A person didn’t completely lose that skill, did they? Only if fear erased all muscle memory.
Today, fear made her knees feel like Jell-O in lead containers, and she struggled to get a deep breath of cold, crisp air.
“Just do it, Nic,” she ground out the words to herself before pushing forward down the slope.
Ten turns into the steep part, her legs locked up. The slope felt more abrupt than it looked from the top. The trees clustered tighter. Her breath quickened.
Bri was ahead, glancing back, encouraging her. “Just edge into the hill a little more, Nic! Let the skis do the work!”
But Nicole couldn’t think. She could only feel—her heart thudding, her breath hitching. Her poles trembled in her gloves. Her knees wanted to bend but her thighs screamed. One ski slid faster than the other. They crossed, and her weight shifted the wrong way.
And down she went. Hard.
Right into a snowbank on the side of the run.
Not a terrible fall, but it didn’t matter. Both her stupid beginner-level skis had popped off her feet, and her poles were splayed across the run ten feet away.
Humiliation flushed through her in a hot wave.
Brianna skidded to a stop next to her, effortlessly grabbing Nicole’s poles on the way. “You okay, Nic?”
Nicole nodded quickly, still sitting in the snow, breathing hard. “Fine. Totally fine. This is hard. Are you sure it’s a green? It seems so steep.”
“It’s just that one part.” She held out a hand. “Here, let me help you up. You’re good.”
But her throat was tight and her eyes were burning and she wasnot good.
Nicole shook her head. She didn’t want help. She didn’t want anything except for this very, very bad idea to be over.
She got herself up slowly, brushing off snow. “Let’s just get down,” she muttered.
It took them twenty minutes to get back to Snow Park Lodge. Nicole skidded down the rest of Success like a terrified beginner, every turn a negotiation. She barely heard Brianna’s encouraging words.
By the time they popped off their skis and clomped inside, she was shaking with frustration.
The inside of the lodge was warm and golden, with antler chandeliers hung above cozy wooden tables and Christmas lights everywhere.
A roaring fire crackled in the stone hearth at the far end of the room, flanked by snow-sprayed artificial trees covered in tinsel.
Skiers ended their days sharing stories and snacks and bourbon maple cider.
Nicole let the warmth envelop her as she made her way to a table by the window and dropped into the seat with a grunt of bone-deep frustration.
Brianna peeled off her gloves. “Okay. That was…a good start.”
Nicole rested her forehead in her hands. “I can’t do this.”
“You can. You took a fall. You didn’t die. You’ll try again.”
Nicole sighed. “Maybe I’m just not meant to ski.”
Bri leaned in. “Do youwantto ski again?”
The truth was, she wasn’t sure. Part of her wanted to conquer this. She wanted to feel that rush again, the speed, the freedom, the sheer power of beating the mountain.
But there was also a part of her that wanted to be a non-skier who hid in the lodge with a mug of cider and watched everyone else have a blast.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
