by Carrie Quest
“I can’t go with you, Piper, and I can’t live in Colorado. That was never part of…whatever this is.” I wave my hand between us and her eyes narrow.
“Whatever this is?” she repeats.
Fuck.
“That came out wrong.” I pause and give myself a second to think. Because this is one conversation I don’t want to fuck up. I can’t. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Then what did you mean, Adam? Because I think this, what we have right here, is pretty damn spectacular.”
I grab her hand, trying to make a connection. “I think so too. You know I do.”
She curls her fingers around mine and squeezes. “You’re it for me, Adam. I love you. You know that. And you’ve been kicking ass here. You faced up to winter and told it to fuck right off, so why can’t you come with me?”
I close my eyes, willing my thoughts to slow down, to stop racing around my head like a herd of cats that just spotted a field full of fat-ass mice.
“I can’t talk about this here,” I say. We’re alone for now, but anyone could come bursting out that door, including her parents. Or even worse, Ben and Nat. The last thing I want to do is destroy their loved-up engagement party. They’ve earned this happiness and finding me and Piper fighting in the hallway will ruin what should be one of the best nights of their lives.
I keep her hand in mine, and we walk quickly to the elevators, leaving the muffled shouts and cheers from the party behind. When the doors close, I lean back, wishing I could slide down the wall and put my head between my legs. Instead, I hit the button for the lobby.
“I need some air,” I explain when Piper raises her eyebrows in question. I also don’t want to take this conversation back to our room, because I don’t see how it can possibly end well and hearing the door of the place we’ve been so happy slam behind me will hurt too much.
We speed-walk through the lobby and burst out into the night. The streets are jammed with people looking to party and it’s snowing. Naturally. Because snow is the cherry on top of the shit sundae of this conversation.
I walk around the corner of the building into a little brick alley, looking for a place to be still.
“Are you okay?” Piper’s voice is quiet, and when I look up at her, she’s shivering. I should never have dragged her out here in a sleeveless dress.
“You’ll freeze out here. Go back to the room. I’ll be right up.”
She shakes her head and hugs herself. “I’ll wait.”
I lean against the wall and run through all my stress responses: breathe in three, breathe out five. Relax my muscles one by one. Picture a happy place.
Nope. Still not that one, because now all I can see is Piper’s bed, and that’s even worse than imagining a powder day.
“Adam?”
Her breath is puffing out in little clouds and she’s shivering so hard I can hear her teeth clicking together, but I’m sweating through my shirt.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’ve been wanting to say something for a while and I guess the whole proposal thing got to me. I couldn’t hold it in anymore.”
Her voice is miserable and I want to bang my stupid head against this wall until I knock myself out, because she deserves a guy who can have simple conversations about the future without having some kind of panic attack.
She deserves a guy who can give her a future, period.
I hold my arms out and she stumbles over and leans in, touching my chest but keeping her arms glued to her sides, not relaxing into my embrace. Something rips inside of me, because this is it. The last time I touch her is going to be a shitty, awkward hug in a rank alley, and that’s so fucking sad it makes me want to cry.
“I can’t go with you,” I whisper into her hair. “The only thing getting me through this is knowing I’ll be out of here soon. I’m trying, Piper, I swear, but this is killing me.”
She sobs, and I squeeze her tighter.
“You’ve seemed so happy, though,” she says. “I thought you were getting better. Was all of that a lie?”
“No!” I let her go and gently push her back, just enough that I can look into her eyes. “Every minute I spent with you has been amazing. Never doubt that. None of it was a lie. When I was with you, I was happy. But the other stuff has been tough.”
I feel like a fucking idiot, because I’m an adult. What kind of adult is scared of a season? Of snow? I’ve got the girl of my dreams standing in front of me asking me to be with her, and I can’t say yes. It’s pathetic.
“We don’t ever have to go to the mountains,” she says. “Mom and Dad will visit us in Denver. You can take pictures and do your own thing. You wouldn’t have to be a part of the snowboarding scene, and when I’m done with school, we can go live anywhere you want, as long as my mom’s okay. She’ll be ten years cancer-free by then, and that’s a huge milestone.”
I want to scream, because everything she’s saying makes perfect sense and I want that future so badly I can taste it, but I still can’t say yes.
“When I’m with you, I’m so happy, Piper. Even here, when I’m surrounded by the world I lost. But everything else about this makes my skin itch. It’s like I’m stuck underwater and my lungs are burning and I know I need to breathe, but the surface is too far away. I can’t explain it, but I just feel wrong here, and it’s only getting worse. I think I’m getting ahead of it, but then something happens and I get dragged down again, and I’m tired, Piper. I’m so fucking tired.”
“I told you that you wouldn’t have to talk to anyone who snowboards.”
I snort. “It’s Colorado, Piper. Everyone we know rides. The only way I could avoid snowboarding talk would be to shut myself in our apartment and never speak to anyone. It wouldn’t work.”
“You’ve been taking pictures, though. You told me you could see the beauty in winter again. Maybe if you keep trying, you’ll get over it. I’ve been researching therapy techniques for people with PTSD and I think…”
“I might never get over it, Piper.” She flinches at my harsh tone but I keep going. “I can’t even admit to myself or anyone else that it’s really over. Do you know how messed up that is? That I crave the thing that will kill me?”
“But if you try…”
“I have tried! I get that it’s hard to understand. Fuck, I barely understand it myself. And maybe you can’t understand, because you’ve never had anything mean as much to you as riding meant to me. It wasn’t just something I loved doing, or something I was good at. It was everything. It was my entire identity, and now it’s gone.”
She wiggles out of my arms and takes a step back.
“Oh, I understand snowboarding was everything to you, Adam. Believe me, I’m not likely to fucking forget about that.” The bitterness in her voice surprises me, though it probably shouldn’t.
“The thing is,” she continues, “it’s still your entire identity, isn’t it? We crashed and burned before because you chose snowboarding, and you’re still choosing it. It’s still defining you.”
“I love you, Piper, but that is not fucking fair, and you know it. I know the story about Japan has been that I picked snowboarding and the whole thing was my fault, but I thought we established that you also played a part. You apologized in Breck, remember?”
“Of course I do.”
“It’s not like I’m a regular, happy-go-lucky guy who woke up one day and decided to be a negative dick. I don’t think you understand that what I’m feeling isn’t a conscious choice. I can’t just decide not to be sad about this anymore. It’s a hell of a lot deeper than that.”
She blinks back tears. “I know, but can you honestly say that you’ve even tried to accept it? To face the fact that you’re different now? Because you’re still amazing, Adam. You always have been. You don’t need snowboarding for that and if you could only see…”
Tears are dripping down her face now, and I reach up to wipe them away.
“I wish I could see what you see.” My voice is
hoarse, my throat tight with holding back my own tears. “But I can’t. The only times I get close to accepting what I’ve lost is when I’m far away from it. I try and picture a new life, a new future, but it’s all blurry. The only thing that’s in focus is you, but that’s not real life, it’s a dream. I wish I could be stronger for you, Piper, but I’m broken. I’m sorry.”
All of a sudden, I’m shivering uncontrollably. All the heat is gone and I’m freezing, my shirt clammy and cold with sweat. I’m cold from the inside out, because I know what happens next. I’ve known since we made our idiotic agreement to be together until the end of the Olympics.
Piper walks away.
“You’re not broken,” she says quietly. “You’re perfect.”
“If I were perfect, we’d be back at the room fucking and planning our trip to Europe and where we want to live in Denver. I’m a disaster.”
We stare at each other, shadows and color playing across our faces as the neon lights of the surrounding restaurants at the end of the alley blink on and off. I’m waiting for her to turn and leave, but instead, she does something even worse.
“I’ll give up school,” she says. “If you can’t come with me, then I’ll come with you. I don’t even know if I’m going to get in anyway.”
God, I’m a selfish asshole, because the first thing I feel when she says that is a flash of pure joy so powerful that I actually sway on my feet. I have to lean back against the wall for a second to get my balance. I want to grin, and whoop, and hold her tight and take her back inside and bury myself in her.
But I can’t.
“No,” I grit out. “I won’t let you do that.”
“You won’t let me?”
“No, I won’t. You’re not fucking up your future because of me. You’ve worked too hard and I’m…not worth it.”
“You’re worth everything!” she says fiercely. “There are other schools, Adam. There won’t be another you.”
“And what about your mom? You can’t leave her, Piper. You know you won’t be happy if you’re not nearby.”
“I’ll figure something out,” she says. “Just give me a little more time, okay? I should never have said anything, not until I had a plan.”
“Jesus, Piper. Stop, okay? Just stop. You think you’re trying to fix things, but what you’re really doing is trying to control them. To control me. You want a perfect plan to create a perfect world and if something can’t fit in—if it can’t be fixed—then you throw it out. Just like Japan.”
She rubs her hands over her arms, desperately trying to keep warm, and she looks so lost that it breaks my heart all over again.
“You never meant it, did you? About ending this after the Olympics?”
“No.” Her voice is a sad wisp of a sound, so quiet it almost gets buried in the falling snow. “I said it because I wanted you to stay”
“Oh, Piper.”
I close my eyes, steeling myself for what I have to do. Because it’s going to blow a huge fucking hole in my chest that I’ll never be able to fill.
But I have to do it. I can’t let her give up her dreams to follow me around, hoping that I’ll get my shit together. Because she might think I’m perfect now, but what will she think in three years? In five? When she’s ready to stop living out of a backpack and I’m still too broken to even visit my parents in New Hampshire for Christmas?
She’ll regret giving up school, she’ll hate me, and then she’ll leave anyway.
“I love you,” I tell her, “but this has to end. Goodbye.”
Then I take her hand for the last time and walk her into the lobby. I press the button for the elevator and wait for it to come, staring at the floor because I know I’ll break if I can see her eyes. The doors open with a ding, and I squeeze her freezing hand, drop a kiss on her icy hair, and let her go.
23
Piper
I am a lying liar who lies.
Everyone I love thinks I’m sick, struck down by a head cold so vicious that I’m quarantining myself in my hotel room so I don’t pass it along to Ben and fuck up his chances at a medal. Nat brought me take-out soup and left it outside my door. My mom dropped off a bunch of tissues and a lifetime supply of throat lozenges, but I put a bandana over my face and wouldn’t let her into the room. She fussed about how red my eyes were and offered to find me a doctor, but I told her I’d be better soon.
That was probably the biggest lie of all.
The only person who knows the truth is Joe, the room service delivery person, who is probably wondering how many people I have stashed in here based on the amount of greasy food and desserts I’ve been ordering. Tomorrow is the half-pipe qualifying event and the next day is the final. It’s Ben’s moment of triumph, and I have to get myself together. He’s going to win, and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I’m not there, clutching Nat’s hand on one side and my mom’s on the other, watching my brother climb up to the top of that podium.
I have to go. Which is a problem since I haven’t managed to bathe, dress myself, or stop crying for the past two days. I consider getting up because maybe today’s the day I rise, like a beautiful phoenix, from the ashes of my pain. Then I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror across from the bed and burrow under the covers instead.
Beautiful phoenix, my ass.
I look more like a demented duck.
Better to go back to sleep. I can rise up tomorrow.
“Piper?”
Shit. Mom.
I try ignoring her but the polite taps turn into loud bangs in no time, and I know my mother. She’s not going away without at least hearing my voice. I shuffle over to the door and thunk my forehead against it.
“I’m still sick, Mom. I’ll call you later.”
“Open this door, Piper Easton.”
“No.” I sound like an angry toddler. “I mean, I don’t want to get you sick. I’m going to go back to sleep.”
Loud bangs come from down by my feet. Is my mother actually kicking the door? I risk a peek out and yes, she is. Her hands are full because she’s holding a tray of coffees from the cafe. I whimper. Joe is a good buddy, but the coffee he’s been bringing me from room service sucks.
“I know you’re watching me. I can see the shadows from your feet.”
I curse and duck away from the peephole, then spin around so my back is against the wall.
“Open the door, Piper. Everyone is worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” I call out in the cheeriest voice I can muster.
“You sound like you just found out your cat died.”
Note to self: leave cheery voice mustering off the resume. Also, my mom is getting dark in her old age.
“Is Chuckles okay?”
“Of course. Now open the door, or else I’m calling the manager.”
I bang my head against the wall a couple times. My parents are paying for the room, so if she does call the manager chances are a master key will be produced pretty damn sharpish. Plus, I really want that coffee.
“Okay but stay back. I don’t want to give you my cold.”
My mother snorts. “Whatever you say, Piper.”
I flick the lock and retreat back to the bed, pulling the covers up to my chest. She bustles in and sets the coffee down on the nightstand, then clicks her tongue at the state of the room, grabs a garbage can, and starts plucking used tissues off the bed. And the desk. And the floor.
“You should wear gloves if you’re going to do that.”
She looks up at me. “Heartbreak isn’t contagious, my love.”
I open my mouth to protest, but she shakes her head so instead I gulp down some coffee and watch her clean up my mess.
“Natalie wanted to come, but I told her to stay with Ben. He’d never say it, but he’s getting a little nervous and she distracts him.”
Yeah, I’ll just bet she does.
“Mind out of the gutter, Miss Smirk. I meant, she makes him laugh.”
She puts the garbage can down and
starts picking up the clothes I let drop on the floor when I got home the other night.
“I saw Adam this morning,” she says. I choke on my coffee, cough, and grab a tissue to mop up the mess.
“He looked like he hadn’t slept in days,” she continues, calmly folding my dress like her words aren’t slicing into me. “I didn’t speak to him, poor boy.”
No, you saved that joy for me.
She puts the dress down on my suitcase, scans the room for more mess, and gives a satisfied little nod before coming to perch on the side of the bed.
“Both the coffees are for you, but could you hand me the tea, please?”
I hand it over and grab the second coffee for myself. If I’m going to live through this conversation, I’m going to need to be highly caffeinated.
“So you and Adam?” she asks. “Again?”
I shrug. We never really talked about what happened between Adam and me the first time. She had a sketchy scan right around the time we broke up, and all of us had settled into the habit of not worrying her about things long before that.
“Please talk to me, Piper. I’m worried about you.”
“You shouldn’t worry,” I say automatically. “It isn’t good for you.”
She presses her lips together and takes a sip of tea. Kind of an angry sip, actually. I’m pretty sure I saw her roll her eyes before the cup covered her face. We sit there for a moment, silent, and when I look up at her again, she looks so sad and helpless that I grab her cup, put it with mine on the nightstand, and pull her into a hug.
“We broke up,” I whisper into her ear. Somehow it’s easier to say without her looking at me.
She pulls me in closer and rubs my back. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”
I can feel the sobs inside me, sharp little demons clawing their way from my abdomen to my throat, desperate to get out. I clench my muscles, trying to hold everything in, and bite down hard on my lip. I hate crying in front of anyone, and I haven’t cried in front of my mother since her diagnosis.
