I groaned as he stood and extended his hand to me. He helped me stand, and my legs wobbled. I clung to him, heat and humiliation humming through me simultaneously.
“You okay?” He kept his hands on mine, sliding one of them up to my elbow. Through my coat, there was only touch, no sensation. No connection. A craving started inside me. A craving for that connection between me and Grayson.
“Fine.” I found my strength and stepped back. I wiped one wet mitten down my face, disgust coating the back of my throat. A hot shower had never sounded so good.
“It stopped snowing,” Grayson said.
I glanced around, surprised I hadn’t noticed. Somehow the lack of snow falling made it easier to get my feet walking again. Gave me hope that I could make it to the top of this mountain.
Grayson started talking about Josh, and though this high-altitude oxygen didn’t satisfy me, I found myself adding details to the stories. Laughing over the things we used to do together, like go ice fishing in the pond behind our house and steal fresh peas from the Sherriff’s garden.
“It’s no wonder he doesn’t like us,” I said, a giggle stilting my words. “We’re awful to him.”
“He’s a great gardener, though,” Grayson said. “And we haven’t done that for years. Surely some other fourteen-year-olds are tormenting him now.”
“I don’t see how that’s supposed to make me feel better.” I grinned up at him.
“Yeah.” Grayson’s laughter settled into the snow, where it got muted, trampled under our constant footsteps. “Do you miss Sierra?” he asked after a few minutes.
My head started nodding of its own accord. “Yeah.”
“Me too.”
Him and Josh, me and Sierra. The four of us spent a lot of time together until she moved to Wyoming when her dad became the auditor at a ranch. She’d promised she’d text and we’d stay in touch, and she had at first.
I saw her pictures on Instagram and sometimes I snapped her if something was going on around town, but honestly, in the winter the only thing that might interest her were the ice sculptures that sprang up in the skate park, seemingly overnight. I loved to wander down the cleared sidewalks and marvel at the dragons, the intricately carved robots, and whatever else someone’s imagination could conjure up and their hands create.
“She’s going to NYU,” I said, the words only partially stuck behind my emotion. “Just like she always wanted to.”
“I heard that.”
It was probably better that she’d left last fall, then I wouldn’t have three people leaving me as soon as June was born. Her departure had been a baby step. A baby step that had tripped me and left me flat on my face. A baby step I was still recovering from.
What kind of mess would I be when Grayson packed up his big truck and left for the summer? Left forever.
And Josh—my breath stuck in my throat as I hurried to will the thoughts away. I still had three months. And though it wasn’t nearly long enough, I would survive.
I didn’t have to talk to anyone to keep breathing. I didn’t need to eat lunch with friends for my heart to keep beating. I didn’t need the pressure of Grayson’s hand in mine to feel alive.
I drew in a steeling breath and said, “So tell me about your place in Vegas.”
I hadn’t spoken to Josh much about it, and he’d let me have that distance. Grayson eyed me warily, more concern on his face than anything else.
“It’s okay.” I took another step. Then another. “I’m climbing the tallest mountain in Idaho. I think I can handle a little information about where my best friend and my brother are going to live.”
Grayson flinched, but I wasn’t sure which part of my sentence had caused the reaction. “I don’t think this is the tallest mountain in Idaho.”
“You’re going to debate me about geography?”
“We’re not even in the Tetons,” he said.
“Those barely count,” I said. “Did you know there’s still some debate about whether they cross the state line?”
He raised his free hand in submission, chuckled, and said, “Josh found us an apartment just off campus. It’s small, and we have to share a bedroom. But it has air conditioning. Looks clean enough.”
Part of the weight I’d been carrying since Sierra left lifted from my shoulders. The next step I took seemed easier, and I smiled at Grayson. “You and your germophobia.”
“It’s a real medical condition,” he said.
“Well, we don’t all have maids.”
He blinked at me before throwing his head back and sending his laughter into the clearing sky. I wanted to reach out and grab onto the sound. Let it coat my fingers and stain my arms. Bottle it up and twist the cap off when I needed a reason to feel joy, when I needed a hug from someone who cared about me, when everything in my life felt like it had a few hours ago: like I’d just skied to the bottom of a mountain and now the lift wasn’t operational.
I wanted to be a little less smart when it came to Grayson, and I wondered what my dad would think about that. As usual, thoughts of my father sobered me, and I lost a few minutes deep in the trenches of my mind.
“What are you thinking about?” Grayson asked.
I glanced at him. “Nothing.”
“Well, could you start thinking about not squeezing my hand off?” He lifted our joined hands a couple of inches and let them fall again. “I’m already losing circulation in my feet because of these stupid boots. I need my hands.”
I released him like he’d caught on fire, that heat licking up my face and settling behind my eyes.
“My dad,” I said. “I think about him a lot.”
“Mm.”
I appreciated that Grayson didn’t shoot off another question. That he just let me think about my dad like it wasn’t the worst thing on the planet. “And Sierra.” I slid him a glance from my peripheral vision, but he concentrated wholly on the slope in front of us. “You guys had a thing, didn’t you?”
He yanked his eyes to mine, a healthy dose of panic parading through his midnight eyes. “Uh, once. It was a long time ago.”
“Not that long ago,” I said. “About the same time I stopped dating.” I frowned as the words left my mouth. I couldn’t believe I’d actually kept track of their relationship. But I knew they’d started their “thing” about the same time I turned sixteen. Just before I’d started working at the hospital. A few weeks previous to my disastrous date with another baseball player that left me determined to pick my brain up off the floor where I’d left it. Until I could trust myself to make the right decisions—the ones my dad wanted me to make—with guys, I’d decided simply not to go out with any.
“I guess,” Grayson said.
I hoped he’d drop it, but I’d opened the door for him. Invited him right in. “Why did you stop dating?”
I sighed. “I went out with a guy who was a real jerk, and I thought I’d take a break.”
Grayson’s jaw tightened. “One guy doesn’t define the whole pool of us.”
“Sierra used to tell me that all the time.” My lips curved up slightly. “She wouldn’t tell me why you two didn’t work out. Just told me that not all baseball players were pigs.”
“She said I was a pig?” He froze. “I never did anything to her. I was the perfect gentleman.” He jabbed at something downhill. “She was the one who—”
I put one hand on his chest. “Relax. She never said anything bad about you.”
He searched my eyes for something, calming after a few seconds. The tension in his shoulders released and he settled his weight on his back foot. “I though your jerk was a soccer player.”
I pulled my hand back and turned uphill, gazing at the seemingly endless distance we still had to go. “Athletes don’t interest me anymore,” I said. “Band and drama geeks are too emotional. Academics are too set in their ways.” I shrugged, unwilling to go on because when I turned to look at him, disbelief rode in his eyes.
“You are so judgmental.” He shook his
head. “So, what? If I asked you to prom you’d say no? Because I ‘play baseball’?” He made air quotes with his bulky gloves, but it just looked like he was flapping his hands around like wings.
He scoffed and started hiking up the hill again. I watched him go, my voice silent but my thoughts escalating. “I am not judgmental,” I called after him.
“Sure.” The sarcasm in his voice carried to every living creature on the mountain. If he yelled much louder, he’d send the avalanche into motion. I finally got my feet moving in the right direction, but I didn’t try to catch him.
Josh had been telling me for years that I gave too much credence to what other people said. Dad, especially. We’d each gotten a letter after Dad died, and I’d never read Josh’s. I’d never showed him mine.
I didn’t know if Josh made decisions based on the words in his letter, but I didn’t know how to ignore them. I fell into a rhythm of walking, putting one foot in front of the other, Grayson’s words circulating through my mind.
You are so judgmental, judgmental, judge-men-tal.
Was I?
A sob traveled up my throat, the desperation to get off this mountain, get away from Grayson, so overwhelming I could barely breathe.
A groan and a yelp sounded from up ahead, and I pulled my gaze from the snow just in time to watch Grayson collapse.
Unsent text found on Grayson’s phone:
Josh, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m going to text it to you. I’m trapped on this blasted mountain with your sister, and it’s your sister who makes me mad and drives me mad at the same time.
Do you think I have a shot with her? Would you hate me if I asked her to prom?
12
Grayson
“Grayson!” Eden’s voice started and ended three times in my head, like an echo. I wasn’t sure where the sound came from, and I flailed against the snow where I’d fallen.
“Stay back,” I called to her, the possibility of the snow turning liquid as the avalanche started very real in my head. Everything turned white for a moment; the only sound was the rushing of blood through my ears, and it very much sounded like snow sliding over snow.
My gloved hands scrambled for a hold but couldn’t find one. I flipped onto my back and slid to a rest just a few feet from Eden.
“What—What—?” She panted as she pressed her hand over her heart.
I breathed once. Twice. Realized I wasn’t moving. The mountain wasn’t moving. The snow wasn’t moving.
“It’s icy right there,” I said, my own pulse erratic. “The snow’s covered it up, and it’s slick.” I stayed down for the moment, a slip of embarrassment pulling through me that I’d fallen in front of Eden, panicked about an avalanche where there wasn’t one.
She planted her feet and extended her hand to me. “You okay? You think you can stand?”
I put my hand in hers, part of me wishing I could be playful and flirty right now. Pull her to the ground and roll around with her. Maybe brush the snow from her hair right before I kissed her.
I blinked and the fantasy slunk away like a dog with its tail between its legs. I thought of her black lab Bubba and my golden retriever Honey. When the weather was good, we’d take them to Rotary Park, which sat just across the street from the skate park. Bubba had a ball obsession, and Honey liked to race him. She almost always won, and Bubba would bark and bark and bark until she dropped the ball at my feet.
I did pull Eden down, but not on top of me like in my imagination. She sank to the ground, her exhaustion evident.
“I was checking my phone,” I said, which was partially true. I’d been typing out my frustrations about Eden to Josh. I shouldn’t have let her see that she got to me. That her opinions on baseball players actually hurt my feelings. It didn’t matter that I didn’t play. She couldn’t just lump us all together—shouldn’t lump anyone together—like that.
“Aaron Harding,” she said.
“What about him?”
“He’s who I went out with that soured me on athletes.”
“Soured you?” I couldn't help the soft chuckle that escaped. “All right, Terry.”
She nudged me with her shoulder, a slim smile on her lips. “He…wasn’t really interested in the movie, or eating, or anything but trying to kiss me.”
“Well, can’t blame him.” I nudged her right back. “Some of us think about that a lot.”
She swung her head toward me, and it seemed to move in slow motion. She blinked, every eyelash defined with the movement. “Are you saying you think about kissing me?”
My lungs tightened. Why had I said that? Probably because when I said things like that, I got to kiss the pretty girl I was with. But I didn’t want to screw anything up with Eden, not without talking to Josh first.
“Not recently.” I ducked my head, the cowardly part of me coming out with the lie. I flipped over my phone and swiped it open. My text to Josh sat right there, staring me in the face. I jammed my thumb against the arrow and got out of the app.
“But you have?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “You know in fifth grade when I tormented you? Stole your gum, and pulled your hair? I thought about it a lot then.”
“Mm hm.” She gazed down the mountain the way we’d already come. “But not since fifth grade.”
“No,” I lied. “You’re like, you know, my sister.”
Her attention fell to her hands and I traced the white lines around the tips of the mittens she wore. “A sister.” Her voice barely crossed the space between us.
I pressed my eyes closed, regretting the words. No girl wanted to be told she was like a sister to a guy.
She doesn’t like you, I thought.
She’s held your hand a lot today, the other half of me countered.
She’s scared.
“We should go,” she said, pushing herself to her knees and then her feet. “Any signal on that thing?”
I stared at the phone, willing it to beep or ring or something. “No.” I stood too and brushed the snow off my coat and pants. “Let’s head over to the tree line. Maybe it won’t be as icy there.”
“I thought you’d fainted,” Eden said as we moved horizontally across the mountain face. “It freaked me out.”
Warm satisfaction that she worried about me filtered into my bloodstream, making me hotter than necessary. “I wasn’t watching.” I kept my eyes trained on the ground now, unwilling to have another accident. I could’ve been seriously injured, taken Eden down with me, lost a lot of time and ground.
We made it past the slick spot and continued our silent trek up, up, up.
* * *
“Do you still ice skate?” I asked to break the silence. I couldn’t stand the eeriness for another minute. The world seemed so big out here, without anyone else around. The sky was so wide. And with Eden right beside me and so silent, my nerves felt like they’d been tossed into a wood chipper on high speed.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s why I work at the hospital.”
“Oh yeah?”
A sigh hissed from her. “Yeah. Mom pays for my soccer, but she won’t pay for my skating lessons or the competitions.”
“I didn’t know you competed.”
“You’re not coming to watch.”
“Why not?”
“I am terrible.”
“So you only want people to watch you do things you’re good at?” I slung my arm around her shoulders, glad for the excuse to do so.
“It makes things easier, yes.”
“What kind of costume do you wear?”
“An expensive one.”
“When’s your next competition?”
“Next…” She let her voice hang in the air. “…year.”
I laughed, somewhat whiplashed from all the back and forth with Eden. First we’re holding hands and then I was calling her judgmental. “Liar,” I said.
“Okay, Grayson. If I tell you and you come, then I get to come to one of your games this spring.”
&nb
sp; Acid surged up my throat. “Fine.”
“Fine what?”
“I don’t know. Fine.”
“That could go either way. Like, ‘fine, I’ll see you at the next competition and you can come to my game.’ Or ‘fine, I’ll honor your wishes and leave you alone because you’re one of my very best friends.’”
I laughed again and decided maybe it was a good sign that Eden and I could disagree and still get along. I wanted to switch off my brain, make it stop thinking about her. Her and me together. Us.
“Grayson,” she said, almost a wine.
“I haven’t decided,” I said, enjoying her discomfort too much. Her shoulders stiffened and I dropped my arm. I should’ve been discouraged. Kicked myself for making Eden mad, the way I had after I’d told her she was judgmental.
But honestly, I couldn’t wait until we could have this playful banter again. Maybe then I’d be brave enough to admit that I’d dreamed about kissing her on and off for the better part of a decade, including about ten minutes ago. Or somehow find the courage to ask her to go out with me.
But first, I needed a cell signal so I could send that text to Josh.
You never know what you can become until you try.
~one of Terry’s adages
13
Eden
Grayson kept trying to ask questions, but I shut him down with one or two word answers. Yes, I still got my nails done every month. Yes, I’d used his gift certificate. No, I hadn’t done anything special for my birthday.
He and Josh had kidnapped me from fourth period and we’d gone for ice cream—in January. Mom gave me twenty dollars and a hug and Terry had whipped up a chocolate cake with marshmallow filling—my favorite.
Grayson stopped asking after that, and my thoughts took me into memories with him. Having him at my house was as natural as if he lived there. He ate dinner with us a couple times a week, and my little brothers loved his loud laugh and stories about flying to Denver to watch the Rockies play baseball. Sometimes I even thought Bubba liked him more than me.