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Forrest offered me a sympathetic look. He’d seen the effort I’d put in when trying to get off the lift at the beginning of the trip, and he’d seen it once we’d started riding again several days ago after my foot had healed up enough. While I didn’t doubt that he appreciated my effort, he understood it was a lost cause and proved that when he reasoned, “Hey, look, you can’t win them all in one trip. You accomplished a lot on this one, and I think you should be proud of yourself for what you did learn.”
And that was it.
Forrest had this innate urge to protect me, even from my own clumsiness on a snowboard. Even though I’d been experiencing this from him for nearly two weeks now, I still hadn’t gotten used to it. As strange as it seemed to me, I loved the way it made me feel.
I tore my eyes away from his, saw we were nearing the end of our ride as we approached the top, and warned, “You better scoot yourself closer, then, because it’s almost time to get off again.”
He did exactly that, and not more than a minute later, Forrest was behind me, holding on, as we exited the lift.
From that point forward, we continued to thoroughly enjoy our day riding. Not only had Forrest given up a huge chunk of snowboarding time for me throughout this trip, but it was also a bit nostalgic for me. We’d met each other on our snowboards while on this mountain, so I thought it was fitting we decided to spend our last day here together like this.
Our last day before our last night. My body shuddered at the thought.
“Do you want to try going down a different trail this time, or did you want to do the same one?” Forrest asked, breaking into my thoughts.
And then there were things that never changed. Always up for trying something new, I answered, “Let’s try a different one.”
“I swear, nothing scares you.”
If someone had said those words to me at the start of this trip, I might have believed them. I would have enjoyed hearing them and relished the fact someone found me to be fearless and bold.
But it was different now.
On the surface, I could see why Forrest said what he did. I’d gotten injured snowboarding, and yet, here I was, days later, doing the same thing that took me down for the count for a few days.
What my adventure-seeking mindset didn’t seem to show was how terrified I was about one thing—leaving here without Forrest and never feeling like this again in my whole life.
The thought was devastating.
No.
No, I couldn’t bring myself down.
Not while I still had time with him. Not while I could still soak up hours with him and create memories that would last a lifetime.
Forcing a smile on my face, I shrugged my shoulders. “You only live once, right?”
At that, Forrest and I took off down a new trail, and I did my best not to let those thoughts of impending doom ruin the little time we had left.
We had a great day together, and about ten minutes before the lifts were set to close down for the night, Forrest and I began making our way toward his cabin.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” he started about a minute or two into our walk. When I looked up at him, he continued, “I’m trying to figure out the best way to spend our last night here together.”
So, it had been on his mind, too. At least I could find some comfort in that.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked him.
Forrest reached his hand out to hold mine. We were wearing our gloves, so I couldn’t feel his skin, but I loved that he wanted us to have that contact.
“That’s just it. I couldn’t decide, because I thought it was the kind of thing we should decide on together. I didn’t want to make a plan for us to do one thing if you wanted to do something else,” he replied.
There was just one more example of how wonderful Forrest was. He might have had a thought about what he wanted to do, but he took my feelings into consideration. He was selfless, and it was for that reason, I wanted him to have tonight be exactly what he wanted.
“If it was solely up to you, what would you want to do?”
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I’m serious. Let’s pretend it’s your birthday, so you get to choose. Which, by the way, when is your birthday?”
