by Tracy Wolff
Fuck. I’m walking around like some stupid, punk-ass little bitch who can’t handle shit. It pisses me off and I try to walk it off again, but I’m stumbling around like a gaffer who doesn’t have a fucking clue how to walk in snow boots.
Shit. I bend over, brace my hands on my thighs, and try to breathe before I pass out like a total fucking pansy. It almost works, except my cell phone is ringing and buzzing off the hook, the story blowing up all around me.
My life blowing up all around me.
I start to block the calls, but three more text messages come in, right on top of each other. Fuck it. I pull my arm back and then throw the goddamn thing as far away from me as I can get it.
Ash and Luc are both behind me and I expect a chorus of what-the-hells, but all I get is silence. The kind of silence that indicates they’re trying to gauge my measurements for a state-of-the-art straitjacket.
I need to get it together. Because it’s not just Ash and Luc up here. There’s a shitload of other boarders and officials, and I can feel a bunch of them looking at me. Fuck that shit. No way am I losing it in front of the whole fucking world. They can have everything else of me—my blood, my broken bones, maybe even my death one day—but they can’t fucking have that. Not now. Not ever.
I can feel Luc and Ash’s worry—it’s a tangible thing and it makes me feel even more like shit. They should be concentrating on their own runs right now, not worrying about my head or how my run is going to go. But isn’t that how it always is in this friendship? They worry about me, and I keep doing things to make them worry.
What a fucking joke I am. What a fucking joke this all is. I don’t know what to do, don’t know what to say about that story hitting the national news and hurting my father all over again, but it’s not like I have a choice. The more people who see that video, the longer this shit goes on, and the closer I get to basket-case status.
That’s the last thing I fucking want or need. When I get off this mountain, I’ll have Ash pull the fucking video. It won’t do much about the pandemonium going on right now, but it might keep it from escalating.
As for the rest, I’m fine. I’m fucking fine. Once they realize there’s no boarding story here, they’ll move on no matter how juicy my past is. It’s just a matter of running the gauntlet a few times until that happens. Once someone else comes out with some other video, some other trick, no one will even remember this. It’ll just disappear, and I can disappear with it.
The thought calms me down, and I’m able to breathe through the pressure. For a little while anyway. I’ve got to bust out, got to do something soon if I don’t want to be dragged back to this little side trip into insanity, but for now I can hold it together. Or at least fake like I can.
Bending down, I pick up my jacket and shove my hands through the armholes. Then I bend over again and check my boots, make sure they’re nice and tight even as I flip my snowboard over and check for damage from when I dropped it.
It looks good, with only one screw a little loose. But before I can even think about leaving it like that—or reach for the tiny tool I keep in my pocket that helps fix all kinds of riding issues with snowboards—Luc has his out and is tightening the screw for me.
“Thanks, bro.”
He nods, shrugs it off even as he looks concerned.
“Hey,” Ash says, sensing that the storm is over. Little does he know he’s in the eye and it’s about to get fucking crazy up in here. Even I can sense that. “I’ve already texted Mitch and he’s on it. No way is that asshat going to run that story. So let’s just focus for now. We have the preliminaries to get through today, so let’s just put this shit away and we’ll deal with it tonight over dinner and a beer.”
“Sounds good,” I tell him. Except I’ve got other plans for tonight, and none of them involve sitting down with my friends and eating dinner. No, there’s other shit I need to do. Shit that’ll help me get my head on straight again—or at least as straight as I can get it.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Sorry about the freak-out. You know how I feel about people searching for shit about me. The past always comes up, and …” I lay the guilt trip deliberately, in an effort to get him to back off.
“Jesus, Z, I hadn’t even thought about the press pulling up shit about April.”
Yeah, well, now it’s all I can think about. Even if Mitch gets that fucktard to back off, there were a shit-ton of reporters out there today. Someone’s going to run with the story. Guaranteed. It’s the nature of the beast. And my guilt will be written up in black and fucking white for the whole world to see. Exactly as I deserve.
But my dad doesn’t need to see that shit again, doesn’t need to relive it now that he’s finally got a new wife, a new kid. A new life. The last thing he wants is any shit from his old life to leak onto that. And I don’t blame him. If I could burn the fuck out of the past like he has, I would. Just fly away like a phoenix and leave it all behind.
But I don’t deserve that. I’ll never deserve it. That’s why I’m here, drowning in the shithole of my life no matter how hard I keep trying to climb out.
I don’t say any of that, though. I just nod like I’m paying attention to what they’re saying. “It’s all good,” I tell them. “No big deal. When he doesn’t get a reaction, it’ll all die down.”
Ash looks at me, his face drawn with guilt, and I can tell he’s torturing himself. I reach out, pat him on the back. “Don’t worry about it, man. It’ll all work out.”
“Mitch’ll handle it,” he tells me again. “He’s already calling in PR favors and shit. He’ll make it all disappear.”
It’s too fucking late for that. Maybe it’s been too late all along. “Sure. Yeah. I’ll call him later, see what’s up.”
“We could do it now.” Luc holds up his phone. “See where he’s at.”
“No!” The last thing I want is to pour the whole fucking story out. Not to my agent, not to anybody. Not ever again. “I just want to ride, man. Okay?”
He looks uncertain, but then he nods and shoves the phone back into his pocket. “Yeah, sure. Let’s do it.”
“I’ve got your phone,” Ash says, pressing the cold device into my hand. “The screen is cracked, but other than that it seems to be working okay.”
“Thanks.” I don’t even bother to look at it. I’m so over this.
So over the past.
So over the shit with my dad.
So over being the one my friends have to tiptoe around.
So over worrying what Ophelia will think when she finally learns the truth.
And I’m damn sure over having to worry about fucking up or freaking out or messing with anything, everything.
I’m just done.
I manage to hold it together until it’s my turn. I’m going seventh, so there aren’t that many people in front of me. The pow should still be good when I get up there, and it should all work out. The course isn’t that big. Only room for four big air tricks on the slopestyle course, and I need to hit them just right.
I watch as number six, Brian Mitchell out of Calgary, tears up the course. Hits the rails hard, then lands a pair of doubles and one triple. It’s a good run, no doubt, but I can beat it with my eyes closed.
Then it’s my turn and I’m pushing off. I glide over the rails like they aren’t even there, even take two backward just to show that I can. The first jump comes up pretty quick once I’m out of the rails, and I nail it with a triple cab. I land smooth, hit the second ramp, and pull out the inverted 1440. The crowd is screaming now—I can hear them—and for a second I think about how easily this could go a different way. How easily it could just—
I hit the third ramp wrong. I can feel it going up, but I try to salvage it. I pull another triple cab out, but I’m going too fast and I’m not in the right position. Adrenaline starts pumping. I’m overrotated, coming down too fast …
I hit hard, slam into the ground at the worst possible angle, end up tumbling ass over teakettle down ha
lf the fucking mountain. I feel something pop in my shoulder, then blinding pain shoots through my arm and down my back. I’m rolling hard, so there’s more pain everywhere, my ribs, my left hip, my wrist …
I roll and roll and roll, until I finally get to the bottom of the hill. I’m facedown in the snow and I know I should roll over, show everyone that I’m all right. But the pain is overwhelming now, coming in waves that keep growing bigger and bigger until they’re all I can feel, all I can think about.
Grateful, I give myself over to them and let them pull me under.
Chapter 24
Ophelia
At first I don’t understand what’s going on. I mean, I saw him do the trick, saw him overrotate and come down wrong, slamming into the ground shoulder first. But there’s a part of me that still doesn’t get it. That still doesn’t understand what’s happening. It was an easy trick for him—a triple cab that I’ve seen him land literally a hundred times in the last ten days. He can do it in his sleep. So why is he rolling down a mountain right now, going head over heels as fast as all that momentum can carry him?
Beside me, Gemma gasps, has her hands over her mouth as she starts praying out loud. On my other side Cam is sitting still as a statue, just waiting for it to be over. Just waiting for his poor, abused body to finally come to a stop.
And me, I’m in the middle with no real understanding of what’s happening except to know that, whatever it is, it isn’t good. Please, not his head. Not his neck. Please, please, please. I’ll take any other injury, deal with anything else. But please, please, please, don’t let it be a head or neck injury.
I reach out for Cam, end up clawing her arm as Z finally comes to a stop. “Is he okay?”
She shakes her head grimly. “With the way he landed, I doubt it. He probably tore his rotator cuff again, maybe broke his wrist. It’s not going to be pretty, that’s for sure.”
That’s all I need to hear. I have no conscious memory of moving, but I must have because I’m on my feet and shoving my way through the crowd in an effort to get out of the stands. In an effort to get to Z. There’s a part of me that’s aware of Ash’s family and Cam following along behind me, but I’m not paying attention to them. I’m totally focused on Z’s body lying prone at the bottom of the mountain, and the paramedics who are even now rushing out to him.
“He’s not moving. Why isn’t he moving?”
“Because he broke his fucking shoulder,” Cam tells me tersely. “It hurts like a bitch.”
“His shoulder?” I hang on to the words like a lifeline as I push my way out of the stands and start trying to weave through the crowd of reporters and fans at the bottom of the hill. “You’re sure it’s just his shoulder?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” she snaps at me, as stressed by the situation as I am. “That’s just my guess from seeing falls like that before.”
“How do we get to him?”
“We don’t,” she says as we finally make it to the front of the barricade. “You wait here while I go check what’s going on.”
“But—”
“Wait here.” She points to a spot right at the front of the barricade. “I’m a competitor. You’re not. There’s no way you’re getting past the rope line.”
She’s right. I know she is, and yet it’s killing me to be standing here merely watching when Z has just had an accident.
No, not an accident, a voice deep inside my head says. He knows how to land that trick, can do it in his sleep. If he fell on it here, it’s because he wanted to.
I shove the voice back down, refusing to believe it. He’s been doing so well lately, trying so hard. Why would he have me come in for the competition if he was just going to fuck it all up on purpose? It makes no sense.
And yet even as I’m thinking that, I’m seeing all those competitions I watched. All those videos of him nailing a run and then fucking it up at the end, again and again and again. Almost like he doesn’t even know he’s going to do it until it’s already done.
Which is why it’s an accident, I tell myself viciously.
“It’s okay, Ophelia. He’s going to be all right.” Logan’s there now, taking Cam’s place beside me as Z’s friend flashes her credentials to the guards working the line.
“How do you know?”
He manages to grin at me, though his eyes are wide and nervous. “ ’Cuz he’s Z. He has to be okay.”
I’m close enough now that I can see Z is talking to the paramedics, which means he’s alive and hopefully lucid. But he’s still not moving and I’m terrified Cam is wrong. Terrified he’s hurt much worse than she thinks he is.
Gemma rubs my other arm soothingly. “He’ll be fine, darling. God’s been watching out for that boy for as long as I’ve known him.”
Neither are the answers I’m looking for, not by a long shot, but they’re all I’ve got right now, so I decide to take comfort where I can.
Seconds later, my cell phone rings. It’s Ash, so I pick it up as soon as his name flashes across the screen.
“What’s going on?” we both ask at the same time.
Shit. I thought maybe he’d heard something, since he’s at the top of the mountain with a bunch of officials around him.
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “Cam thinks he tore his rotator cuff—”
“So do I,” he says grimly, “Just based on what we saw before they blanked the TV screen. Is he moving around yet? Sitting up?”
The panic gets worse. “No! He’s just lying there.”
I must sound as unhinged as I’m feeling, because Ash suddenly switches to comfort mode. “He’s going to be fine, Ophelia. I promise.”
“Why does everyone keep telling me that? How do you know?”
“Because he’s Z.” He tells me the same thing his brother did.
“What the hell does that even mean?” I demand, so close to hysterical that I no longer care about being polite. “And what the hell happened? I saw him this morning. He seemed totally ready for this competition.”
“It’s a long story,” Ash mutters. “Some reporter got in his head and …” His voice trails off, and that’s when I know, I know, that those ugly suspicions I had were correct. Z did this on purpose. He fucking nearly killed himself deliberately.
He could be lying there paralyzed right now because something set him off. Because he couldn’t deal.
Rage explodes through me, exacerbated by the terror that is still coursing through me. “He did this on purpose. He fucking did this on purpose.”
“It’s not that easy,” Ash tells me. “Calm down and we’ll talk once we know he’s okay.”
“Right. Sure. We’ll talk then.” My head’s so messed up right now that I barely know what I’m saying. “You might call Cam. She got through the barricade and was going to see if she could find out anything more.”
A sudden roar from the crowd has me turning around in time to see Z sitting up with the help of the paramedics. Even from here his shoulder looks messed up, like it’s out of whack, but he’s smiling. Even manages a wave for the crowd with his other arm.
The bastard. The fucking bastard. He promised me he wouldn’t do this again. I told him about Remi, told him about what I saw on those snowboarding videos of him, and he swore to me he wouldn’t deliberately do this again. And yet here we are, the last major competition before the Olympic trials and he goes and makes sure that the whole thing is over for him before it even begins.
The bastard. He could have died. He could have died. It’s all I can think of, all I can wrap my head around right now. That he’s relatively okay, but that he could have died. The fucking, fucking, fucking bastard.
They’re taking him off on a stretcher now, and I see Cam waiting for him on the sidelines. She grabs his hand, holds it tight, but even from this distance I can see tears sparkling in her eyes. The son of a bitch. He’s torturing all of us, holding us all hostage to his mood swings and crazy-ass death wish.
My phone rings again, and I pic
k it up because I know it’s Cam. “How bad?” I demand.
“Don’t know yet. Paramedics think he dislocated his shoulder, which is actually good. Better than a torn rotator cuff. They think he might have either bruised or cracked a couple of ribs as well, plus his wrist is swelling pretty badly. They’re taking him to Aspen Valley Hospital, and what happens there will determine whether he has to be sent somewhere else.”
“Why would they send him somewhere else?” I ask, alarmed all over again.
“Aspen Valley’s a small hospital. Twenty-five beds. They can deal with a dislocated shoulder and stuff, but if he needs surgery, it’ll have to be done at a bigger hospital.” She pauses. “Do you want me to come get you? You can ride in the ambulance with him.”
I should say yes. I know I should. But all I can see is Z tumbling down the fucking snowboarding course. Z, and Remi in those moments when we plunged over the railing and freefell into the Mississippi. Remi, when they pulled his lifeless body from the car. Somehow it all gets mixed up in my head, and I know I’m going to lose it if I don’t shut all that shit down quick.
“You go ahead,” I tell her. “I’ll catch a ride. Aspen Valley Hospital.”
“It’s the only one in town.”
“Okay. I’ll see you there.”
I hang up from her, dial Ash. He answers on the first ring and I tell him everything Cam has said. I hear Luc in the background, asking questions, but I don’t have the answers. I didn’t think to ask them. I hang up so they can call Cam.
Todd puts his arm around my shoulders and says, “Come on. Let’s get you to the hospital.”
I nod, start to walk with him. But then I remember. “Ash. It’s almost his turn.”
Gemma smiles. “We’ve seen him ride before and we’ll see him again. He’ll be riding later today in the half-pipe and then tomorrow in the finals. We can catch him then.”
“No,” I tell her, moving away. “You stay and watch Ash. I’ll catch a cab to the hospital.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Todd says. “We’re happy to take you. We want to see Z, too.”