Winter's Kiss (19 page)

Exasperated, I ran my hands through my hair. “Nick, I understand you want to impress your dad, but it’s not worth risking your health.”

“My he—” he began. Then he took a step backward into the snow, and his broad shoulders sagged in defeat. “That’s the only reason you came over, isn’t it? Just like going outside with me last night. You want me to call off the comp because you’re so scared of that jump.”

I hadn’t even thought of the jump all night. I’d thought only of Nick. Now those fears flooded back to me, paired with his unfair accusation. I nearly started crying right there against the mudroom door. But I managed to say “No” while looking into his eyes. “I am not a liar.”

We glared at each other in the starlight, clouds of our frozen breath mingling in the space between us. I realized then that the pain of crushing on him would continue for the whole year and a half of high school I had left. We would not get together, no matter how hard Chloe and Liz wished it. We couldn’t. Try as we might, Nick and I could not find a way to graduate from the seventh grade.

“Whatever.” Stomping through the snow toward his SUV, he called over his shoulder, “See you at the comp on Saturday. And by the way”—he opened the door and slid inside—“I did get your message about making out and then having an argument. I guess you got what you wanted. Now don’t call me again.” He slammed the door. Snow bounced off the hood from the shock wave. He cranked the engine and drove away down my street. Even after he’d turned the corner and disappeared, the strains of the Poser love song still reached me in the quiet snowy night.

betty

('be tē)
n
. 1. a girl who isn’t used to snowboarding and is liable to have a fatal accident any second 2. Chloe

I dragged myself downstairs the next morning, hardly excited about boarding with Liz and Chloe. The sitch with Nick, or lack thereof, was so depressing.

Mom and Dad busied themselves with breakfast so they could get out the door and head for Boulder, where they would be spending the night. Personally, I wouldn’t have picked Friday the thirteenth for my date night. But tomorrow night, the real Valentine’s Day, they’d be running Parents’ Night Out for members of the health club. In years past, they’d made me work Parents’ Night Out with them. This year they’d let me off babysitting because they figured I might have fancy teenage Valentine’s Day plans, maybe even a Poser concert. If only they knew.

Josh watched me as I walked in and sat down. Then he watched the TV on the counter for a few seconds. Then he looked straight at me. I stuck out my tongue at him. He looked at the TV, then widened his eyes at me. Finally I got it. I turned to see what on TV could possibly be so important.

Me. Snowboarding! The local access channel cycled through the same few items over and over: birthday announcements, club meetings, a recording of the latest city council meeting, a film of Everett Walsh leading the high school Scholars’ Bowl to annihilate Telluride. Now the channel listed the scores from the Snowfall Amateur Challenge in front of footage of me in the half-pipe. Hey, nice form.

My mom headed toward me with a plate of oatmeal and fruit—tripped over Doofus—and managed not to spill anything. Athleticism obviously ran in the family. She sat down and followed my gaze to the TV. “Hayden, your dad and I heard you have some kind of snowboarding bet with your boyfriend, Nick.”

I choked on a strawberry and glared at Josh, who shrugged. He hadn’t ratted on me. So I told my mom, “Nick is not my boyfriend. He may have charmed you at the health club the other day, and we did indeed both go to Mile-High Pie afterward, but we were not there
together
.” At least, not at first. “Don’t adults have adult bets to gossip about?”

“Are you kidding?” my dad asked—tripping over Doofus—and sitting down at his place with his breakfast intact on his plate. Good save. “He was your little friend when we first moved here, right? It’s a battle of the exes. Bets about golf aren’t nearly that juicy.”

Mom went on, “Word on the street—”

Josh snorted.

“—is that you won’t win because of your fear of heights. Now, with your lessons with Daisy Delaney coming up soon, haven’t you changed your mind? Don’t you want me to make an appointment for you with a doctor who can help you get over your phobia?”

“Yes,” said Josh.

“No!” I shouted. I ignored the three of them eyeing one another over my outburst. Me, I eyed my image on TV, landing a 900 like it was nothing. Nick was right. I was chicken, and it was now or never.

* * *

“So think back to that moment,” Chloe coaxed me, “when your mom was offering you help. Picture her face when you go off this jump all by yourself.”

“Yeah, it was weird that she mentioned the bet this morning,” I said flatly. “If I didn’t know she had to work Valentine’s night, I’d say she had a bet for Poser tickets herself. No pressure.” After eight hours on the slopes, the last two at the jump, I was getting a little tired of Chloe’s motivational speeches.

Liz must have sensed I was about to blow. She nudged the tips of her skis between my board and Chloe’s in the snow. “Let’s review the progress we
have
made today. We’ve done the boardercross, and though we’re not sure Hayden can beat Nick there, we’re satisfied she’s going as fast as she can go.”

“Unless I eat a lot of meats and meat products to gain weight between now and tomorrow morning,” I interjected.

“Yuck,” Liz said at the same time as Chloe put her glove on my cheek and turned my head to face her. “Focus!”

“We’ve done the half-pipe,” Liz continued, “and we’re confident Hayden will kick Nick’s butt there.”

“Yes, but only if we employ careful strategy, as in rock-paper-scissors,” I said. “My 720 totally beats Nick falling down, like paper covers rock. Unless the rock is a boy, in which case the boy always wins.”

“Hayden—,” Liz began.

“I am getting sick of your attitude, Hayden,” Chloe talked over Liz. “We’ve been up here all day with you. All we have left is to get you off this jump. Every time you try, you have some excuse: wind in your face, bug in your ear, panties up your butt—”

“I was not making that up,” I broke in. “Imagine trying a trick with uncomfortable underwear.” I squirmed, rocking back and forth on my board to make my point.

“Or you make some stupid joke!” Chloe hollered at me. Her voice echoed against the rocky slope of the mountain overhead.

I stealthily looked around in my goggles to see if any boarders I knew had heard, but it was getting late, and the slopes were empty except for us.

“I’m beginning to think you don’t
want
to get over your fear of heights,” she said.

Suddenly, the mountain was quiet, except for the wind swishing through the tree branches and swaying their loads of snow. A few storm clouds approached from over the next peak. “I
do
want to get over my fear of heights,” I said.

“You don’t,” Chloe insisted. “You’re in your comfort zone. As long as everything stays right here, exactly the same, you can handle it. Guess what, Hayden? If you stay right here without ever trying anything new, you know where you’ll be ten years from now?”

“In a convent?” I guessed.

“I seriously doubt
that
,” Liz said.

“Right here.” Chloe grabbed one of Liz’s ski poles and planted it in the snow. “Here. In Snowfall. Still trying to go off this jump. Not at the X Games. Not at the Olympics. Here.”

“I like it here,” I whispered.

“Obviously,” Chloe said.

“Let’s end this on a high note,” Liz suggested. “Chloe, why don’t you tell her about the surprise?”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you set me and Nick up so we can make out and then have a huge fight?”

“Better!” Chloe jerked her head and arms wide in a dramatic flourish. A few rhinestones from her goggles went flying, lost forever, white against white in the deep snow. “Remember how I promised to get three unbiased judges for the comp? And remember how I couldn’t board with you yesterday because I had something to take care of?”

“You didn’t,” I breathed.

“I did! I got Daisy Delaney to come over from Aspen,
and
her boyfriend, who’s also a pro. That way the boys can’t say you won just because the girl voted for the girl. All I had to do was give her and her boyfriend a complimentary night at the hotel. Though it probably didn’t hurt that I also gave her some background on your challenge with your ex.” She wagged her eyebrows at me, making her goggles move up and down. The bling remaining around the rim glittered in the sun. “One of the resort’s snowboard instructors gladly offered to serve as the third judge when I told him Daisy Delaney was coming. The resort photographer may be there to capture the event on film. And—oh yeah—the newspaper.”

“Isn’t this great?” Liz prompted me gently, patting my padded arm.

“No pressure,” I growled.

“Honestly, you need to get used to it,” Liz said ominously. “A professional snowboarding career is nothing but pressure.”

“Honestly,” I yelled so loudly that she released my arm in surprise, “the two of you are not helping!” I turned on Chloe. “Didn’t you advise me to take control? Well, how am I supposed to do that if the two of you manipulate every facet of my life?”

“Another excuse,” Chloe declared. “I can’t
believe
you made me
snowboard
today for this. My cheeks are chapped, and for what? Come on, Liz.” Under her wooly rainbow hat, her blond ponytail flipped around, dissing me, as she boarded away.

I turned to Liz. “Well? What are you waiting for? Go on, Liz.”

Liz reached out to pluck her ski pole from where Chloe had poked it into the snow. “I think you’re just tired,” she said gently.

“How could I be tired? I haven’t done anything. That’s the whole problem.” Actually, I was bone-tired, just as I’d felt a few times this week when Nick had made me feel bad about myself. I hadn’t gone off the jump, but
thinking
about going off the jump and gathering all my energy only to pull out at the last second had totally drained me.

And then I started to cry.

“I’m sorry, Hayden,” Liz said instantly. “I shouldn’t have let Chloe pick those judges.” She skied over to hug me.

“No, I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I’m making everybody mad at each other and now at me, and for what? For nothing!”

“It’s not for nothing,” Liz said soothingly. “Let’s ask the boys for an extension. We’ll do the comp on Sunday instead of tomorrow. Daisy won’t care that she missed it, since she’ll get a free hotel room anyway. Chloe and I will come back to the mountain with you tomorrow and work with you until you go off the jump. We’ll figure something out.”

“The Poser concert is tomorrow night, so Sunday will be too late for the bet,” I cried. “Plus, the boys would never let us do that. They want me to fail anyway, so why would they give me another chance to succeed? Plus, it would just be an extra day for me to screw up, and to lose one more friend. Let’s face it, I’m done.” My goggles had fogged up inside with my tears. I tore them off, along with my hat. The wind was shockingly cold on my bare, wet face. “Totally useless, totally done.”

“Hayden!” Chloe screamed from somewhere downhill.

Liz and I glanced at each other for only a second, then whipped around in a rush of powder. Chloe had been headed to the pass through the trees onto Main Street. I feared the worst, and I knew Liz did, too. People around here only half-laughed at Sonny Bono jokes. Skiers and boarders were killed every year running into trees, not just betties like Chloe but also experienced boarders. I slid across the snow as fast as I could, throwing all my weight into it. I stopped sideways at the edge of the stand of trees and sent a wave of snow arcing into the dark trunks.

Chloe was in the trees all right, way down the slope from us. I picked out her pink clothes right away against the white. She must have hit a mogul in the snowy path and veered into the trees. She was sitting upright, though, and none of her limbs pointed the wrong way. Ugh ugh ugh, I shrugged off that thought and called to her. “Are you okay?”

“Okay,” she called back. “Just stuck. My board’s buried and kind of pinned against this tree and my boot won’t come loose. Aren’t your boots supposed to pop out of your bindings when you suffer a major biff?”

This was not the time to point out to Chloe that her “major biff” was likely a low-speed slide of ultrabettyness. And if she hadn’t been able to free her boots by now, I wouldn’t be able to talk her through it. I would have to show her.

“Hold on!” I called, popping off my board. The snow between the trees was piled up much higher than the snow on the slopes, which the sun melted and skiers wore down all day. There was no telling what lurked underneath the snow in the woods. Most likely, it wasn’t safe to board across. Boarding boots weren’t the safest footwear for hiking, either, but I couldn’t leave Chloe. Darkness was falling.

“You want me to go with you?” Liz asked, stopping on her skis behind me.

“Nah, but bring my board if I’m able to haul her out the other side. And see if you can find my goggles and my hat. I dropped them somewhere.” I put one boot into the soft snow at the very edge of the slope and sank much farther than I’d imagined, up to my hip.

“Watch that first step!” Liz called.

I didn’t even retort, I was so focused on Chloe downhill from me. Every step I took was deeper than the last, and it grew harder to bring my other foot around. Once I sank into a snowdrift all the way to the ground and slipped on the rocks underneath, like disappearing under the surface of a frozen lake.

“Hayden, are you still there?” Chloe screamed.

“I’m still here!” At least, I thought I was. The daylight vanished even more quickly here under the bare trees, and the white all around disoriented me.

“Do you want me to call the boys?” Liz suggested from way above me.

“Do
not
call Nick Krieger!” I shouted. “God, would he love this.”

“I’ve got Davis in my cell phone!” Liz called. “Gavin, too.”