Page 23 of The Season
The sun lifts over the far ridge, casting the landscape in liquid gold. A reminder that by lunchtime, the morning powder will be gone, trodden out and sun softened.
I give a sad smile against my ski mask, and bask in the movement, in the intoxicating feel of floating faster and faster and faster, of icy morning wind against the sliver of exposed skin below my goggles. Of freedom.
Temporary. It’s all temporary. Like everything else that has ever mattered.
As if in response to that thought, the tattoo I had done years ago prickles beneath the waistband of my ski pants, theyojijukugodancing in brush strokes across my vision.
Ichi-go ichi-e. Once in a lifetime.
At the time, I hadn’t known just how true those words would turn out to be.
I’d had my mum paint thekanjiherself before giving the scrap of paper to my tattoo artist, not wanting to risk him getting the words wrong since—despite my mum’s best efforts—I’d never learned her language.
Soon enough, the base of Jupiter lift comes into view, and I force myself to slow, skin crawling at the feel of the groomed snow scraping beneath my board. The sound carries with it hours spent training for slalom, for half-pipe, for boardercross.
It’s the sound of glory when I won my first—and only—Olympic medal. And the sound of failure when I fractured my spine.
I shudder, and look up to watch my students make their way down the face.
Most of them seem to be doing okay, though they’re clearly not used to this amount of powder. Not surprising. Most aren’t. Even Akiva—admittedly the best of this average group—keeps getting bogged down in the weight of the snow, the nose of his board dipping, his turns uncontrolled and awkward.
For once, Lily is at the head of the pack, and while I wouldn’t call her turns graceful, they’re certainly more confident than usual, despite the steep pitch of the slope. I watch her, my mind automatically cataloging each fault, noting where she opens her shoulders up too much, too early, the position of her hips as she moves onto the toe-side edge.
My eyes move up her form and my breath stutters in my chest when they land on her face. She’s smiling, but it’s not the forced grin I’ve seen her give the guys she’s training with, or even the soft smile she occasionally casts in Matty’s direction.
She’s smiling like her soul has come alive, like it’s just her and the mountain. She’s smiling like she’s floating on pure adrenaline instead of champagne powder. It’s fucking incandescent, rivaling the glare of the newly risen sun.
I swallow, clenching my hands in my gloves, and try to tamp down the unwelcome feelings coiling at the base of my spine. It’s an echo of the heat I felt in the condo earlier, when I’d mistakenly brushed against her warm body in my effort to get to the door. She’d smelt like woman and shampoo and, for an insane moment, I’d considered pressing my face into her hair and taking in a long, deep breath of her.
Because that wouldn’t be at all creepy.
I’m so busy staring at Lily, that I don’t notice Akiva hurtling through the powder, beelining it to the base of the slope, until it’s too late.
“Fucking slow down, you dumb cunt,” I yell, cupping my hands to my face, momentarily forgetting that the c-word is not quite as socially acceptable here as it is back home.
Akiva gives me a panicked look, the whites of his eyes visible because the idiot has forgotten to pull down his goggles. He tries to pull up short, but the powder is too deep. It’s not like a groomed run, there’s nothing to sink an edge into, no friction to slow him down.
Instead, the move has him turning just enough to barrel straight into the back of Lily’s board.
Akiva falls back, landing on his ass in snow so deep, only the top half of his torso and the lower part of his legs are visible. Lily isn’t so lucky.
I watch as the smile on her face falls, a fleeting gasp of surprise punching from her lips before she’s hurtling forward, the force of Akiva’s hit sending her flying head over heels in a somersaulting flurry of snow.
Dread pools low in my belly at the sight of her tumbling wildly down the hill, the sickening feeling growing to a fever pitch when she finally comes to a stop, her body a crumpled heap of worn-out snowboard gear.
“You son of a bitch,” I hear Matty curse, the sound of his shout muted by the snow.
Matty pulls to a stop next to where Akiva is still laying prone in the snow, his usual placid expression replaced by a snarl of pure rage. Probably the only thing preventing him from laying into Akiva is the fact that Matty can’t get off his board without risking sinking waist-deep in the snow.
I don’t worry about that though. My attention is fixed on Lily.
Without thinking, I unstrap my bindings, kicking my board over so it doesn’t slide away before sprinting up the hill. It doesn’t take long before my sprint becomes a slow, painful trudge, boots sinking deep with each step.
“Lily,” I call out. “Lily, are you okay?”
She doesn’t answer, but I see the faintest of movements in the pile ahead of me, and it has some of my initial dread thawing.
“Matty,” I call out, not taking my eyes away from her, “Stop threatening Akiva and go down to the lift. Have them radio ski patrol.”
