by Adele Huxley
“Liz!”
I pushed away, pointing my skis straight down the mountain to gain speed before carving quick turns into the snow. A bit further down the trail, the ice gave way to wet snow and the incline reduced. I forced myself to not look back. I’d learned pretty quickly that most of the trails on the mountain were easy enough once you got past the first drop. Even so, I didn’t ski the Elk Horn very often. Huge, looming pine trees dotted the trail, obstacles I hadn’t become accustomed to yet. To most people it seemed like good fun but for me, it was an unnecessary danger.
Bryan cried out in surprise. I looked back just in time to see him wobble again. Time began to move in slow motion. Something looked off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. As I remembered it later, I realized the scene looked bizarre because his ski had completely come loose. He wasn’t just wobbling to catch his balance. He was wobbling because he was trying to ski on one blade. Any other skier at his level, without an injury, would’ve found it easy to stop on one ski, but the weakness in his body prevented such a recovery. He couldn’t help but put his boot down, instantly catching on the snow and flipping him forward.
He hit the ground. Hard.
I clapped my hands over my mouth at the sound, a whimper escaping my throat. I stood motionless as I watched his body come to a skidding halt against the trunk of a tree. The jet black ski that had broken free flew past me, momentum propelling it down the hill.
He wasn’t moving.
I clicked out of my bindings and climbed the hill calling his name. He still wasn’t moving. My damn boots slipped in the snow so badly, I had to jam my toes into the slope and climb up on my tip-toes. He was easily seventy or eighty yards up and my muscles were already screaming for oxygen.
“Bryan! I’m coming. I’m here, I’m coming,” I cried out between breaths.
The silence of the forest closed in around me. God, please scream. Do something. Say something, I begged his lifeless form.
I kept moving, kept climbing, time freezing around me. I slipped and fell to my knees just as I saw movement from above. A skier appeared from around a small bend, coming down the slope. I waved my hands frantically, relief filling every single cell in my body.
“Please help! Please!” I ran towards Bryan, crying out for help, slipping with almost every step. The skier skated to a halt and looked at him, then to me wordlessly. With all the layers and safety equipment, only the graying beard gave me an indication of who they were. “Please get ski patrol. I think he’s hurt. Please.” He nodded and quickly sped away, his lips tightly pressed together.
I finally reached Bryan, falling to my knees beside him. His body was twisted horribly, one leg slung over the other at an awkward angle, his back pinned against the pine tree. I knew I shouldn’t move him but my hands hovered over his body, just wanting to touch and comfort him. I leaned forward and felt his hot breath, short and shallow, coming from his open mouth.
“Oh, thank God,” I sighed. “Bryan, I’m here. I’m here.”
The minutes felt like hours. I sat with him, holding his hand in mine, crying and talking to him in a low voice. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, alone on the mountain, until I heard the low roar of snowmobiles coming from below. He never opened his eyes.
My eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each. I couldn’t, for the life of me, lift them to look around the room I was in. Instead, I allowed my consciousness to return to my other senses. The beeping of a monitor, the smell of disinfectant and heavily bleached bedsheets, the quiet padding of feet in the hallway beyond the door. Occasionally, a woman’s soft voice would speak over the intercom system. It was like a switch had been flipped. I’d been asleep, now I was awake, the full memory of the crash coming back to me. Whatever painkillers they had me on only dulled my body, not my brain.
I twitched my toes, wiggled my fingers, made sure I wasn’t paralyzed. A big part of me didn’t even want to try moving yet. Sure, I wasn’t paralyzed but I was afraid of what else I’d discover. A swell of panic burst in my chest as I was confronted with a memory I’d buried for many years.
After my first crash, I’d woken up in a similar room. When I opened my eyes, I’d found myself completely alone. My ex, my mother, my brother...they’d all taken turns watching over me but I’d chosen the exact moment they’d all stepped outside to wake up. Unlike this time, I’d had no recollection of what had put me in the hospital.
I’d sat up with a start, looking around the room in much the same way I might’ve during an alien abduction. My amnesia had stretched all the way back to the beginning of the day, so when I became conscious, I had no memory of the race, the crash, nothing. I’d torn the IVs from my arms as I climbed out of the bed, yelling for someone to come help. The racket had alerted my mom who was only outside the door. Before she had a chance to call for help, I’d fallen to the floor. The scream that had ripped from my throat at the impact brought a half dozen nurses into the room.
When they’d finally gotten me back in the bed and hooked up to the pain killers, my family gathered around me. In my hazy state, I looked from face to face, trying my hardest to focus. “Where’s dad?” I mumbled.
The look my brother had given my mom, the way her face fell at the question...that’s how I’d discovered my father was dead. Of course, I had no way of knowing the details, but I didn’t care. He was gone.
All of these memories hit me in quick succession. The smell of the hospital, the similarities, it was too much. With all the strength I could muster, I opened my eyes and looked around. Blinking at the bright room, I found Liz slumped against the edge of my bed, her head resting on her arm. I fought to keep my eyes open. I needed to let her know I was alright. A choked sound escaped my throat, a mixture of pain and relief on seeing her by my side.
“Hey,” she said drowsily as our eyes met. She scanned my face lovingly, as if searching for the reason we were together in the hospital. With a jump she perked up, her hand going to my cheek. “Hey, you’re alright. It’s okay. I’m here, I’m right here.” She spoke quickly, like the words had become a mantra.
I tried sitting up, struggling with my motor skills before slumping back. It was just as well because my head felt like it was packed with cotton. I quickly rocked back, my eyes falling shut as my head touched the pillow. “How long...” I fought to stay awake.
“Only a couple hours,” she said smoothing the hair from my eyes.
I let out a sigh of relief. Good. Not like last time. I licked my dry lips slowly, trying to wet my throat enough to talk. “They’ve got me on some pretty good shit,” I mumbled. “How bad is it?”
Her hand paused on my skin. “You took a pretty hard hit to the head and you broke your arm. There’s also a substantial amount of swelling around your previous injuries, so they want to make sure you haven’t done any further damage.”
The haze of the drugs was wearing away with each passing minute and in its place, pain. I welcomed the ache if it meant she’d stay. Random memories of Liz sitting with me on the mountain. Despite the pain, I smiled. “You said you didn’t care,” I said with my eyes closed.
“You asshole,” she said with a sarcastic laugh. “You didn’t have to try killing yourself to get me to talk to you, you know.” Her voice was soft, kind. I must’ve really scared her, I thought. “You actually cracked your helmet in half. You probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for...hey, careful there.”
I tried to sit up again but the world became a spinning mess. I fell back onto my elbow with a groan, fighting to keep my eyes focused on her worried face. “I need to talk to you,” I mumbled, squeezing my eyes shut to stop the world moving.
“Hey hey, take it easy. Maybe you should take a little nap. I’ll be here when you wake up,” she soothed.
“No, I’ve waited long enough.” I wiped my face with my hand, the IV pricking inside my skin with the movement. “Just please stay. Please...”
“Alright, okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”<
br />
I let my body relax into the cottony feeling, rather than fight it. Within moments, I was in a blissful state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. It almost felt like being drunk, the way my inhibitions had disappeared and I felt okay with the world. Even though I was never the type to believe in fate or things happening for a reason, it seemed almost meant to be that I’d end up here with her. Just as Liz had as I’d bandaged her wounds, I began to ramble. All my fear and worry about how to start, where to begin, didn’t exist in this hazy place. I simply spoke, albeit with a little slur, concentrating on the feeling of her hand in mine.
“My dad had been a competitive skier until he blew out his ACL walking down a set of icy stairs. He had me on the slopes when I was four. He never stopped pushing me, even then. I had to be better, faster, tighter. I mean, I had fun, but skiing was never something I did just for the joy of it. It was as big a part of my life as school—no, bigger. Dad would pull me out of school on powder days.”
I licked my lips again, my mouth suddenly so dry. Without a word, Liz grabbed a cup of water from the side table and held it to my mouth, tipping it so I could drink. It was pointless trying to keep my eyes open, so I did everything by touch.
“Thanks. Anyway, the magazines all got that part right. He was my coach and he was tough, but he wasn’t the abusive prick they made him out to be. I always thought you were supposed to be kinder about people after they died, but apparently that rule doesn’t apply to anyone in the public eye.”
“Bryan, you really don’t need to do this now,” Liz said squeezing my hand. “I promise I’ll stop being such a—”
“No, I need to,” I insisted. I didn’t want to admit it to her, but I felt sleep winning quickly despite my best efforts. “What did you read online?”
“Nothing really, I couldn’t stand to,” she said in a low voice. “I read the first part of the Wiki page before I almost threw my laptop across the room.”
I chuckled. “That sounds like you.” I took a deep breath and decided to dive right into it. While painful, talking about my dad was the easy stuff. “I don’t remember much from the day of the crash. Most of my memories aren’t really memories. They’re pieces of videos or articles I saw. I know exactly what time I crashed only because I read it somewhere.
“I woke up in a hospital room a lot like this one. At first, they wouldn’t tell me what happened. They were afraid of what my reaction would be and at the time, they weren’t even sure I’d ever be able to walk again. So many shitty things happened that day, I think they froze up. They didn’t know which shitty thing to hit me with first.
“I actually laughed when they told me Dad had died, which freaked them out. My mom had sat down, pretty much right where you are now, and told me that he’d gotten into an accident as he was following the ambulance to the hospital. I laughed. I thought it was a joke, like, how could that possibly happen? It’s absurd.” I was thankful for the painkillers. They were good at numbing all kinds of pain, apparently.
“He died on the way?” she whispered. I almost laughed again at the horror in her voice.
“See? It is absurd.” I shook my head. When I spoke, it was like I was reading it from an article. “Christopher Marsh, father and coach of Bryan “The Blizzard” Marsh, died tragically following the accident at the River Creek Olympic qualifiers. Marsh, 52, failed to negotiate a particularly icy corner and careened off the edge of the road and down a small ravine. The Nissan XTerra came to a stop thirty feet below. Marsh was declared DOA at the same hospital his son had been taken to. Services will be held blah, blah, blah,” I finished with a wave of my hand.
Liz let out a strangled gasp as she threw herself over me in a tight hug. “I had no idea it was that bad. That’s so horrible. Jesus, Bryan...”
I fought the urge to say, It’s okay. It’s fine, because it wasn’t. It sucked and of all the people, other than my family, Liz understood how much it sucked. I did my best to return the hug before she sat back down.
“You can see why I laughed. I couldn’t go to the funeral because I was still in the hospital. The whole time was...difficult.”
“No shit,” she blurted out. She sniffed and wiped her nose with a tissue.
I sighed again. The accident, my dad’s death, I’d talked about that over and over with my therapists. It felt mechanical almost, like I was dictating the things I’d been told to say. The next part...well, that’s why I’d come to Tellure Hollow. I’d been living the next part for so long. Coming here was supposed to give me the distance and space needed to figure out what the hell happened. Maybe part of moving on was confronting it directly.
“The media jumped on us. The story was fucking everywhere. I really think if Dad hadn’t died, no one outside of the Olympic circles would’ve ever known about my crash. I would’ve just become another footnote in the history books. I had a few records, a cool nickname, but Dad dying turned it into a real story. What a tragedy.
“They were at the house when I was released from the hospital a few weeks later. I remember my brother pushing me in the wheelchair, having to fight through the crowds of photographers, microphones shoved in my face. They towered over me, like adults did when I was a child. They wouldn’t stop calling, even camped outside in the dead of winter. It was crazy. It didn’t take much to turn me into a shut-in.
“I moved back home with Mom, for her sake and for mine. Angela, my fiancée at the time...she didn’t handle it well. We started to fight all the time. She said she didn’t recognize me. We’d known each other since we were kids, but I’d always been the big strong, loud, jock, ya know? She didn’t know what to do with this guy who was stuck in a hospital bed, depressed, doped up on painkillers. It wasn’t a happy house.” Major understatement, but she didn’t need to know every gory detail yet. I wanted to open up, not scare her away.
“That’s hardly your fault,” said Liz.
“I know that, now. On top of it, she was getting a lot of attention from the press. It’s something I blame myself for. I thought if we gave the vultures something, maybe they’d go away. She was close enough to the family it was natural for her to speak for us. It’s not like me or Mom were in any state to do interviews. Angie was more than happy to help and then it turned into more. Whatever attention she wasn’t getting from me anymore, she found from her new adoring fans. She became the hot girlfriend of the tragedy that was The Blizzard. She even did a spread in Playboy that was all snow- and ski-themed.”
“Are you serious?”
“Painfully.”
“What a cunt, sorry, but she really is.”
A slow smile crept across my face. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Anyway, she just sort of, drifted away. We never broke up, she never gave me back the ring. Her visits became more and more infrequent and eventually, I heard more about her through the news and magazines than in real life.” I laughed cynically. “Of everything that happened, that hurt the worst. The crash, Dad dying, those things were quick. They had conclusions. But Angela leaving took months and months of back and forth, lies, crying.
“That’s the thing I need you to understand the most. All the stuff she said about me, my abuse, my temper...it was for the fame. I mean, yeah, you’ve seen my temper, but I never raised a hand to her. The truth becomes flexible when it’s dished out in public like that. I didn’t know how to explain it when I first met you. ‘Hey, my name is Bryan, go ahead and Google me but hardly any of it is true. I promise, I don’t hit women and I’m not a complete asshole.’ Really, I haven’t done myself many favors in the past couple years, but when I met you...”
I didn’t know how to finish my thought. My speech had become more than a little slurred, fuzzy around the edges. My tongue felt heavy and speech too much of an effort. The lure of sleep drew me into silence and I dozed off and on. Time became very fluid. Hours passed in the blink of an eye. Throughout, Liz stayed by my side. I’m not sure how long I was asleep when I heard hushed voices in the room. Liz slipped her ha
nd from mine and stood, the bed bouncing back.
“How did you find me?” she whispered.
“The camera. I saw the video. Jesus Liz, are you alright?” It was Kayla. Great. Might as well call up Noah and Rick, make a real party out of it. The ache in my joints and muscles told me the pain medication had largely worn off, but I pretended to be asleep so I could listen to their conversation.
“What do you mean the camera? The one on my helmet? Oh shit, it was recording!”
“It streams directly to my computer. When I saw you weren’t in the house this morning, I loaded it up to see if you were at the mountain still.” She paused and presumably gestured to me. “How is he? He looks like shit.” Bitch, I thought.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Liz said, returning to my side. “Scared the hell out of me, though, but there isn’t anything seriously wrong.”
“Oh, well that’s good, I guess,” Kayla replied. Don’t sound too excited.
Liz ran a hand down my arm and I chose not to respond. It felt a little dishonest to be laying awake listening to them, but something told me if I woke up, Kayla would leave. I still wasn’t sure what was going on between Liz and Rick, so maybe I could find something out that might help me get her away from him for good.
“He was actually just telling me about everything that happened to him with that accident, the one before.”
Kayla scoffed. “Did he tell you he was an abusive prick who got addicted to painkillers? ‘Cause I’m sure he left that part out.”
“Seriously, what is your problem with him? He’s done nothing to you, other than help your best friend over and over.”
“A few weeks ago, you practically wanted him dead,” she snapped. Their voices were growing louder and louder. If I didn’t stir, they’d probably think I’d slipped into a coma. Before I could move, Liz hushed her.
