Wiping Out

by Carrie Quest

  “Seriously, Piper. Let it go.”

  I slowly and deliberately finish shaking the pillow into its case, then put it down at the head of the bed and smooth out the wrinkles. Only then do I turn and face Natalie, who’s leaning against the doorframe with a smirk that looks awfully damn familiar.

  “You look exactly like Ben right now,” I grumble. “It’s creepy the way you guys are morphing into each other.”

  She winks. “Must be all the hot sex we keep having. Maybe it’s fusing our DNA.”

  “That’s totally not how DNA works. And I thought we agreed that my brother’s dick was off limits as a conversational topic.”

  “Fair enough. I thought we also agreed that you were done fussing around in Adam’s room, yet here you are.” She raises an eyebrow and looks at the world’s smoothest pillow. Seriously, mice could run a curling competition on that surface. I do good work.

  “I’m not fussing,” I say. “Adam’s been gone fifteen months. I’m just making sure everything is ready for him, that’s all. I’d do the same for any friend.”

  Nat glances around the room. “So you’d buy any random friend new flannel sheets and a matching duvet cover?”

  I cross my arms. “Of course.”

  “And you’d drive all the way to Denver to pick up a special balance board for any of your buddies?”

  “If they might need it for rehab, sure.”

  Nat doesn’t respond, but the look she gives me speaks volumes. I know she and Ben have been talking about me in the last few weeks. I even considered eavesdropping on one of their conversations the other night, but I chickened out at the last minute. For the simple reason that eavesdropping is wrong, of course. Not because I was worried about hearing what they had to say.

  See, my brother has this thing about me always needing to fix people. But sometimes people need a helping hand, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to welcome Adam home by throwing a ratty set of sheets on his bed and calling it done. Not when he’s still recovering from the injury that left him in a coma and killed his snowboarding career.

  Ben says “control freak,” I say “caring citizen.”

  And I don’t hear him bitching when my “fixer fetish” takes the form of alerting him to the perfect opportunity to surprise his girlfriend with a kick-ass party to celebrate her book being published while we’re all in Korea for the Olympics. He’s all “stop, Piper,” when I remind him to eat enough protein, but his mouth shuts pretty damn fast when I’m making hotel reservations and trying to order “congratulations, Natalie!” balloons from a guy halfway across the world who only speaks Korean.

  Brothers suck.

  Nat strolls over to the desk and picks up the value pack of post-it notes I put there yesterday, pretending to struggle to lift it. “Does Adam have a secret stationary fetish?”

  “Those are in case he’s still having trouble remembering things. He can leave himself notes.”

  Before Adam left he was having trouble with sequences. He’d put shampoo in his hair but forget to wash it out before he got out of the shower and dried himself off. Stuff like that. He put little notes all around his apartment to remind him of things.

  Of course, I have no idea if he’s still having the same troubles since he hasn’t bothered to contact me since he texted me goodbye and vanished. I haven’t set eyes on him since, unless you count the pictures on his Instagram account.

  Which I am totally not stalking.

  Nat’s smile fades and she walks over and puts her arm around me, then gently pulls me down to sit next to her on the bed.

  “It’s really sweet of you to do all this, Piper, but I’m going to be straight: it freaks me out a little. You really and truly know he’s not staying, right? He’s only coming back so he can do this Olympics gig, then he’s heading back to endless summer.”

  I nod. Ben has already had this conversation with me. Of course, he looked a hell of a lot more awkward and he kept mumbling something about elephants in the room, but the gist was the same. As the reigning gold medalist in the Olympic half-pipe event, Adam was offered a huge payday to be the face of snowboarding for Big Air, a new internet streaming channel focusing on extreme sports. The billionaire guy who owns it was determined to get Adam, and Ben didn’t give me the exact figure, but it’s apparently in the “never have to work again” ballpark.

  It would have to be, to lure Adam back to winter. Snowboarding was the love of his life, and now that he’s never allowed to ride again I guess winter is too painful.

  And so is Colorado, apparently, because we had record-breaking temperatures here all summer but there was still no sign of the elusive Mr. Westlake.

  Five guys swore they saw Bigfoot in Rocky Mountain National Park, but nobody spotted Adam.

  “I know he’s not staying,” I tell Nat.

  “Do you?”

  I sigh. “Yes. I get it. Trust me, Ben drilled his schedule into my brain. He’ll be here a few weeks, then go with you guys to Mammoth to cover the athletes at training camp, then head to Korea with the team. A long-term stay is not in the cards.”

  “So why are you doing all of this? What do you want to happen when he walks in that door?”

  Nat’s voice is soft, like I’m some sort of invalid, which would bug the hell out of me if it was anyone except her. I generally hate people taking care of me or seeing me being vulnerable, but I’ll accept it from Natalie. In small doses, anyway.

  I’m quiet for a moment, choosing my words, and Nat sits there, waiting patiently. It’s hard for me to explain what I want from Adam Westlake, because to be honest I’m not really sure. Or at least not sure I want to admit it to Natalie.

  I want to fix him.

  “I want my future back,” I finally say. My voice is croaky. “I want move on. I graduated, and it’s always been in the back of my mind that Adam and I would get it together by now. But that’s not going to happen, and I need my heart and my mind to catch up to reality, because I can’t keep feeling this anymore.”

  It’s the truth, but not the whole truth. I know damn well I need to get over my Adamly Ever After fantasy, but before we part ways for good I want to take that wild-eyed broken boy I last saw and smooth his rough edges, bring his smile back. Give him peace.

  If I can do that, then maybe we’ll be even. Maybe I’ll mean as much to him as he means to me. Because Adam is the love of my life, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t care about me that way. If he did, he never could have left, and he definitely wouldn’t have cut me out of his life ever since.

  I’m going to have to keep seeing him. At Ben’s wedding someday. At parties and reunions and tons of other little gatherings that bring people like us together even after we’ve torn ourselves apart. And it’s probably shallow, but I don’t want his eyes to drift over me when he spots me across those future rooms. I can handle anything but his indifference. I want him to get a jolt when he sees me, the same quick pang of longing that I get just thinking about him even now. I want to matter to him.

  “I need to figure out a way to look at him and see my past instead of my future,” I tell Nat. “I want us to be friends.”

  Friends who value their past in equal measure, so I’m not the only lovelorn dope singing Adele songs in my head every time we run into each other.

  She nods. “You know I love Adam but speaking as your best friend and the girl who would gladly kick anyone’s ass for you, I’m not sure he deserves your friendship at this point. I know he had his reasons, but he’s been a huge dick to you. Like, mutant donkey dick huge. Are you sure you even want to go there?”

  “I’m not going anywhere near his mutant donkey dick,” I promise. “And I hear you about the friend thing, but there’s a lot of history between us, and I think I need to try. He’s not the only one who made mistakes.”

  Nat looks skeptical, but she doesn’t know the whole story. Not really. She knows about that last summer, but she wasn’t around when we broke up the first time.

  �
��Just don’t let him hold you back, okay? You tried really hard to be his friend when he was in the hospital. He’s the one who left.”

  And didn’t write. Or call. Or tag me on social media. Or send a smoke signal or a frickin’ carrier pigeon.

  “456 days ago,” I reply. “But who’s counting?”

  “You. Which is probably not a good sign, by the way.”

  “Well, after today I’m not going to count anymore. He’ll be here in a couple hours, we’ll make awkward small talk about the drive from the airport, I’ll tell him I want to be friends, and in a few days I’ll head over to Mom and Dad’s place for my surgery.”

  I’ll get my eyes lasered, let my mom shove leftover Christmas cookies down my throat, and help my dad organize his nuts and bolts by size. Adam will come over with Nat and Ben for dinner, and we’ll drink beer and talk about the Broncos, or whatever friends who used to fuck talk about. It’ll be swell.

  “You’ll tell him you want to be friends and that’ll be it, huh?”

  “Yup. Easy peasy lemon squeazy.”

  “I don’t know, Piper. You may have to prepare yourself for it to be a little harder than that.”

  Nope. I need it to be exactly that easy. I need this to work because I am beyond ready to move on. I’ve got an internship in Europe lined up, traveling with the Swiss Women’s snowboarding team and assisting their physical therapist. Then I’ll hopefully be starting the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at the medical school in Denver next fall. I had an admission interview last week, and I didn’t spit coffee all over myself or tell the panel that I sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” under my breath while evaluating client injuries, so I think it went well. Hopefully the internship will make me stand out from the other candidates.

  They’re sending out acceptance letters on the exact day that Ben competes for the gold medal in Korea, so that should be an interesting twenty-four hours for the Easton family. No pressure.

  The point is, I’ve got my future mapped out, and there’s no place for Adam in it.

  Friends. That’s all we can ever be.

  2

  Adam

  The first breath of frosty air hits me like a punch to the gut. My eyes start watering and I double over, hands braced on my knees, trying to get my shit together.

  Trying to forget.

  Fifteen months I’ve been running, chasing sunny days and balmy nights around the globe. Bumming around on beaches in Australia, hiking in New Zealand, camping in the Spanish desert. Making damn sure I didn’t see a snowflake, didn’t check a weather report for upcoming storms, and definitely didn’t take so much as a single breath of the blade-sharp freezing air that used to get my blood pumping like nothing else.

  I thought maybe I could handle it, but one breath is all it takes. The cold air rushing through my nose, the shock as it hits my lungs, the puff of steam as I exhale and I’m amped. Like the fucking junky I am, my legs are twitching, fingers itching for my gear, eyes scanning the dark shadows of the mountain even though it’s pitch black out and the middle of the night.

  That doesn’t matter though, not when I take my first step away from the jeep and hear the snow crunch under my foot.

  Fuck.

  Snow.

  I knew I’d have to see it, obviously. It’s January in Colorado, for fuck’s sake. Snow is part of the package. Ben picked me up from the airport after dark in Denver, and it was clear, but we’ve been driving three hours into the mountains and as soon as we hit the pass, there it was. Snow. Jagged piles of plowed snow on the side of the road, soft blankets of snow on the hills, tiny flakes hitting the windshield as we got closer and closer to Breckenridge.

  We’d been chatting up until then, but I shut up fast as soon as I saw the white stuff. Couldn’t push the words past the lump in my throat, and Ben must’ve figured it out because he turned up the music and left me alone. I tried all the shit people have been telling me to do since the accident. I took deep breaths. I relaxed my muscles one by one.

  The one thing I didn’t do, that I never, ever do, is “visualize my happy place.” Because this is my fucking happy place: standing at the foot of the mountain with the promise of a powder day and my best friend at my side.

  My shoulders curl in and I lower my head and close my eyes, as if that will protect me. I knew this would be tough, that the snow might set me back, but I need to start dealing with it if I’m ever going to be able to stop running someday. That’s what this trip is all about.

  I give myself three deep breaths and then square my shoulders and lift my head. Ben’s standing in front of the jeep, my battered backpack over his shoulder, staring up at the sky. The snow’s really coming down now, fat, puffy flakes falling silently and relentlessly. Ben’s hat and the windshield of the jeep are already covered.

  “You’re gonna get a good day tomorrow if this keeps up.” My voice is creaky and weird, but at least I got it out. I need to prove to everyone else—and myself—that snow isn’t a forbidden topic of conversation. Because I’ll be sleeping in tomorrow, but Ben will be up to catch the first lift. The Olympics are next month and he’s everyone’s favorite to take gold. He’s in serious training, and for Ben that means total discipline with what he eats, how much he sleeps, and when he rides.

  It used to mean no fucking before the competition, but I’m guessing his girlfriend has something to say about that.

  Normally I’d ask him, just to give him shit, but not tonight.

  Ben nods and takes a deep breath. “I’ll be out early,” he says, “but Nat’s here.” He pauses, and a little jolt of adrenaline explodes in my stomach, because I know what’s coming.

  “And Piper,” he adds carefully.

  I’m sick of people speaking to me carefully. You can’t talk to Adam about snowboarding, or winter, or the Olympics. And definitely don’t say a word about the girl who broke his heart, then turned up in the hospital years later and got him through the worst nights of his life.

  “Piper’s here?” My voice is less creaky this time. Ben and I have been in touch a lot while I’ve been gone, but we’ve pretty much avoided the subject of Piper. He never asked me what happened the summer she was with me in the hospital. We have a don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t be a dick policy when it comes to me seeing his sister naked, and it’s worked out fine so far.

  “Yeah, she’s in her room.”

  Her room. Ben and I bought this condo from his parents when they built their dream house a few miles away after Piper graduated high school. She and I were together at the time, so she kept her stuff here, and she never moved it out, even after we broke up and she went to Boulder for school. Ben owns a place down there where he and the girls live, so the condo doesn’t get used much, but he’s never asked if I want to sell it and neither one of us needs the money. I won enough when I was competing to fund my travels and keep me going for a long time, even without the payday I’ll be getting after the Olympics.

  Even if I did need the money I wouldn’t want to let this place go. I was happy here.

  “Hope that’s okay,” Ben continues. “She graduated and Nat’s taking the semester off to come watch me in Korea, so…” He trails off, like maybe he wants to say something else, but he changes his mind when he looks at me.

  “Fuck, Adam, we need to get inside. You’re shaking. Did you even bring a jacket?”

  I brush snow off my long sleeve t-shirt, the warmest thing I have with me, and shake my head.

  “Haven’t needed one,” I say. Then I shiver, because in my life before, I was pretty much impervious to cold, but I’m not used to it anymore and I’m suddenly aware of the icy water trickling down my neck as the snow hits my hair and melts.

  “There’s a ton of old stuff in your room,” Ben says.

  “I’ll check it out.” I nod but don’t take a step toward the condo. Not yet. This is so fucking strange. I’ve been here, in this exact place, hundreds of times before. Snow. Ben. A garage full of our gear. My room in the basement
and Piper right next door.

  Piper. It’s the thought of seeing her and getting the chance to make things right that finally gets me moving. One foot in front of the other, desperately trying to ignore the foreign familiar crunch of snow under my shitty sneakers. We go in through the garage and I keep my eyes straight ahead, blocking out the rows of snowboards neatly stacked on the racks that cover each wall. The place is so stuffed with gear that no cars have fit in here for years.

  The garage is frosty but heat hits me as soon as we walk through the connecting door. So do Natalie, Ben’s girlfriend, and their dog Thor. Nat screams and pulls me into a hug and Thor jumps all over my legs and nearly takes out my dick, and for a minute all the shit fades away and I’m just happy.

  “It’s so good to see you!” Nat lets me loose for a second to stare intently at my face and then pulls me close again, squealing and laughing when I shake my hair, and snow and cold water fly everywhere.

  “You’re worse than Thor,” she says, letting me go so I can crouch down and let their dopey dog lick my face.

  “Man, he’s huge. The pictures you’ve been sending don’t do him justice.” Nat spent a lot of time in the hospital with me the summer she and Ben got together, and we’re pretty tight. She sent me pictures of Thor most days and I sent her pictures of stuff I saw on my travels that I thought might inspire her writing.

  “He’s a menace,” Ben says. “We were going to have steaks ready for you, but he somehow opened the fridge and got to them.”

  “He’s a genius,” Nat says proudly. Ben rolls his eyes but pulls her close for a kiss.

  Fuck. He has the girl and the snowboarding, and if I didn’t love the guy so much, I’d probably want to kill him.

  “Guys, it’s the middle of the night,” I say. “I don’t need steak. I’m beat. I’m just going to grab a glass of water and hit the sheets.”

  Nat fusses a little about how cold I must be, and Thor almost takes a piss on my bag, but eventually they head up to their room and I eye the stairs down to the basement. Twelve stairs down and I’m in a cramped hallway with three doors. Piper on the left, bathroom in the middle, and my room on the right. Piper’s room is totally silent and there’s no light coming from under her door. I know I have no right to feel disappointed that she wasn’t there to greet me, not after the way I left things, but her absence leaves a hollow feeling in my gut that means I won’t be sleeping anytime soon.