“Your friend Chloe told me this comp is with your ex,” she said. “What’s that about? Are you hooking up again or what?”
“Not anymore,” I said wistfully. “Can I ask you something? This whole argument started because he said I couldn’t beat an average boy snowboarder. Does it bother you that your boyfriend has landed a 1260 in competition and you haven’t?”
“So this is a girl-power thing?” Daisy mused.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s how it started.”
She shrugged as best she could in her puffy outerwear. “I might land a 1080. I might not. But I’m sure not going to give up boarding just because the odds are stacked against me to be the best boarder ever. I mean, there are short people who play professional basketball.”
“True.”
“And on a personal level, my boyfriend and I love each other enough, and we have enough respect for each other, that we’re bigger than that.”
I laughed. “Nick and I are not bigger than that. We are very, very small.”
Daisy nodded. “And then, of course, there’s the fact that I’m prettier than my boyfriend. He may fly higher, but I look better doing it.” She turned around backward. “I mean, even in these snow pants, check out my ass.”
We both cackled, and everyone in the bathroom stared at us. I decided right then that Daisy was going to be fun to hang out with, and I could learn a lot from her.
When I’d envisioned the comp with Nick, I’d pictured exactly this strong sunshine and bright blue sky. Beyond that, my predictions were all wrong. I’d thought my friends and Nick’s friends would be waiting for us at the bottom of Main Street. I hadn’t imagined a crowd of several hundred people, as many as had watched the local competition last Tuesday. They rang bells for Nick and me because they couldn’t clap in their mittens, cheering for us as we boarded over to the ski lift.
I also hadn’t realized I’d have to ride up on the lift with Nick, just the two of us. But it was the last Saturday of winter break. The slopes were crowded. Nobody got to ride a lift alone. And he was right behind me in line. Nick and me riding up together right then was like George W. Bush and Barack Obama riding to Obama’s inauguration in the same limo. Relaxed!
We didn’t say a word to each other the whole time we shuffled through the long line in the shed. Finally it was our turn. We slid into position in the path of the chair. It swept us off our feet and up into the air, and Nick pulled the guard bar down across our laps.
After the voices echoing in the shed, the cold air around us was silent, except for the ski-lift cable clanking overhead and the swish of skiers dodging moguls below us.
I looked up at Nick beside me. He had his goggles down already. I couldn’t see his eyes behind those damn reflective lenses.
I took in a sharp breath of freezing air. “I’m not saying this because I’m scared, or because I want to get out of anything. But I want you to know that I’m sorry for what happened between us last night. We’ve said a lot of ugly things to each other in the past week, and we didn’t mean most of them.” I raised my voice as we neared a pole supporting the lift, and the cable clanked louder and louder through the pulleys. “At least, I didn’t. If we can just get past all this, I think we’re both bigger than that.”
Now I found I was shouting, even though the noise of the cable had died away. Even more deafening was Nick’s silence. He didn’t look down at me, didn’t say a word as we passed four more poles and boarded off the lift. I could see a muscle working under his skin in his strong superhero jaw, but his mouth stayed closed.
We slid to the top of a narrow slope that curved into the forest and waited for a grommet to happen by. “Hey,” Nick called out. “We’re racing. Say go, would you?”
The kid turned to us, and his eyes widened. “Oh my God, you’re Nick Krieger and Hayden O’Malley, aren’t you? Is this the comp everybody’s been talking about? Are you guys hooking up?”
“Just say go!” Nick and I both yelled.
“Go!” the kid shouted.
I pointed myself downhill and boarded as fast as I could. But it was no use. A field of rumble strips slowed me down like speed bumps for a car. Nick was so much bigger than me that he blazed straight across them like they weren’t there. Soon the slope took a turn into the forest and he disappeared behind the trees. He was gone, baby.
I was boarding by myself. I kept going as fast as I could, crouching down into the frigid wind and squinting through the water on my goggles, just so the spectators at the bottom didn’t tire of waiting for me, give up, and go home, thinking I’d forfeited. No way.
The trees fell away on either side of me, and the slope opened up wide. At the bottom of the course where it merged with Main Street, I picked out Nick, one of the tallest boys, already standing in the crowd with his arms crossed, watching for me as if he’d been waiting all day. Then the three judges with their heads together. Then a gaggle of girls with Liz and Chloe in front, gloves over their mouths, watching for me.
So I did what the most stylish boardercross riders do when they’re not winning but they know they’ve got the silver in the bag. I hit the last roller and cranked it into a front flip, a little steeze for the fangirls. The second I landed, the girls hit me with an ear-splitting squeal laced with frantic bell-ringing. I couldn’t help breaking into the widest smile. I skidded to a stop in front of them.
Daisy leaned over to bump fists with me. “Girl has attitude. Way to lose!”
I laughed nervously and said, “Thanks.” I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment.
Liz guided Chloe over so Chloe didn’t lose her balance and hurt anyone. They both gave me big hugs, and Chloe shook me by the shoulders. “We’re down but we’re not out. Go back up there and give him hell.”
“Thanks, coach!” I slid away from the crowd and over to the lift again, following Nick. I didn’t want to linger with Chloe and Liz, because I knew the crowd was waiting expectantly. But if I’d had more time, I would have asked for coaching on the sitch with Nick.
We moved through the line in the shadowy shed and launched into the sunshine in the chair again. I prepared for another cold, silent ride. His goggles were up this time, but I didn’t look over at him and try to read the expression in his eyes. I was afraid it would break my heart.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said.