by Audrey Bell
“What girl?”
“Oh, come on, you know the girl. From Real World.”
“That’s still a thing?”
“Mackenzie! He dated Mackenzie from Real World.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“She’s blonde from Charleston—the one who faked a pregnancy and went through a lesbian phase with Gabrielle? Oh my god, seriously, what have you been doing for the past year and a half? Don’t tell me you’ve gone in for Teen Mom 2.”
“Hoarders actually. Also, Duck Dynasty.”
“You cannot abandon The Real World,” Lottie says sternly. “It’s like the only thing we ever had in common.”
I laugh at her indignation.
“Anyways, dreamboat Dawson over there dated her. I saw them in People. Or maybe it was US Weekly. Not the cover or anything, but that’s your kind of magazine, so you should really be up on this stuff. They broke up because he thought she was doing too much yoga.”
I sneak a look at Hunter and glance back at Lottie.
“Yoga?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess he doesn’t look like he does any yoga.”
“Exactly. Apparently, Mackenzie thought yoga was her boyfriend and Hunter just couldn’t handle it. And so, he was like, I can’t handle this anymore, Mackenzie and they broke up. And then apparently, to blow off steam, he went to a strip club and she was heartbroken because she thought they had a real connection. Some also suspected she cheated on him with someone real, not with a an activity like yoga. Maybe a yoga teacher, although this is purely my speculation. But we’ll probably never know the truth. And he probably has diseases because he’s kind of a whore and had a whole thing with Laurel back in the day. But he’s nice to look at.”
Laurel. Laurel is the kind of girl who can give you a panic attack even if you haven’t seen her for a year and she’s miles and miles away. I never thought I would be jealous of her. But, for the first time I hear her name and I don’t think what a psycho, but what the hell did he see in her?
“Hello? Come on. I know you care about Mackenzie.”
I laugh. “I’ll have to catch up on that season.”
Lottie and I used to spend 30 bucks on candy and tabloids at every airport we went to. We became fluent in our own language of gossip. Whenever she was pissed off at me, she would start defending Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, and my head would start to explode. And whenever I was annoyed with her, I’d tell her I had a lot of respect for Ke$ha.
Lottie, plate stacked high with salad and salmon, marches past Hunter deliberately towards an empty table.
“Hey,” he says, looking up—looking at me.
“Hi.”
“Want to sit?”
I’m not so much of a bitch as to leave anyone eating dinner alone by himself in a cafeteria at the age of 21. I went to middle school, after all. I know how fucking miserable cafeteria politics could be, and even if Hunter Dawson was a reality star-dating X-Games champion, I wasn’t going to leave him feeling rejected and bullied over an off-the-cuff comment he’d already apologized for.
Lottie smiles.
“This is Lottie Miller.”
“Hunter Dawson,” he said, taking her hand and shaking it.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Nothing. Nobody’s here, huh?”
“Yeah, well. It’s a quite mountain,” Lottie says. “Things will pick up this weekend.”
“You race?”
Lottie nods. “Yup.”
“Ames is your coach?”
“Yup.”
He smiles at her drawling yups and the way she sways her head from side to side. “So, I have a question. What the fuck do you girls do on this mountain by yourselves?”
“Oh...we ski. It’s like these long things you attach to your feet and then you go down the mountain. Try not to fall. I think we talked about this in the van,” I say.
He smiles at me and laughs.
“No, I just mean…” he smiles. “I used to train in Whistler. There’s a lot of people around, there’s a town. It’s pretty dead out here, you know?”
“It’s a mountain. It’s for skiing. And snowboarding. What did you have in mind?
He shrugs. “Honestly? Fucking anything.” He turns to look at me. “Joe!” He shouts across the cafeteria at another skier, one I knew from races—Joe Byrne. He lopes over—short and densely muscled, Joe’s a U.S. champion who has broken both his ankles twice. You’d never guess. He doesn’t walk; he springs on the balls of his feet like Tigger.
“Hey, kids,” Joe says. His eyes settle on me. “Holy shit, Pippa Baker. It’s good to see you.” He puts his tray next to Hunter’s and pulls out my chair and yanks me onto my feet and into a warm, crushing hug.
“Holy fucking shit,” Joe repeats. He looks at me when he lets me go. “Where the hell have you been?”
“College,” Lottie says.
“Really? What’s your major?”
“I’m not sure. Physical therapy, maybe.”
Joe stares at me. “You gonna be able to keep up with that while you’re doing this?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m doing this kind of as a one-off. We’ll see how it goes.”
Joe smiles. “Yeah right.”
“What?”
“I know you.”
“And?”
“You’re going to do one race and just head out?” Joe laughs. “Come on. That’s totally unrealistic.”
“I’m not that competitive.”
Lottie and Joe both burst out laughing.
“I’m not,” I tell Hunter, the only one still listening.
“Nah, you look kind of psycho, Phillippo. I wouldn’t want to get in your way.” The grin playing on his face suggests he’s gotten he’s confidence back enough to tease me.
“I thought I looked like a lost cause.”
He keeps smiling, albeit a little less broadly. “I told you. I’m a douchebag. Nobody should listen to me.”
Joe glares at Hunter. “How have you already been a douchebag to her?”
“She met me at an airport. On an airplane in fact.”
“Ah, then it doesn’t count,” Joe smiles. “He’s terrified of flying.”
“I’m not terrified of it. I just don’t like it. I don’t like spinach, either—doesn’t mean I’m fucking terrified of it.”
Joe grins. “Total nutcase about it. He always tries to get himself kicked off the plane so he has to drive.”
“That’s not true.”
“That is absolutely true. Denver, Whistler, Jackson—every single time I’ve flown with you, you’ve tried to get kicked off the flight. You have a straight-up phobia of planes.”
“I’m not—whatever,” Hunter shakes his head.
“I have a serious question,” Lottie says.
Hunter smiles slightly and turns his green eyes to look at her. It gives me the opportunity to stare at him without him knowing. He reaches down for his fork and using it to gesture says: “Shoot, Lottie. I’m all ears.”
There’s something adorable about the way he says it, the way he smiles, holding the fork, swiveling it around in one hand, that makes me want to interrupt, so I can be the one talking to him.
I realize that I am developing a mild crush on this infuriating person. You know what that is? Annoying. That I’m even capable of having a crush on someone so unlike Danny—so much louder and more abrasive—suggests that I have finally lost it. Really, completely lost it. You cannot like someone like this. After eighteen months of certainty that Danny was the single love of my life—a few sentences, most of them not very nice—and I have a crush on Hunter fucking Dawson.
I swallow thickly. Danny, Danny, Danny.
But I can’t even imagine what Danny would say about this. So, he doesn’t say anything. I can’t quite conjure up a mental image of him smiling.
“What are you doing in Snowbird? If you’re so bored and there’s no competition…” Lottie
asks.
He rolls his shoulders. “Had to get out of Whistler for a bit.”
“Why?”
He shrugs again. “Just felt like trying something new. Got itchy.”
“Itchy?”
He smiles. “When I get itchy, I usually get into trouble. And I’m trying not to fuck anything up this year, so…” He glances at Joe. “I guess Mike thought hanging with a bunch of skiers would help. Plus, my family’s nearby.”
He turns back to look at me and his phone starts to ring. He lets it ring before he pulls it out of his pocket, glances at it, puts it to his ear, and leaves the table, taking his tray and dropping it off at a window.
Joe watches him go.
“What’s the real deal with him?” Lottie asks conspiratorially. “Does it have to do with The Real World Portland?”
Joe lifted his shoulders. “No clue. He had a big falling out with his coach last year after the X-Games.”
“Over what?”
Joe shrugs again. “Beats me. He’s a pretty mysterious kid. Bad temper. Wouldn’t be surprised if he just blew up and fired him after he lost on the half-pipe.”
Lottie nods. She looks at me and back to Joe. “Half-pipe. Hm. Fascinating. So, do you know why he broke up with Mackenzie?”
Joe grins. “Did you get the memo about being a mysterious kid?”
“Yeah, but…” Lottie rolls his eyes. “Nobody who dates a reality star can be that mysterious.”
Joe rolls his eyes. “Trust me, Lottie. This kid is that mysterious.” He shakes his head. “So, Pip?”
“Yes?”
“You’re going to kill it this weekend right?” Joe asks.
I’m getting nervous for the races already. I smile at him. “We’ll see. It’s been a while.” I look around. “I actually should go find Mike. He wants to talk to me.”
I ditch my tray and head down to the lockers to cut back to the athletes’ lodge where we’re all staying. I stop before I turn a corner for a long, deserted stretch of hall.
“Look, Deirdre, I don’t know what to tell you,” I heard Hunter’s voice reverberating off of the walls.
“No…you cannot let have Shane for that long. You know how he gets….” his voice trails off. “Deirdre, listen to me, I swear to God, if Shane goes to live with him…well, then why are you calling me and asking about it? I came out here so I could be close to him…”
Even all this distance away from him, I can hear him sighing heavily. “Look, let me talk to Shane…no, put Shane on the phone now.”
His voice changes dramatically.
“Hey, buddy—how are you?”
I shouldn’t be eavesdropping on this conversation. I know it innately—from the urgency in Hunter’s voice, to the fact that he came down here, out of sight and earshot to have it.
“Yeah? That’s great. You like the new school…uh-huh…good. Good…that’s really great. Listen, kid, you know you can call me whenever. Right? I’m not far now…” He chuckles at something Shane says. “Hey—if you want to come live with me, I can make that happen, too. That’s totally cool.”
I wonder who he’s talking to. His kid? I try to do the math quickly, but I realize I have no idea how old Hunter is and I definitely don’t know how old the kid that he’s talking to is.
“Love you too, buddy. Call me tomorrow, okay?”
I don’t realize that the conversation is over and he’s headed back for me until he turns the corner and sees me, trying to backpedal out of view like a total fucking creeper.
His eyes darken as he walks back towards me. “Hear anything interesting, Baker?”
“N-no,” I manage to say. “I was walking back from dinner and…”
He gives me a slight, utterly disgusted nod. “Right.” His glare doesn’t lessen as he breezes past me and I hear his footsteps up the staircase, heavy and fading away.
Shit.
I mean, he has every right to be absolutely irate.
Although, I didn’t mean to listen in. And I’m not even sure what I heard, only that it obviously was a private conversation.
I trek back to my room—head spinning. Hunter. Shane. Someone named Deirdre. Green-eyed, dark-haired, smoldering hot Hunter Dawson.
I lay in bed thinking of him—trying not to, and failing not to. And when I think of Danny, it feels like his face is slipping away from me. And I’m going to be on a mountain tomorrow. I’m going to have to be back in skis.
“I miss you,” I whisper to Danny. And then, imaging how Ryan used to joke about being the third wheel. “I miss you, too.”
Chapter Six
Sleep came slowly and briefly the night before my first day back on skis. Breakfast was a real nonstarter, although I choked down a cup of coffee.
Plus, I think I have altitude sickness. It never used to bother me, but I used to live on mountains, so it’s no wonder my body needs to readjust. My head throbs slightly and my limbs feel weary.
Mike tells me take it easy. “Just get a feel for it again.”
I nod—navigating my way to the lift with him. I’m surprised what comes back so naturally to me. I don’t know what I expected—maybe that I would feel like I was learning to skate for the first time. But, the snow feels fine. On the flat, easy slope before the lift, I feel totally in control.
He rides up with me—leaving Lottie to do some complicated turns at a breakneck speed under the supervision of Barry, an assistant coach.
“Relax,” Mike says gently as we’re about to get off the lift.
“Right, sorry—I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Nothing’s wrong with you. You’ve got this. Come on.”
We stand up off the lift and glide to the side. It’s an easy run—a blue groomer, a manageable, smooth sloop, with flat, artificially maintained terrain. I used to find these boring—but it’s a good place to begin again.
“Just go for it?” I say.
“Yeah, have a little fun with it.”
I bend my knees and push off, letting the slope and gravity take me. I make my first turn, clean and precise and I feel the rush of blood through my body, the crisp edges of my skis carving the way down my mountain. Most of all, I feel the speed.
Going so fast…it feels pure—fresh and clean. And it feels like a part of me—like moving this fast and this wild is more who I am than anything else about me.
“There you go,” I hear Mike shouting.
My legs aren’t as quick, my turns not as sharp and efficient, but I still can fly—and I still love flying.
As I come to a stop, sending a shower of snow out from under my blades, I catch my breath and start laughing.
Mike pulls up behind me. “Well?”
“Well,” I repeat.
“How do you feel?”
“Fucking amazing.”
He laughs and I throw my head back up at the sky, looking at the sun, which is stronger on any mountain than it is lower down where most of the world lives. I’m closer to the sky, closer to the sun where it’s easier to get burnt and easier to feel alive than it is back on flat ground.
I look down the next slope, a kinder, gentler run. And I know that all this time, all these months, I’ve been missing this too—I had been grieving Danny, Ryan, and the one place I feel at home, mountains.
“Let’s go up.”
“Yeah?” Mike asks.
“Definitely.”
I barely talk to Mike all day, just getting my legs back underneath me—relearning what I always have known—how to go fast. This is why I wanted to Olympics—not just for the medal, but to see how fast I can go. How much faster I can still go.
I’m bone-tired and worn out by the time I get down for lunch, exhilarated and exhausted.
“You’re done for the day,” Mike declares.
“No way.”
He smiles. “Yeah, you’re going to be hurting tomorrow as is. Take a bath and chill out. Trust me.”
I roll my eyes but listen to him, hitting up one of the USSA traine
rs for a Jaccuzzi and a massage—perks of being one of Mike’s skiers, lost cause or not.
I’m not expecting to collapse on my bed and take a four-hour nap when I get back to my room, but when I wake up, the day’s gone and I have texts from Lottie and Joe, from Courtney and my dad.
I exhale and start responding. It’s such a relief to be able to everyone how genuinely great things are and mean it. I’ve been trying to convince them that I was better—my leg had fixed, my heart was unbroken—for the past year and I never quite pulled it off.
I smile to myself—a rush of gratitude that Mike dragged me back here. It’s what was missing at that party I went to with Courtney and in the classes I attended diligently all semester. The sense of being at home—that’s what hadn’t been there.
Chapter Seven
I fucking hate Mike Ames.
And skiing.
And downhill drills.
And the snow in my gloves. I really hate that.
“Motherfucker,” I say for the hundredth time that morning, jamming my foot back into my ski and getting up from the awkward pile I’ve collapsed myself into.
“Pippa, stop trying to break your own records on your first day back,” Mike shouts, annoyed that he’s had to repeat himself so many times.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter again. I think I might make it my own, personal slogan. My body has careened around and into flags, my knees have quavered and given out, my pole have caught, my ankles have revolted, and my body’s taken a hell of a beating since I got up to the course this morning.
“I want you eligible. You crash out and you aren’t eligible. Come on,” he continues shouting, more frustrated than he is angry. “Achievable goals. It’s your first day back.”
I jump back onto my skis and finish the rest of the flags slowly. My knees ache and shake, and my abs feel like I have been fighting a stomach bug since the beginning of September. Most of all, my brain has really just had it with my body: this is bad for your motherfucking health, Pippa. Fall over one more time and we are done.
I get onto the snowmobile behind Mike and go up for another hellish run.
