“It means that I’ve been on my feet for more than eighteen hours. I went jogging, then I worked, then I had to train. Do you have any idea how hard training at iSkate is, Knox?Do you?”
His face contorts like I’ve given him a smack, but his pain doesn’t interest me, for a change. I am far too angry.
“After that, I couldn’t relax but had to get on the snowboard with you and go down the damn slope and then get back on the iceone more timedespitemy trembling, exhausted legs, despitemy weak limbs and aching muscles. And then I get here but not to finally—finally!—fall into bed, but to take care of all the tourists, and to clean—yes, Knox, likeCinderella, you’re right. You can be proud of yourself there. I’m fucking done, I just wanted to sleep, but then I get over here and find myself in the middle of one of your wrecking parties or orgies or whatever the hell it is and am now trying not to say anything, cause it’s your party. You all set up a zip line, Knox,a goddamn zip line!”
I’m out of breath, I spoke so quick. Knox is plucking at the hem of his trunks. He’s at least six-two, and he’s got a hard chest, a bit like Jacob Black in the second part ofTwilight. He’s someone you just want to devour, but right now he looks like a beaten little boy.
Knox opens his mouth to say something, but I’m in such a rage I don’t let him. “I don’t get it, Knox.” I push the arms of my wool sweater up and down, up and down. The fire is hot. “Your father is paying me to take care of the tourist area and your resort,you included, but I’m not here to be your nanny and to clean up after your parties so that Daddy doesn’t find out. I’m not doing it anymore. You’ve got training early in the morning, Knox, just like me. Maybe you don’t care about snowboarding anymore, but then you should be a man and say something. Say that you don’t want to do it instead of half-assedly going through the motions and disappointing all the people who believe in you. And, on top of it all, making my life more difficult, although I am doingeverythingto try and straighten it out. So, I don’t give a shit if you want to keep on partying. I don’t give a shit if your dad comes home tomorrow and sees everything. I’m not taking care of it. I’m going to bed because I’m tired and, yeah, I have to take care of myself because it’s eleven, and I’m Cinderella, and this is my own, brand-new story!”
Knox just stands there staring at me, he doesn’t say a single word, and I don’t let him. I turn around and push through the dancing crowd and the terribly long line for the zip line and walk up the stairs. In front of my room, I stop. There’s a piece of lined paper on the door, it looks like it’s been stuck there with carpet glue. The scrawled words read:Anyone who steps foot in here is going to end up a naked mole rat out on the slope of the Highlands—Knox.
I smile. I smile even though I am so angry. I convince myself that I’m smiling because of the carpet glue, seeing as that, in this house, there aren’t any carpets, but I know that’s nonsense.
I’m smiling because Knox has this strange talent of making my belly tingle with joy only seconds after making me just about insane.
I’d like to say that my move to Aspen changed everything, but that’s just not true. Aspen didn’t change me. Knox and me, it’s one of those things.
We met, and everything changed.
29
The Boy Who Healed My Heart
Paisley
The silence wakes me up.
Normally I’m a mummy in its sarcophagus: I only fall asleep when it is completely dark and still. But at the Winterbottoms’, still is a foreign concept. Either Knox is having one of his parties or he’s having people over, Wyatt and assorted groupies, for example. And on those rare days when he’s alone, he keeps his TV running all day long in the room underneath mine. Not a soft, pleasant tone of some kind of documentary, say, but some action film or other, full of lots of shooting and all. Most of the nights I’ve been here at the resort I’ve cursed Knox and longed for days when I can fall asleep without earplugs and curses on my lips.
Now, it is quiet. But instead of enjoying it, my heart is starting to hammer against my chest, and I tear my eyes open. It isalarminglyquiet. Suddenly I’m afraid that something’s happened. Maybe there was a break-in, and now Knox is chained to a chair while a guy in a black hoodie is holding a gun to his head, demanding millions.
Okay. Stop.
You havedefinitelyseen too many of Knox’s action films, Paisley Harris.
I dig through my various pillows and stick an arm out from under the beaver-fur blanket to grab my phone. It’s 5:20 a.m. I love the early morning hours when the rest of the world is asleep, and it feels like I am the only person in the world. When everything feels a bit unreal, a bit like a dream, a bit hazy, a bit surreal, magical somehow, as if all my cares and concerns didn’t exist, as if I was all alone. Just me and the world.
Getting up, my hair falls into my face like a tattered bird’s nest. I yawn, rub my eyes, pull the heavy curtains back a bit, and enjoy the panoramic view of the Aspen Highlands at night. It’s snowing, of course, and like every other time, the view takes my breath away. I want to pull the curtains shut again and toss myself into my pillow-dream-come-true, but something flashes in the corner of my eye.
It’s the moonlight reflecting on one of the sunken iron lights by the pool. And in the pool, I see Knox. All alone. None of the other guests are around anymore, and all the beer cans and cups and stuff are gone. The outside area is…clean. This confuses me more than the sight of Knox in the pool.
Pulling my thick socks back over my feet, I slide into my slippers and go downstairs. Here, too, everything is clean. Even the garbage bags have been changed. The zip line is gone. I examine the area beneath the balustrade where it had been mounted and can only find the holes with effort. They’ve been filled in and painted over with some kind of brown paint so well that I doubt Mr. Winterbottom will ever notice.
I can tell Knox hears me slide open the glass door and walk toward him by the way he tenses up his shoulders, but he doesn’t turn. He’s leaning against the side of the pool, his back to me, elbows on the icy ground, looking off toward the Highlands. It’s not as cold as before, as Knox has lit the big fire bowl on the terrace. Flames are licking the cold air and chasing it off. Crackling. I crouch down next to him and look off to the mountains as well. In the distance an owl is hooting.
“You cleaned up.”
He doesn’t say anything. This makes me feel insecure. Knox isn’t usually the kind of guy to stay quiet. Most of the time he says too much. But never nothing at all. I think this frightens me. The idea that I could lose him, although he was never really mine. And my body immediately reacts by panicking. It’s fascinating. My mind isn’t asked whether it agrees as my hands pull my baggy AC/DC hoodie over my head and my woolen Christmas pajama bottoms withho-ho-hoon them down. The clothes land in a pile beside the pool. He turns and looks at me.
My underwear and bra don’t match. There are women who can manage that. Matching underwear and bras. I’m not one of them. My panties have purple dots. The elastic is coming away from the cotton to reveal a slice of my hip bone. My bra is black. The underwire is sticking out of the fabric and poking me in the side. I always wear a bra, even at night, because I’m afraid of someone coming and touching me. Because of Ivan. But I don’t want to think about Ivan. I won’t let him dictate my life. Not anymore.
Knox is staring at my hip bones. The gap between the elastic and the cotton is embarrassing, but the panic of losing Knox is greater. And so I’ll give him everything. I will give him all of me, though I’m not all that sure how much is left.
My feet are naked, my toenails unpainted. I get hot when Knox’s eyes finally leave my hips and wander across my stomach, linger on my simple cotton bra as if it were made of the nicest fabric. He licks his lips, inconspicuously, unchecked, but my abdomen reacts with a violent pull. His eyes reach mine and I see it, I see it real clearly.
Knoxwantsme. Not my body.Me.
I slide into the water. It’s warm. Almost hot, but maybe that’s just my blood boiling.
