AllFreeNovel
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Hey, baby Ace! Still in bed at the hotel with a hangover from hell ;) Rain check tomorrow?
“Fuck,” I murmur, texting him back that it’s okay, and because I’m officially spineless, I write; in bed also :) See you tomorrow!
“Great,” I grumble, pulling on my gloves, looking down at the slope that has become steeper than I initially remembered. Shit, can a mountain change its elevation within minutes? “Oh shit,” I groan, adjusting my hat. This means I have to make it downhill on my own. I’m starting to sweat, and why is the mountain spinning?
Fuck, is this what a panic attack feels like? I should still know how to snowboard, right? I did it most of my life until everything went to shit.
“This trip is getting better and better,” I mutter. I can walk down with the board in hand. I roll my eyes. Yeah, that would definitely qualify me as the number one loser of the slope.
Why am I even here? Probably because I’ve been in love with the guy for years. Sure, he hasn’t done or said anything to tell me he’s the least bit interested too. Yep… pathetic. Damn, shut up, inner voice!
I close my eyes, slowly moving my fingers in circular motions over my temples. I blame my two older brothers for this. I don’t know how many times my parents took me to the emergency room because I wanted to impress them. I did things a six-year-old girl should never be doing, like jumping with a skateboard from a roof or setting firecrackers off inside the house. Being the youngest, they always kept taunting me to do the things they did. Especially my brother Ronnie.
Smiling, I fight against my threatening tears. “Don’t you dare fucking cry.” I straighten my spine and close my eyes when the sunshine touches my cheeks. When I look up from staring at my hands, almost all the little kids have gone, and there are only a handful of skiers and snowboarders moving down the mountain. Sighing, I know I need to get up. Maybe I can try to slowly make my way down to the bottom to a well-deserved beer and my bed. This day has been a bust. I’m never this active. Only when I’m walking Rebel, my rescue pup I got two years ago, who’s probably snoring under the covers in the motel.
“Yep, I need to get up before I officially lose my mind,” I tell myself, but most of all, I have to get my legs to move. They are cramping from all the sitting, and I’m starting to tremble from the cold. This is going to be a one-way ticket back to the sweet older couple who run the inn who took pity on me and gave me the last room at a reduced price.
I balance and stand. “Okay, that wasn’t too hard.” Now if I can try to take off the straps around my left boot. Took me forever to figure out how to close them when my hands were shaking like crazy. The lift guy told me to let one boot loose when riding the lift; he did it for me when I was holding up the line with angry looking regulars.
I lean forward on my snowboard, trying to loosen the straps. Shit, why am I moving? The board tips forward, and I’m gliding for real this time.
“How the hell do you stop?” I scream. “Fuck.” I can’t remember what to do. It’s like I’m paralyzed, and I’m gaining speed. “This is not happening,” I yell at the top of my lungs, as a little hill appears in front of me. I can’t help suppressing a scream when I gain more and more speed. My hands flap in the air around me. But there is nothing and no one, not even a freaking tree or a kid to hold on to. This is it, last time anyone hears from me before I fly off into oblivion.
I’m going to break every bone in my body because I don’t remember how to brake!
I close my eyes, bracing for the moment I’m catapulted into the air off the top of the tiny hill.
I open them when someone wraps an arm around my waist, board in perfect alignment next to mine.
Before I know it, the guy leans backwards, flashing me an earth-shattering smile, and whisks his board to the right. Snow flies all around us, taking me with him as we fall into the snow before the hill launches us into the air. He holds me tighter to his chest and breaks the fall, our bodies colliding in the snow.
Then all is quiet, with only the drumming of my heart hammering in my ears, broken by the sound of a soft twang from the guy I’m crushing as he drawls, “Are you okay?”
