by Carrie Quest
“Looks like a crime scene, doesn’t it?”
She clears her throat. “You’re being so patient. I would’ve guessed you’d take it out back and power wash it.”
She’s not wrong. Once upon a time I would have gone for the fastest and most aggressive possible solution, but I guess being stuck in a hospital bed for months taught me something.
“Sometimes slow is best,” I say. “I’ll get it done for you, though. I promise.” I turn back to finish and Piper hugs me from behind, her arms wrapped around my neck. Her hair floats over my arm, tickling and teasing my skin, and her scent surrounds me. Peaches and flowers and Piper. I bring my other arm up and put it over hers, locking us together, just for a minute.
It’s nearly the exact same pose as my screensaver, but everything has changed. I close my eyes, trying to remember how that other Adam felt. The confidence and the peace and the goddamned joy because everything always went my way and I couldn’t imagine anything different.
I was so wrong.
I push the past away and take a deep breath, reveling in Piper’s scent and touch, telling myself to stay in this moment because it could be a fuck of a lot worse. I didn’t know it back then, but I sure as hell know it now.
“Thank you,” Piper whispers.
And then she’s gone.
We don’t really talk again. We print the contract, she signs it and scans it on her phone. I wait until I know she’s set, then tiptoe out of the room while she’s composing an email to her new boss, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. I collapse on my bed, exhausted but feeling pretty damn good. I’ve been so focused on myself and my recovery that I haven’t done a hell of a lot to help anyone else lately, and I forgot how satisfying it is to come through when someone I care about needs something.
Especially when that person is Piper, who hates depending on other people so much that she’d probably grow and harvest her own crops if she could.
But she let me help her.
That has to mean something, right?
Next morning Piper is gone, but there’s a note stuck to my door telling me her boss got the email in time and thank you. I feel like a sappy jackass, but I fold the note carefully and stick it in my desk drawer. Then I fortify myself with coffee and frozen waffles, because there’s a shitty conversation I’ve been avoiding, but time’s up and I’ve got to get through it today.
When Gabe Power emailed me out of the blue a few months ago, I ignored his message. I figured he was yet another person from my past wanting to get in touch, so he could tell me how sorry he was about everything. People came out of the woodwork for a while after the accident. They didn’t want to stick around and spend time with me or anything, because that would be all depressing and shit. They just wanted to do their duty, tell me how sorry they were and how much it sucked that I couldn’t ride anymore. Then they’d feel better and could fade away into the ether, never to be heard from again.
The only people from snowboarding who really stuck by me were Ben and our buddy Brody. And Autumn, I guess, Ben’s ex-fuck buddy and a casual friend of mine who was the one to send me a video of the accident. Seeing that was tough, but it did help me remember more about what happened. It also helped clear the air with Ben, since the idiot thought my crash was his fault. Ben thought he pushed me into trying something before I was ready, but the truth is that once I had an idea in my head about a trick, nothing could hold me back. Nobody ever pushed me harder than I pushed myself.
At the start I watched the video all the time. Sometimes I’d sit there for hours, dragging my finger across my phone screen to bring it back to the beginning over and over again. Now I don’t even need the video, I can close my eyes and see the whole thing play out in my head. Fuck, I can do more than that. I can put myself back there in an instant. See the clear blue sky and marvel at the lack of clouds. Feel the bite of the cold on my cheeks and smell the sunscreen I slopped on my face on my way out the door that morning. If I let myself, I can feel the board under me, so familiar it was an extension of my legs, and replay the rocking slide back and forth I did as I waited for my turn in the pipe. I can hear the huff of snow blowing in little clouds around my feet as I hopped into position and feel the burn across my thighs as I dropped in and crouched down low.
The triple cork is a bitch of a trick. You have to spin around four times while also completing three flips, and you have to fit that last one in when you’re already on the way down. It took months of going over the motions in my head before I dared try it, even into the air bag, and months more of practicing before I felt confident enough to try it for real. I wanted to dial that trick in bad, to be the first guy to hit it in the pipe in a competition.
I came close, but I caught an edge on the way down.
That’s all it took. One edge. One second.
I’ve never been able to remember the actual fall, no matter how many times I watched my run. Everything goes black after I drop in, and maybe that’s best. It’s my last memory of snowboarding, after all. Better to remember the joy of flying into the pipe than the fear and panic I must have felt when I realized it had all gone wrong.
It’s ironic, I guess. I wanted the triple cork to be my legacy and, in a fucked-up way, it is. That’s all most people are going to remember about me. When they talk about Adam Westlake, they don’t picture my gold medal run in Sochi, they see me sliding down the side of the pipe while Ben screams my name.
Gabe is different, though. He won a bronze in Sochi, and he was around for years while I was riding, but we were never really close. He was kind of a wild man back then, photographers followed him around and he was pictured on gossip sites with a different woman nearly every night. Mostly because of his dad, I guess. When your father is a billionaire who’s best known for his sleazy business dealings and his attempt to make his penthouse more opulent than Versailles, you’re a fixture in the press.
The dude dropped out of all that after Sochi, though. He didn’t even make it to the closing ceremony, just skipped the country with his girl and disappeared. Nobody heard from him for a couple of years, and then he popped up again after his dad died, saying he was starting a streaming channel called Big Air covering extreme sports. I didn’t really pay much attention, to be honest, until he called and offered me a ridiculous payday to come work for him during the Olympics.
I’ve signed the contract and everything, but I’ve been putting off going over a few important things about my situation. I’m ready to talk about them now, but my heart is still pounding when I dial his number.
“Adam,” he says when he picks up. “Good to hear from you. You back in the States?”
“Yeah, Colorado.”
“Nice. You have a place in Breck, right?”
“With Ben, yeah.”
We shoot the shit for a few minutes about Ben and what the snow’s like and how much he hates having to be in New York for business. I let the conversation slide as long as I can, but he finally asks why I’m calling.
Fuck. My heart is hurling itself against my ribcage and adrenaline spikes through my system, making my fingers and toes tingle. You’d think I was preparing to run from a fucking grizzly bear, not have a simple conversation.
Of course, no conversation is simple when it’s about my brain. Not anymore.
“I wanted to go over a few things about my, um, injury,” I tell him. I’m so worked up that my voice sounds far away, like it’s not really me talking at all.
“Sure,” Gabe says. “I was going to call you about this anyway. Thanks for taking the lead.” He’s totally mellow and matter of fact, and it calms me down a little. His wife was a champion figure skater whose career ended after a car crash messed up her leg, so he probably has a good understanding of my situation. She does a web comic now that’s funny as shit. I guess some people do figure out a new passion. Eventually.
“I have a list.” I fumble with the note I prepared, my hands so sweaty that they keep sticking to the paper.
“Hit me with it.”
My stomach curdles because this is as embarrassing as fuck. I hate even acknowledging these limitations to myself, and talking about them, even with my doctors, is torture. But the whole point of taking this job was to force myself to tackle the hard stuff, so I push forward.
“I have a hard time remembering things sometimes, so it might be tough for me to talk about the riders’ previous runs, especially in the final.”
Riders usually get two runs in the pipe, with the highest score counting. These Olympics the final will consist of three runs, which will mean even more information for me to remember. I used to be able to hold lists of tricks in my head no problem, but stuff gets scrambled and lost so easily now that there’s no way I’ll be able to compare three different runs. Not without sounding like an idiot.
“I was thinking it could help if someone could write down a list of tricks for each run, then give it to me. My memory is a lot better if I get little reminders like that.”
“Done,” Gabe says. I can hear him typing. “Do you want it on paper or on a tablet?”
“Paper, if possible. Then I can make notes on it when I get a chance.”
“No problem. What else?”
“I get tired easily, and sometimes a lot of noise or activity can be a little overwhelming.” I cringe, because I feel like some kind of prima donna. He’ll probably expect my next request to involve special sparkling water from Brazil and bowls of M&Ms with all the green ones picked out.
“Totally understandable,” he says. “Tell me how to make it easier.”
“If I had a signal for the cameraman, or whoever else is in the room with me, to tell them I need a break, it would make me feel better. I might not have to use it…”
“Use it whenever you want,” Gabe cuts in. “You can work out the exact signal when you get there, but I’ll make a note in here and get it to the cameraman. I’ll be with you most of the time as well, so there will always be someone there to cover if you need to step out.”
“I also don’t want to talk about my accident. I know you probably hired me partly because of the whole crash angle, but I’m not going to discuss it.”
“I hired you because you’re the best snowboarder I’ve ever seen,” Gabe says firmly. “The whole point of Big Air is that we talk about sports because the sports themselves are fucking awe-inspiring, not because of who the athletes are in their private lives. I would never expect you to discuss what happened to you. You’re there to analyze the riders in front of you, period. Okay?”
“Cool, man. Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. Anything else?”
Shit. I shouldn’t have had that third cup of coffee. The acid is pooling in my stomach and making me want to hurl.
“One more thing.” I lick my dry lips and smooth out my list, watching the blue ink bleed as my sweaty palm runs over it. “I sometimes get…worked up, I guess. Angry. It’s because of the TBI and I might not realize it right away, so it would probably be a good idea for you and the cameraman to have a signal to give me, in case that happens when I’m on air. I don’t think it will,” I add hastily. “But I wanted to be totally upfront with everyone and prepared. Just in case.”
Gabe keeps tapping away on his keyboard. I’d love to know exactly what he’s writing.
Give cameraman giant butterfly net to contain Westlake if necessary.
But he’s a decent guy, because all he does is reassure me that it’s fine, all my requests are no problem, and he’s looking forward to catching up in Korea. He tells me he’ll email me the accommodation information and hangs up, leaving me wrung out, like I’ve spent the morning sprinting up a fourteener instead of sitting around in my pajamas talking on the phone.
Fuck. I’d pick a run up fourteen thousand feet of mountain over that conversation any day, but it had to be done. The nervous energy is still zipping around my body, so I get my gear and head to the gym. Exercise is the best tool I’ve got when it comes to managing my moods these days. I got used to spending entire days walking and hiking on my travels, and the sudden change in lifestyle will mess with me if I let it.
I’m pushing the gym door open when I catch a glimpse of Piper across the street. She’s heading into a coffee shop, the one that serves the marshmallow lattes that Nat likes, and her face lights up as she spots someone inside. An ugly jealousy rips through me until I realize the person she’s hugging is a chick with pink hair and not some guy. They grab a table by the window and I recognize her friend as Sydney, a girl Piper knew in high school.
Syd hung out with us a lot when Pipes and I were together. I should maybe head over and say hello, but I don’t. Helping Piper last night made me feel like a goddamned superhero, but the conversation I had with Gabe an hour ago brought me down to earth fast. Trying to get close to Piper is dangerous. It has me wanting things I can’t have, and the way she clung to me last night shows she’s confused as well.
It’s time to step back, for both our sakes, and remember where the lines are.
7
Piper
“So, you and Adam are friends now? Really?” Sydney arches her eyebrow, a move she spent hours perfecting in front of a mirror hidden in her textbook during high school algebra and shakes her head at me.
“That will never work, Piper.”
“Why not?” I take a sip of my marshmallow latte and grimace. It’s so sweet that there’s a very real chance my teeth will spontaneously rot if I finish the entire mug. I might have to order another one.
Syd holds up a finger. “One, he was your first love. Two, he was your first dick.”
“Not true,” I interrupt. “I gave Alex Gilbert a hand job at the movies junior year.”
“Doesn’t count.”
“Why not? He had a dick and I touched it.”
“Please, Piper. That kid was so primed that he shot all over the popcorn before you got two strokes in.”
She has a point there. I didn’t eat popcorn for years.
“That was just practice for Adam anyway,” she continues, dismissing poor Alex Gilbert with an eye roll. “You knew he wouldn’t touch you until you turned eighteen and you used that popcorn kid and his dick to get some experience.”
Harsh, but kind of true.
I open my mouth to defend myself, but she shuts me down with a third finger. “Three. He broke your heart.”
Nothing I can say to that. Syd was there when Adam and I broke up and she knows the story. How I was so excited to celebrate our year and a half anniversary that I spent all my money on two tickets to Paris and maxed out my credit card on lingerie, figuring Adam would be happy to skip the competition in Japan if it meant a week of steamy sex in a French hotel. It never even occurred to me that he’d blow me off for one measly competition. He didn’t need the money or the points he’d get for winning.
He went anyway, and I realized that snowboarding would always come first. I should have known, considering Ben skipped all my mother’s surgeries to attend the frickin’ X Games.
When he landed in Tokyo, he called me, hoping to make things right, but I’d been stuck at home making up for Ben’s absences for years, and I knew Adam wasn’t going to change. Maybe I should have listened, tried to work things out, but instead I got mad and gave him an ultimatum: come back and go with me to Paris or lose me forever.
He didn’t come back.
I stayed at Syd’s house for two weeks, so my mother wouldn’t see me crying. Adam got drunk and had to be dragged out of a Japanese half-pipe after he tried to complete his run wearing a Big Bird costume instead of a snowboard.
That was it. We were over.
Except that’s not really the whole story, is it?
I push that thought down deep.
Then the Years of Silence began, and we didn’t speak. Not until he showed up broken and battered at the hospital and I couldn’t stay away.
“That was a long time ago,” I say. “We were only together a year and a half. I got over it.�
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“You didn’t get over it,” Syd says. “Not really. You haven’t let anyone close to your heart since. You’ve let them close to your vagina a few times, but that’s different.”
Geez. I appreciate Syd’s honesty but sometimes, like today, I wish she’d shut the hell up.
“You broke his heart too, you know,” she adds. “I was there when he came back, remember? He tried to talk to you, but you ghosted him.”
I fidget in my seat. Leave it to Syd to dig up that little gem of a thought before I even have time to bury it properly.
“Adam and I are friends,” I say firmly. “He’s been here four days and we’ve done tons of friendly stuff.”
“Like what?”
I give up on the latte and make a big fuss about cutting up my cinnamon scroll, stalling for time. Truth is, except for last night, I’ve barely seen Adam. He went out with Nat while my mom took me to my eye doctor appointment, and since then he’s spent most of his time in his room going through boxes and hauling piles of stuff to the dumpster in the parking lot.
Not that I’m spying on him or anything.
“We went out to dinner with Nat and Ben and some other people,” I finally say. “Sat at the table and talked about the Avalanche making the playoffs. It was friendly as fuck.”
Syd sculls her own goopy creation and licks her lips. The girl has an iron stomach. “You’re making that up.”
“I most certainly am not.”
“The Avalanche will need a miracle to make the playoffs this year, so you’re making it up or you’re both idiots. I’m open to either option.” She sits back in her squishy chair, smirking, and smoothes down her pink pixie cut like a smug punk rock Miss Marple.
I throw my napkin at her. “Fine, I made up the part about the Avalanche. But we did go out to dinner.”
Technically, this is true. But it was a big group and Adam and I managed to avoid each other the entire night. I talked to Nat and he talked to Ben and some other guys they know from their grommet days. Then we went home, and I curled up with Chuckles while Adam watched a stupid hobbit movie with Ben and Nat and they all talked about the symbolism of hairy feet or whatever the hell hobbit people talk about.