Life at the Speed of Us

by Heather Sappenfield

  Woodbury, Minnesota

  Copyright Information

  Life at the Speed of Us © 2016 by Heather Sappenfield.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

  First e-book edition © 2015

  E-book ISBN: 9780738748252

  Book design by Bob Gaul

  Cover design by Lisa Novak

  Cover image by iStockphoto.com/58414132/©shansekala

  Flux is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sappenfield, Heather, 1964-

  Life at the speed of us / Heather Sappenfield. -- First edition.

  1 online resource.

  Summary: After surviving a snowboarding accident, eighteen-year-old Sovern Briggs, still grieving over the death of her mother, experiences uncanny insights into new realms of perception.

  Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

  ISBN 978-0-7387-4825-2 () -- ISBN 978-0-7387-4730-9 [1. Space and time--Fiction. 2. Grief--Fiction. 3. Mothers--Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S27

  [Fic]--dc23

  2015033063

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  Flux

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  Woodbury, MN 55125

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  For the unperceived histories

  that moment by moment surround and influence us.

  0

  The swirled texture of my bedroom ceiling reminded me of ice. My blanket weighed a thousand pounds and flattened my body against my bed. The equation for the rhythmic ting of the baseboard heater whispered in my head. The fridge whirred in the kitchen downstairs with that high-pitched squeak marking every cruel second. From outside came the muffled scrape of a plow pushing heavy snow. February 22: 2/22. I took a calming breath and threw back the covers.

  My bedroom window looked out across the garage roof layered with a foot of new white. A storm had pummeled Crystal Village overnight, and fat flakes still fell. I pressed my temple against an ice bloom on the glass and gained a view up Crystal Mountain. The gondola cars moved uphill from the village center, slow as the lift’s engine warmed. I pictured the powder-hungry skiers and boarders already lined up in the maze, ready to climb into those suspended glass boxes, hooting and laughing and so psyched for the 8:30 opening while the lifties shoveled clear the loading areas. Clouds obscured the mountain’s top, but I still sagged with longing to be up there.

  Dad was already in those clouds, no doubt, supervising ski-patrol crews heading out for avalanche control. It wasn’t fair that he still spent most of his time up there while I was a prisoner down here. But then, life didn’t play fair. Least of all school.

  2/22.

  I forced myself away from the window but paused to press dots around where my temple had melted the frost—one, two, three, four, five toes to make a cheery footprint on the glass. I pressed my hand there and obliterated it.

  I shuffled to yesterday’s clothes on the floor at the end of my bed. I strapped on the bra, walked to my dresser, and drew out a fresh pair of days-of-the-week underwear. I slid on Saturday, though it was Tuesday. Anymore, I didn’t care what day it was. Life was a rotten movie looping in slow motion. As I tugged on the jeans and T-shirt from the floor, that handprint on the window caught my eye; it seemed like someone waving from beyond the glass. I didn’t bother to wash my face, but I did brush my shoulder-length hair and my teeth.

  2/22.

  On the kitchen counter lay a note from Dad: Let’s eat out. I crumpled it.

  Last night, Dad had come home with a new crew cut. I’d almost choked at seeing his chin-length hair gone. Time was, Mom pushed back that hair before she’d kiss him. My eyes had met Dad’s—the first time in ages—and we could have said hurtful things. Instead, I’d wrapped myself in silence and turned on a movie.

  Tonight, I wouldn’t be at dinner, I’d be with Gage. Fate may have screwed me royally, but it had granted me Gage. He always had pot or booze—cigarettes at the least—and nicotine-flavored kisses. Those kisses were best in rule-breaking places, like school, or a coffee shop, or in plain view of lifthouses. Places where news would get back to Dad. Gage grinned at my fury, respected my silence, and was always ready to ditch. Today, I’d need all of the above.

  Lately, though, I’d gotten so wild I’d scared even him.

  There was this clothing store where I’d go sometimes with Mom. I despised that store, but Mom loved it. She’d run her fingers over the sweaters or jeans and sigh. Sometimes she’d even try on stuff, but she’d always put it back. Only once did she buy something—a measly scarf—and only because it was on sale.

  Over the past two weeks, I’d gone into that shop three times, chosen something Mom would have loved, and stuffed it into my parka.

  Each time, Gage had waited outside, and I’d strode past him, headed straight for Crystal Creek. I’d yanked the sweater, the jeans, the dress out of my parka, crouched on the bank at a stretch of open churning water, and fed them in. I liked watching their colors get sucked under the ice.

  The first time, Gage had leaned against a tree and said, “Jesus, Sovern, I’ll buy stuff for you.” His family was eight-digit rich. I’d stood, pressed him against the bark, and kissed him. The second time, he’d stepped away from that tree, toward me, and said, “What the hell, Sovern?” The third time, he’d just leaned against that trunk with his arms crossed and watched me with a weird flicker in his eyes.

  He knew exactly what was going on. Everybody knew. A year ago, our accident, Mom’s death, and her memorial service had twice been on the front page of the local newspaper. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out my equation. Sovern Briggs + 2/22 = implosion.

  That crunched Honda had actually groaned as the Jaws of Life forced it open. Amid that whirl of sirens and flashing lights, I’d committed myself to silence. In silence, I couldn’t hurt anyone else. In silence, I was safe. Every now and then a word slipped out or a situation forced me to speak, but mostly, I stayed mute. Now I leaned on the kitchen counter and traced my lips.

  2/22 = the anniversary of the day my voi
ce killed Mom.

  I walked to the entry, shrugged on my parka, and checked that my snowboard gear was ready to lug to Gage’s car. I watched out the narrow window beside the door for his BMW SUV. I blinked back the sensation of the Honda sliding, then flipping, and flipping. The equation for that slide’s velocity whispered through me.

  I’d thought about ditching the whole day, but I needed distraction. I needed the adrenaline rush of smoking a joint with Gage on the way to school and of walking into Crystal High knowing I reeked of marijuana. I needed his defiant kisses in the halls—in front of teachers and everyone—to make me feel alive. I didn’t have a first period, so I’d endure three classes—Spanish, English, Calc—and then ditch. Fifth period was just Art and sixth was P.E. I’d be snowboarding; that was physical activity, right?

  Fifteen minutes passed, but Gage didn’t arrive. I texted him: WHERE R U?

  He didn’t answer.

  I leaned my head against the window’s frame. My unworthy pulse throbbed in my ears.

  After half an hour, I considered ditching after all. Yet I was pissed. Had Gage blown me off ? On this of all days? I had to know, so I stormed out the door for the twenty-minute walk to Crystal High.

  Even though I didn’t have class first period, I was still late to Spanish, partly because before entering the school, I’d taken the time to find Gage’s BMW parked in the lot.

  Usually, he met me in the halls between classes, and we’d end our rendezvous with smoldering kisses aimed to make people squirm, but he wasn’t at our meeting places. In third period, Lindholm looked at me with concern as she led a discussion I did not hear. My mind was focused on confronting Gage in Calculus. As a rule, we never ditched math.

  2/22.

  I didn’t even go to lunch, just waited at my locker till I could head to class. I sat in my desk in front of Gage’s—looking like an idiot—and waited. And waited. The bell rang and class started. No Gage.

  I couldn’t think straight. I kept picturing his car parked in the lot. Had he ditched just this class? Was he avoiding me? I felt Kenowitz’s gaze on me several times, like Lindholm’s had been in English, but he never said anything. I wondered if the teachers had gotten a memo: Sovern Briggs + 2/22 = flammable. The bell rang and I bolted for Gage’s locker.

  I found him in the Student Union, hanging with his fellow seniors. His back was to the room, but his buddies spotted me. They inspected me as I approached on legs moving some other body. One of them said something, and Gage glanced over his shoulder, then back at his friends like I was nothing.

  I felt like an idiot, like the lowly junior I was, which was ridiculous really since he and I were the same age. School’s stupid hierarchies. I studied the drape of Gage’s gray T-shirt over his muscled back, his black skullcap, and his brown hair brushing his shoulders. No wonder half the girls in the school were in love with him. I arrived beside his chair, and his buddies stopped talking. “Later,” they said, smirking as they rose.

  Gage scooted back his chair and looked up at me with an indifferent expression. “Got something to say?”

  Knowing me like he did, it was mean. Especially because he’d always said he liked my silence.

  2/22.

  I forced out, “What’s going on?”

  His eyebrows rose. “She speaks!” He stood, and I forced myself not to step back. There were maybe six inches between us. “Listen, Sovern … ” He scratched the back of his head the way he did when faced with a puzzle. For one instant, I saw panic in his gaze, but it turned hard again. “We’re done.”

  It was all I could do not to slug him. Or kiss him. How could he break up with me? On this of all days?

  He shrugged, then grabbed his history book from the table, slid his pencil behind his ear, and strolled away. Even after he’d disappeared down the hall toward class, I stared after him.

  I noticed other students watching, and my pulse amplified. I spun on my heel and headed to my locker. I needed elevation.

  1

  I rose from the chairlift’s seat and rode my snowboard away from the lifthouse, front boot buckled in and back boot free for maneuvering. I stopped, and skiers and boarders streamed past. My cigarette burned warm between my fingers. I sucked a long drag as I squinted at the view.

  White smothered everything—the pines and aspens, the lifthouse, the ground. Last night’s storm had moved on, and the sky was so blue the contrast stung my eyes. Don’t you cry, I scolded myself. But I’d already lost the battle.

  Usually this air comforted me. Up here I felt closest to Mom. Today, my problems magnified till they were like the images on a movie screen, and the foam that lined my goggles was a soggy cold mask.

  Most afternoons, Gage and I had stood right here, buckling up after ditching sixth period. When we’d ditched fifth period, it was even better. I’d kiss him and scan around, daring any of Dad’s ski patrol to report me. Even now, I felt the thrill of when one of them recognized me. I’d look directly at him, or her, and take a purposeful drag on my cigarette. Most of them would look away, the dilemma of whether to tell Dad already scrawled on their faces.

  I remembered that blank look Gage had given me an hour ago and flung my cigarette to the snow. It sank beneath the surface. I could relate. No doubt my rage had scared off even him.

  2/22.

  Failing. I was always failing.

  “I hate tests!” My voice charged out at the postcard world. I willed it down to the valley floor till it bashed into that interstate snaking along the river, into houses, restaurants, hotels, shops, and stupid school. Idiots had stopped around me, staring. I traced my lips. Had that yell really passed through them?

  Disgusted with myself, I tugged on my glove, leaned over, and buckled in my rear boot. I rocked onto that foot, then my front, inching into the fall line. As gravity kicked in, I spun myself around in a 180 so my right leg was forward. I followed a narrow catwalk, leaning toeside to hold the board’s uphill edge. I arced onto a run called Last Chance, spraying a rooster tail of snow on a group standing around an instructor. Their cries blurred as I sliced to the run’s far side and ducked beneath the yellow-black striped ropes marking the ski-area boundary. This was our favorite powder stash. Gage and I poached it virtually every time we rode. We called it Shangri-La.

  I pictured Gage gliding along before me, brown hair ribboning against his helmet. I smelled Mom’s honeysuckle shampoo, sobbed, and waited for speed to build. I needed its thrill. Daily. Another source of adrenaline that relieved life’s pain. I accelerated to that point where panic fluttered my innards and everything—the dull tick of time, Gage, even Mom—subsided beneath instinct and survival.

  At the edge of my vision rushed a white blur. I looked directly into a snow whirlwind just as it batted me onto my heels.

  When a snowboard’s broad edge catches, there’s no controlling its physics, and I shot into the forest. Snowy branches cracked and raked across my cheeks before I got my arms up. I veered straight at a trunk, hit it elbow first, and yelped in pain. A sound like a plucked cello string—bones breaking, no doubt—vibrated through me as I fell backward into the void of snow surrounding the trunk.

  As I was falling into that three-foot well, the spruce shuddered, and snow—lots of it—avalanched off its branches, onto me. That fall and the snow hitting me hurt like hell. I wriggled my face free, gasping, but the snow had become white cement that immobilized the rest of my body. My elbow and ribs pounded like someone was slugging them.

  I started to yell Help! but “Coward!” came out. A word meant for Gage, yet when it touched air, it was for Dad. “Coward!” I yelled again. This time for me.

  My toes and a thin line of my snowboard weren’t buried. My pigtails were stuck in the snow and tugged when I tried to move my head more than an inch. Itchy blood dribbled down my face. I laughed at the irony of my helmet’s protection.

  A crow landed i
n a neighboring tree, loosed a squawk, and lurched into flight. The sound of its wingbeats stretched across the emptiness. I was trapped, out of bounds, with no chance of anyone hearing me even if I screamed. I’d only whimpered once in my life. During the accident that killed Mom. I whimpered now.

  All I could do was stare up through that tree. I rocked my head, the little I could, to the rhythm of 2/22, 2/22, 2/22, and the branches and sky became a green, brown, turquoise, and white kaleidoscope. After a while, I noticed I was humming “Blackbird,” the Beatles tune Mom sang to me when I was little, and to herself as I got older. I spied a brown-gray lump of the wrong texture: a porcupine staring down. He shifted on his branch, pissed.

  “Don’t like my music?” I croaked.

  He fumbled to a closer branch, so he could peer straight down at me. Company, at least.

  I had no idea about time, but the sky turned dusky. It was freezing. Sleep was a drug, and my body turned numb, even my arm’s and ribs’ throb. This was how I’d felt at Mom’s memorial, except smothered by the clingy smell of gardenias as Dad’s sad mouth formed words in slow motion: It’s a test, Sov. If we survive it, we’ll be stronger. Uh-huh. Like he’d even tried. That was the last time we spoke, in words at least. Both stubborn as hell, we used to butt heads daily. Mom would say, If I wasn’t around, you two would kill each other. Mom. Always right.

  This weird thing happened then. Maybe cold + pain = hallucination. All I know is that the porcupine’s pelt transformed to Dad’s new crew cut, and its beady eyes became Dad’s. He shifted on his branch, and I saw his fear. “Dad,” I said. “Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”

  Like he understood, he started coming down. Not graceful at all. Claws scraping. Fumbling from branch to branch. I sighed in relief: Dad was finally here.

  He reached the last branch, directly above my face, and I smelled him. My gaze focused hard, and he was no longer Dad. Quills up, that porcupine was coming down. I screamed.