cabin, and the skiing, but Josh and I had agreed not to tell her about Saturday’s disaster. Number one, she would’ve been angry we hadn’t called and told her. Number two, she’d never let us leave the valley again.
Everything had turned out fine; no one had been hurt. My biggest problem was that I had no idea who I was. The girl who’d skied to the bottom of the mountain? The girl who’d spent all day climbing the mountain? The girl who’d kissed Grayson somewhere in the middle of the mountain?
Panic reared and I smoothed the letter against my chest, the new wrinkles devastating me. I felt like someone had me on a yo-yo, throwing me down and then yanking me back up. The constant emotional spiral left me exhausted and I let the letter drop to the desk as I sank to my bed.
Josh tapped on the door at the same time he poked his head into my room. “You ready?” He scanned me and stepped into the room. “Aren’t you going to school today?”
“Just go without me.”
“Mom will ask a billion questions.”
“Tell her I’m sick.”
“Then she’ll be in here asking a bunch of questions.”
I glanced out the window to my right, the world seeming to move too fast for my mind to keep up.
“Eden?”
I swung my head back to him and blinked. He sat down next to me on the bed. “What happened up there?”