The Ex Games

by Jennifer Echols

  He wrinkled his nose and moved his mouth, imitating my scolding, so I knew I’d guessed correctly about the last time he’d bombed asking out Gavin’s sister.

  “Stop it.” I slapped at him. “And tell me the truth. Do you agree with Nick that I’ll never be as good as a boy, so there’s no use trying?”

  “Keep in mind that I have seen the answer key. I know what I’m supposed to say to stop you from hitting me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He leaned back against the salt-streaked window and considered me. “You are the most physically fit person I have ever met. I mean, I’m physically fit, too. I probably work out in the health club almost as much as you do. But I have been known to sneak a Pop-Tart out of the vending machine at school.”

  I gasped and put my hands to my mouth in mock horror.

  “I know. It was whole grain, but still. You, on the other hand, are serious about keeping your body in top shape. You have a lot of natural athletic ability. And you got hurt all those years ago, which gives you extra drive like nobody else on the slopes.”

  I couldn’t believe all this was coming out of Josh’s mouth. Normally he was such a dork, but he did have his moments of depth. Right now he was looking me in the eye, letting me know he understood what a serious problem this was for me. I felt so much better just knowing that he understood and cared.

  “If you want to be a professional snowboarder,” he went on, “the only thing holding you back is you. And I can help you there.” He put his arm around me and squeezed way too hard on purpose. “Just leave it in the hands of me and my posse.”

  lemon grab

  lemon grab

  (le mn grab) n. 1. a trick in which the rider grabs both ends of the snowboard 2. what Hayden feels like she’s doing every time she talks to Nick

  “AY-BATTA-BATTA-BATTA-BATTA-BATTA!” yelled Josh’s fourteen-year-old friends. I ignored them and sped across the snow toward the jump.

  “Schwing!” finished Josh. He made a batting motion with both arms.

  I saw this out of the corner of my eye. I’d lost my focus on the end of the jump. There was no way I could go off the jump now. Hating the feeling of relief that washed through me, I slid to a stop next to the boys. I was careful to slice the bank with my snowboard, sending a wave of snow straight over them.

  “Hey!” Josh protested. He shook snow off his hat. “I thought we were supposed to help you go off the jump. We were trying to distract you from your fear.” He wiggled his gloved fingertips at me on fear.

  “You’re just giving her another excuse not to go off,” Chloe said through her pink glove. She sat on a snowboarding trick rail nearby, chin in her hand, almost as frustrated with me as I was with myself.

  In the boys’ defense, they had stayed here with me for over an hour while Chloe coached me in getting over my fear of heights. I was asking a lot of all of them. I needed to end this now. Looking around at the blinding white slopes glittering in the bright sunshine, I tried to remember why this was so important. I needed to do this jump so I would believe in myself. To impress Daisy Delaney.

  To show up Nick.

  “Okay.” I curled my arms up like a bodybuilder. “Cheer me on here.”

  “Yaaaaay.” Chloe and the four boys cheered and clapped with zero enthusiasm.

  “I can do this,” I insisted. “How many failed attempts is that?”

  “Nine,” Chloe said through her glove.

  “There’s no way I’m going to fail at this ten times in a row. I’m Hayden O’Malley! I won the Snowfall Amateur Challenge!”

  “Wooooo,” they moaned, no more excited than they’d been before.

  “I shouldn’t have to convince you to cheer for me.” I reached down for a clod of snow and pelted Josh with it. Bull’s-eye: It got him right on the goggles. “What happened to leaving it in the hands of you and your posse?”

  He took off his goggles and wiped them on his snow pants. “That still seemed like a good idea, back on failed attempt number three.”

  “I’ll show you,” I grumbled. Anger was good for me when I tried something new with my board. Possibly Josh knew this and was acting like a butt on purpose. I tried not to think too much about that, or to remember how nice he’d been on the bus. I released my back boot from the binding and pushed myself along like I was riding a skateboard, up the hill and away from the edge of the jump. From here I could get a running start. Ideally, I would pick up enough speed that if I did chicken out at the last minute, it would be too late.

  It was a gorgeous late morning with a cloudless, bright blue sky. No fog, no haze, so I could see all the way to the buildings of Snowfall at the bottom of the mountain, even pick out the festive red banners flying beneath the streetlamps.

  That was a long way down.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and inhaled through my nose. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body.

  I exhaled through my mouth and felt gravity pull the energy from my heart—

  “No excuses this time!” Chloe’s voice sounded hollow, like she was calling through her cupped hands.

  —down through my legs, through my boots and snowboard, through the snow, to the rocks below. I was one with the mountain.

  “Daisy Delaney would be halfway down the mountain by now,” called Josh.

  “Yeah!” came the voice of one of Josh’s friends. “You expect Daisy Delaney to wait for you to meditate every time you go off a cliff?”

  So much for re-centering. Anger seemed to be a better motivator after all. I was a little angry at Chloe, plenty angry at Josh, and mega-angry at Nick for making me feel like a second-class snowboarder. Most of all, I was angry at myself for not being able to do this. I would show us all.

  I burst into action, leaning down the hill to put all my weight into increasing my speed.

  Snow arced away from me, and dark snowy trees flashed past. The jump came closer. I pictured how ecstatic I would feel when I finally made this happen. The jump loomed closer. I pictured myself going off the end.

  I panicked. I skidded to a halt at the last second. Clumps of snow launched from the edge in slow motion and burst into smithereens on the snowpack below.

  And then I realized I was still falling, following the momentum of my snowboard and slipping over the edge. I grabbed for anything, but there was nothing solid to grab. The jump was made of layers of packed snow. My slick waterproof mittens slipped on the edge. I banged my snowboard against the jump to free my feet from the bindings so I could get some traction with my boots, anything to keep from falling. Normally the catches were touchy, sometimes releasing at unfortunate times during the middle of a forceful trick—but now they wouldn’t pop open, and my snowboard was a dead weight pulling me down. I was back in my wheelchair already.

  No way! I would not break a leg again. I would not be an invalid. My arms ached from holding myself on the precipice. I was tiring myself out and doing myself no good. I inhaled through my nose and felt my lungs fill with air. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body. I exhaled through my—

  “Hayden!” Chloe screamed. “Stop doing yoga and climb your ass up the jump!” Her voice jogged like she was maneuvering toward me as fast as she could in her gear, falling in the snow.

  I could hold on until she and the boys got to me. I slipped another inch, but that just sent another wave of adrenaline through my arms, helping me tighten my grip. I could hold on—

  Strong hands circled both my wrists and pulled a little, then slid down to my upper arms and pulled harder. Thank God that Chloe had reached me in time. But now I was afraid I was too heavy for her and would pull her over with me. I looked up to tell her to let me go if she felt herself falling.

  It was Nick. Goggles and snow half-covered his face. I recognized him by his jaw—which he set in a grimace as I watched. Maybe I was too heavy for him.

  But then Chloe did arrive, leaning over the lip of the jump to grab one of my legs. Josh grabbed the end of my snowboard. Tog
ether they all hauled me up over the edge, then collapsed around me on the jump.

  “Are you okay?” Chloe shrieked, kneeling over me. I nodded, panting, and patted her pink glove. She and Josh’s friends plopped down with us in the snow.

  “Y’all, thank you,” I breathed. I lay on my back, staring up at the bright blue empty sky. Compared with the blue shadows below the lip of the jump, it was so bright and white up here. Thousands upon thousands of people must be skiing on the mountain today, but the snow muffled sound. All I heard was the seven of us struggling to get our breath back. Nick breathed closest to me, inhaling long and deep and exhaling big clouds of water vapor, like he was truly shaken by the idea of me falling and relieved he’d come to my rescue.

  No, come on. He would have rescued anyone. He wouldn’t let anybody fall off the end of the jump, even a stranger. In fact, he might not even recognize me. True, how many redheaded snowboarders could there be in Snowfall? But surely he didn’t have me on the brain like I did him. In my puffy, figure-erasing snowboarding clothes, I was basically in drag.

  And then he grumbled, “Get on the other side of me.”

  The snow squeaked under my head as I turned toward him. Was he talking to me?

  He stood, grabbed the edge of my jacket in one hand and the edge of my snow pants in the other, and slid me five feet across the snow. He sat down again between me and the edge of the jump, like he was protecting me from rolling off. “Either do the jump or don’t, Hoyden. In-between is very bad.”

  Some tourists up the hill yelled at us to get the hell out of the way. The boys scooted off one side of the jump, and Nick and I scooted off the other. Chloe stayed in the middle for a moment more. Clearly she preferred not to spend quality time alone with my brother and his friends. But when I made a small motion down by my side for her to join Nick and me, she shook her head and made a talking motion with her hand.

  She wanted Nick and me to talk? Great. I huffed out one last sigh left over from my breathless moment hanging off the jump, and searched my mind for what I wanted to say to him. That I was sorry for insulting him about his parents splitting up, when I really didn’t know? This would be difficult to explain, and I found myself hoping Chloe and/or Liz had played Telephone and passed this message along after all.

  I looked up at him. He still had his goggles on, and so did I. If we removed them, we would be able to see each other better, but we would also see the face-divots that came with several hours of wearing goggles. So I left mine on, and so did he. When I tried to look into his eyes, all I saw was a reflection of snow, trees, and sky.

  “You’re welcome for saving your life.” He grinned at me for the first time, and his playboy smile was all the more dazzling because that’s all of him I could see—that and his strong chin—like he was a masked superhero. “Did Chloe say you were doing yoga?”

  “Yeah, I help my mom teach a class at the health club,” I said sheepishly. Nick could make me feel so happy about my own jokes, or so sheepish about the things that defined me. I loved and hated that about him.

  “Does yoga help you levitate? Because it sure wasn’t helping you climb back up that jump.”

  “It helps me stay focused so I can concentrate on tricks. It keeps me limber so I don’t get hurt on hard landings. I could show you some stretches, now that you’ve decided you’re this big boarder.” Too late I realized this sounded like a come-on. Yeah, Hayden, he would say, I want you to show me some—wink—stretches!— nudge nudge.

  “Stretches!” he barked in exactly the outraged tone he would use to say, Pink sequined football uniforms! “What good would that do?”

  Now I was offended, which was strange because he hadn’t even tried to offend me, for once. But stretches were a big part of my life. “Typical. High school boys think the only speed for exercise is full-throttle, with nothing between complete rest and heavy exertion. You’re going to pull a muscle if you don’t warm up enough.”

  “I warm up.”

  “Come on.” I whacked his chest playfully, sugar-coating what I viewed as serious information. My insulated hand bounced off his insulated body. “I’ve seen the football team start practice. You’re in full pads so you can hardly move, and you stretch what the coach tells you, when he says. You can’t stretch right with a team. You’re not listening to your own body.”

  “And you are? Tell me what my body’s saying now.” He flicked his long hair away from his goggles with his gloved pinkie. God, how I loved it when he did that. But he was plotting, scheming, turning my own words against me, making fun of me. He was so hot, even in goggles and waterproof layers, and I wished so badly he hadn’t called me a bitch yesterday and insinuated I was a betty.

  “No, you’re right.” I nodded. “What was I thinking? Yoga would be too hard for you. You’re not subtle.”

  I almost cackled as his lips parted in surprise. Now that I’d discovered Nick’s button, it was so easy to push! Just challenge him on anything. Tell him he couldn’t do something. Press the button and watch him steam in the frigid air.

  He leaned very close to me, his lips inches from my forehead. “Neither are you,” he growled.

  I flushed so hot that I was afraid he could see me steaming. What did he mean? Could he tell how much I liked him, after everything that had happened?

  As quickly as he’d leaned toward me, he stepped away and glanced uphill. I turned to see what he was looking at. Gavin and Davis zigzagged down the mountain, barely missing each other each time they traded sides. As they approached the jump, they never hesitated. They both sped straight up the ramp and off the edge. Gavin recognized Chloe at the last second and called to her as he descended. Davis did a frontside 360, almost as if he’d seen me beside the jump and was mocking me, which was impossible because Davis did not mock people. Until last night, that is.

  Then they were gone. Snowflakes sparkled in the air where they’d been.

  Nick reached out and pulled my hair. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I won’t tell Gavin and Davis about your incident with the jump just now.”

  I laughed shortly. “You mean you won’t embarrass and belittle me? Thanks, Nick. It’s too late. You took care of that last night.”

  He studied me for a second. At least, I thought he did, though all I could see were his mirrored goggles. Then his waterproof fabric zipped against my waterproof fabric as he slipped his arm around my shoulders. “Have fun out here with your boyfriends.” He nodded across the slope to Josh and his posse, who were taking turns jibbing on the trick rail while the others pelted them with snowballs. Chloe protected her hairdo with both arms over her head.

  I shrugged off his arm. “That’s right. Fourteen-year-old boys have better taste than you. They think I’m hot.” I licked my fingertip and stuck it on my butt. “Tsssss.”

  And with that, I propelled myself across the slope and skidded to a stop at one end of the trick rail. “Quick,” I told the boys, “act like you think I’m hot.”

  Chloe cracked up. Josh stared blankly at me. His friends blushed deep red, but they weren’t claiming it.

  “Thanks for your support,” I told them. “Look without looking like you’re looking. Is Nick gone?”

  Chloe gazed past my shoulder to watch uphill. “He’s hiking farther up so he can get some air. Here he goes.”

  “Nice speed,” Josh murmured. All the boys tracked Nick behind me with their eyes. “Nice air.” Josh turned to me. “You’re toast.”

  I felt like toast, burning with anger inside my waterproof layers. “I am not,” I insisted. “I might be lightly browned on one side. But it’s only Wednesday. The comp isn’t until Saturday. Right now let’s go to the half-pipe and end this on a high note. Okay?”

  I turned and boarded through the trees beside the jump without waiting for them. My enthusiasm was stretched to the limit, having to cheer on my own cheerleaders. Behind me Josh broke into a rap about me. His friends joined in with beats and sound effects. I wasn’t sure whether this was s
upposed to boost my spirits or not.

  Hayden, she’s a red-haired lass

  Doing nose-grabs by the score

  Gonna kick some Krieger ass

  Maybe she needs one day more

  Wants to snowboard off the jump

  Not today, she’s filled with sorrow

  Scared she’ll lose her steeze and biff

  Gonna kick some ass tomorrow.

  This was not exactly the vote of confidence I was looking for. I was already angry at myself for being chicken. I was glad I had something else to concentrate on—staying on the trail and not skidding into a tree—because otherwise, I might have burst into tears.

  As soon as we cleared the woods and emerged onto the wide slope down to the half-pipe, Josh boarded even with me. “Your bet is only for Poseur tickets, right?” he called.

  And for my self-esteem, but that was splitting hairs. “Yeah, that’s all.”

  “Because if it was for more than that, I’d be sweet-talking Nick right now and doing everything I could to pull out.”

  “Oh, no you don’t!” Chloe squealed. I think she meant to board between us and shove Josh away for effect. However, she didn’t have enough control to do this, so she just crossed in front of him and fell in his path, which was somewhat anticlimactic. She shouted up at him, “You need to decide whether you stand with your sister or with the sexist pigs.” Even on her butt in the snow, Chloe was a formidable force.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Josh saluted with his mitten to his goggles, then slid around us to catch up with his friends, who had moved farther down the slope to the half-pipe. This was the part of the ski resort where everyone from my school came to see and be seen. The ski lodge sat at the foot of Main Street, the main wide slope. The half-pipe ended another big run on one side of Main Street. Kids busting ass in the pipe served as aprèsski entertainment for adults drinking beer (and teenagers sneaking beer) on the deck at the lodge.