Page 58 of Head Over Skis

‘Ah! Get off me!’

‘Not until you tell me what the hell is going on!’ I say, holding firm.

‘Fine! Now fuck off back to your side.’

I let go, and she uses those feet to push me back to the opposite end of the tub. I wait patiently for her to elaborate, noticing how flustered she is, which is extremely un-Tilly like.

She covers her face with both hands leaving only a little triangle with her nose and mouth exposed. Whatever this is, she really doesn’t want to admit it.

‘I’m going to tell you, but I’m only going to do it if I don’t have to look at you, deal?’

‘Deal,’ I agree, willing to say anything to find out what’s gotten her so worked up.

‘Okay. After you went back to the hotel, Adam felt awful and sped down the rest of the slope before I could grill him, so it was only David and I making our way down the red. I was so nervous thinking I was going to fall too, and I was fully expecting David to take the piss out of me, you know, start meowing and call me a scaredy-cat or something while I told him where to shove it.’

‘Yeah, sounds like you two.’ I nod.

‘Only he didn’t. He stayed a little ahead of me, giving me pointers, and not in a “you’re shit, I’m superior” way, but actually in a really helpful way. Anyway, I made it to the bottom, and I was so happy and so I pulled him into a hug, but our skis got a little twisted and I sort of fell onto him, and then… well we sort of…’

She trails off, still hiding behind her hands, but I don’t need to see her face to know she’s flushed as red as a raspberry.

‘Oh my god!’ I don’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?! You better finish that sentence!’

‘GOD you’re like a vulture! But YES, okay, yes. We kissed.’

I squeal, repeating my earlier exclamation again and again.

Only she still looks like she has the weight of an elephant resting on her shoulders. And as much as I now know why she was acting weirdly with David this morning, this doesn’t explain why she made up a man with a name like he’s the lead in some Noughties pop band.

‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

Her lips roll together, face pinched like she’s trying to hold the next words inside her mouth.

‘I don’t know how to say it…’ she starts then stops, lifting her hands to smooth back her hair and press her palms into the sides of her head like she doesn’t want to hear herself talk. But I do. ‘I slept with David.’

‘You WHAT!’

The words burst out of me before I can stop them, my hands slapping the surface of the water and causing droplets to splash across both our faces. A kiss was already big news, but the two of them sleeping together? Tilly and I have shared a room every night, and aside from yesterday on the slope, the two of them haven’t had any alone time together that I’ve been aware of. Bar shagging on the red run itself, I can’t figure out when this could’ve happened. Thankfully, Tilly doesn’t leave me wondering for long, feeding me small details like the crumbs of the last chocolate Hobnob.

‘It happened four days ago. The same night you met Rory.’

That one sentence is all I need for the puzzle pieces to click into place. The aftershave. It doesn’t belong to a fictitious man. It’s David’s. And now that I come to think of it, that smell did feel familiar, but I lumped it in with general boy smells so couldn’t pick it out as his at the time. And those odd things I thought I might be overthinking, like the way she’d leant back into his touch when he’d brushed past, and the fact she’d texted him our whereabouts. It all makes sense now.

The mystery of what’s happened is revealed, but there’s still something I don’t understand. If all of this started four days ago – why is she only telling me now?

‘Do you hate me?’ Her voice is small, cutting into my thoughts as she mutters, her chin resting low on the water.

‘What? No, of course not, I just…’ don’t understand, I finish in my head.

Of course I don’t hate her, but I am confused as to why she kept such a big thing to herself. More than that, I’m hurt that she not only didn’t tell me, but openly lied about it too.

‘I don’t understand why you lied,’ I admit.

‘I didn’t want to, but you had enough on your plate. We didn’t have time the day of the flight, and then I thought about telling you, that morning of our first class. I’d decided I was going to tell you afterwards, but then we’d arrived and Rory was there. I wanted to give you space to focus on where your own head was at with that, instead of brain-dumping my problems on top.’

That day was a lot for me, but even so, I wouldn’t have wanted her to hide something like this. This is her and David we’re talking about. It’s not like she wanted to rant about the slugs that sometimes eat the herbs on her balcony. This is something important. Something she’s clearly had a lot of thoughts about and would’ve benefitted from talking through.

‘You know I would’ve wanted to be there for you.’