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But I know better than anyone how untrue those words can be. How precarious and indifferent fate so often is. After all, I’m alive when the doctors were certain, so many times, that I would die, while others are dead—friends of mine who should have gone into remission, who’d been expected to live—their bodies and spirits giving out somewhere along the way.
Even Timmy, who is wasting away right in front of us. Who will be dead soon. He’s walking proof that things often don’t turn out the way we want them to.
But that isn’t going to happen to Ash, I tell myself fiercely, even as I continue to count the seconds down. He’s strong, he’s talented and he’s got so much to live for. No way is he going to just disappear in an avalanche. It’s not going to happen.
I repeat the words over and over again as we traverse the rough terrain. Tell myself again and again that everything is going to be okay. Even as the second hand ticks past the magic eighteen minute mark—and the cab around me grows unbearably tense—I refuse to believe that this isn’t going to work out o
kay. Refuse to believe that Ash is going to be anything other than perfectly fine.
At twenty-seven minutes, nine minutes—nine minutes—past Cam’s shouted timeline, Logan’s phone rings. It’s Z, telling him that they’ve found Ash. That he’s banged up and half-buried, but that he’s alive. Better than alive. He’s fine.
Z asks to talk to Tomas, and I carry the phone to our guide so that he can get the exact coordinates of where they are. Then I head back to my seat. I’m only there a second when Logan throws his arms around me and bursts into loud, ragged sobs.
My arms go around him in an instant and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to freak out a little, too. Ash is okay. For now, that’s all that matters.
It’s been hours and I still can’t get near him. Which is fine. I mean, that’s how it should be. He has Logan and Z, Cam and Luc and Ophelia. They all know him way better than I do. They all love him and need some time with him. Need a piece of him, some reassurance that he really did survive what turned out to be a pretty major avalanche.
Tomas and some of the other guides at the resort, along with the local ski patrol, had gone back up to Alto de Arpa to check out the snowpack and try to figure out what had gone wrong. They’d come back with grim news—the snowpack on that whole side of the peak had gone in the avalanche. It was a miracle, they’d told us, that Ash hadn’t been buried alive.
The thought makes me shudder even now, sitting across from him in the restaurant. Ash seems to be taking the whole thing pretty well—he’s laughing, joking around, talking about maybe doing the half-pipe tomorrow, giving the mountain a rest.
And everyone seems to be buying it. Z, Luc, Ophelia, Cam, even Logan. They all seem to be taking the avalanche—and the fact that it nearly killed him—in stride.
Because it didn’t.
Because he’s fine.
I should probably chill out, too. After all, he’s sitting here across from me, and he’s fine. Which is all that matters. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself. Maybe this is what it’s like being an adrenaline junkie. You face death, you deal with it and then you move on like it’s nothing. After all, the stories they’re swapping tonight—about Patagonia, Alaska, Wyoming, and, yes, even the last time they were all in Chile together—stack up easily against my numerous near-death experiences. They are somehow more horrific, even, because no one saw them coming.
Except, when I look at Ash, really look at him, there’s something in his eyes that doesn’t seem quite right. Something that strikes me as off. I wonder if the others see it, too, if that’s why Cam hasn’t left his side since they dug him out of the snow. Why Luc is cracking joke after joke and Z keeps ordering round after round of drinks.
Logan is the only quiet one at the table besides me. He doesn’t say much, just sits to the left of Ash while Cam sits to the right, and hangs off his brother’s every word. Every once in a while he pipes up with a question about what something felt like or how come he wasn’t scared or “tell them about that time in Mammoth when you and Z fell off the side of the mountain!”
As I watch the two of them together—as I watch all of them together—I can’t help thinking how much of a unit they are. How it really is all of them against the world. Even Ophelia, who I know has only been around for seven or eight months, fits in seamlessly. Like she’s been a part of the group as long as the rest of them.
It makes me wonder, then, why no one is calling Ash on the guilt in his eyes. On the silent scream I can see burning in their indigo depths. It’s plain as day to me—maybe because I’ve seen that same look staring out at me from the mirror more times than I can count—and I want to say something so badly. Want to ask him if he’s okay, really okay. But he’ll just laugh it off, just make a joke, and I’m feeling raw enough, guilty enough, that I know I can’t handle that.
Eventually the conversation winds down and people start making their way up to their rooms. Ash and Logan leave first, after Logan nearly falls asleep in his chocolate cake, followed closely by Z and Ophelia and eventually Cam. Soon it’s just Luc and me left at the table and I start to excuse myself, too, except my phone picks that moment to buzz with a text.
I know it’s my mom before I even check. Sure enough, she wants to make sure I’m getting enough rest and taking my vitamins and asks if I’m feeling okay. It makes me want to scream. I know she’s only doing it because she loves me, know that she’s lived through the years of chemo and radiation, blood tests and bad news, right along with me.
But I’m healthy now.
I’m healthy and I’m never going to feel that way if she’s constantly checking up on me, demanding to know what my temperature is and if I’m eating enough cruciferous vegetables and wheat germ and vitamin C. It’s my body, damn it, my body, and I just want to feel like it’s mine for a little while before it goes back to being community property.
Maybe that’s why I say yes when Luc asks me if I want another drink. Because I want to be Tansy, the Make-A-Wish girl, for a little while longer, instead of going up to my room and engaging in a texting battle with my mom as Tansy, the poor, weak cancer survivor.
“So, this whole near-death avalanche thing,” I say to him as the waitress brings me another glass of the delicious pink wine—my fourth, I think. “Does it really happen to you guys as often as it sounded like tonight?”
He laughs, shakes his head. “Nah. You pretty much heard all the stories we’ve got—and that’s from years of boarding. Well, except Z. He’s got a few more than the rest of us, but even he’s settled down since Ophelia showed up.”
“I can see that. They’re good together.”
“Yeah, they really are. He’s different since she came around. Better.”
I want to ask him what he means—again, the group dynamics here fascinate me—but I don’t want to make him uncomfortable. Besides, it’s none of my business, no matter how much I like Z and the rest of Ash’s friends.
We spend the next half hour talking about stupid stuff, cracking jokes and laughing like crazy people. Luc’s hilarious, especially now that Cam’s not around and he’s totally relaxed and not trying to hit on me to make her jealous.
