“Ready?” Landon straightens up beside me, offering me the twin poles.
He ignores my answer, a grumbled, “Nope,” before I tug down my goggles.
We shimmy down to the dip of the podium, a concrete ramp that descends into the snow.
The slope stretches below, smooth and treacherous.
The next chairlift is advancing on us, inching closer through the clear skies.
I can’t stall, can’t delay, not without witches suddenly dropping onto my head.
So I stab the poles into the snow and push off from the podium—
Cold winds rush over me.
The shout that rattles me is hollow.
Landon follows within the second, his laughter stolen by the vast landscape.
Beneath me, the skis are firm on the thick snow of the mountain, my legs bent—and I guess it’s like riding a bike, as they say, because my body remembers.
My torso tenses, muscles pinned, and all the years I have avoided this don’t seem to matter much—
Spoke too soon.
Landon swerves by me, a kick up of snow crashing over me like a wave, and I flinch against it.
He cuts ahead in the mist, his laughter coming in and out of focus.
The joy doesn’t find me.
I’ve never loved it, the slopes, the snow, the sport of it all.
But Landon seems free.
His interaction with Mildred is forgotten as, ahead, he arches and swerves and zigzags through the dustings of snow.
My lack of practice keeps me slow.
That might be why he takes it easy, not a race to the bottom, and we’re passing the academy when another pair of snowsuits whizz by us.
Skiers, darting by like flying arrows.
I blink and they’re gone.
It’s a while before we reach the bottom of the slopes, where—over the short hill—the village is a mist of chimneys billowing smoke and bakery stoves perfuming the air.
Landon leads the way to the rows of benches near the chairlift station. He drops with a huff before he peels off his goggles—and reveals a charred face.
I can only imagine what mine looks like, all red and blotchy, as I pull back my own goggles to rest on my forehead.
My legs quiver as I manoeuvre onto the bench, the side of my thigh pressed against Landon’s.
Something about the slopes softens him.
His dark hair is damp with drizzled snow, and he turns his warm, lazy smile on me. “You did alright for someone who hasn’t skied in—how long?”
I have to think about it for a moment, running through the semesters at Bluestone and family trips, until I land on Aspen.
