Chapter 16
sixteen
JONAH
Arms Length - Sam Fender
Come on, slowpoke,” Kit shouted back over at me, her hands pushing her ski goggles from her face.
The faint red imprint around her eyes should’ve made her look goofy, but she looked like she’d walked straight off the pages of a winter magazine spread.
“I’m beginning to think I should’ve left you on the kiddy slope. ”
“I’m fine,” I gritted out, continuing to move forward at the pace of a snail. “It’s been a while.”
If fifteen or so years counted as a while. Not that I’d been good back then, either.
The snow had subsided long enough for the gritters to clear the roads, and the ski resorts were fully open given the thick snow fall. So, Kit had decided this was the perfect excuse to dig out a baby pink skiing outfit from her suitcase and demand that we head to the nearest ski centre.
It sounded like a good idea, at first, when she’d strutted out in the skintight suit, highlighting every inch of her flawless body.
However, very quickly, the consequences of that decision began to rear their ugly head – i.e.
me not remembering the difference between pizza and fries positions, having no speed control, and getting partially stuck on the ski lift.
Judging from her wide grin, Kit was loving every second of my failure.
“It’s like riding a bike!” she shouted as I caught up to her side. “You’ll remember in no time.”
“I’m not so sure,” I grumbled, my attention completely on her. The wind tore blonde strands out of her ponytail, mesmerizing me with their little dance across her forehead. “How is this acceptable?” I motioned to the busy slope in front of us. “When we went sledding, you screamed the entire time.”
“Because this is controlled. And I’m not hurling myself down a slope on a piece of cheap plastic. These are reinforced,” she said. “Plus, it’s much easier to call mountain rescue when there are people around and it’s not Christmas Eve in the middle of the wilderness.”
I fell silent for a moment, trying to poke holes in her argument. When I couldn’t find any, I sighed. “You’ve got me there.”
Her blue eyes sparkled. “Don’t worry. We can take this one at your pace, tennis boy. I’m not throwing you down the mountain.”
Fifteen minutes later, that turned out to be a dirty, filthy lie.
“Kit! Slow down!” I shouted ahead, moving forward inch by slow inch. It was easy to spot her ahead, the only full pink outfit in a sea of black and grey, but every time I thought I was catching up with her, she sped ahead, enjoying the chase.
In the distance, I saw her look over her shoulder, beckoning me over with a wave of her hand. With a reluctant growl, I dug the sticks into the ground and pushed away.
Wobbling on both skis, I tried to recall every piece of information Kit had tried to remind me of about skiing and kept my weight forward.
Successful, I started to move.
With every moment, I picked up more and more speed, my balance stuck on tilting forward. I dug the sticks into the snow again, but instead of stopping, they slipped out of my gloved hands, and I was left helpless as I built up yet more speed down the slope.
Kit was nothing but a pink blur as I whizzed past, screaming my head off, arms flailing.
I couldn’t focus on anything as I sped away except my inevitable death.
I grasped out for trees, for anything to stop me, even attempting to crash so I could safely stop.
Nothing would work. I was sure I’d meet my death any second, whether it be a tree or another skier or even a sharp, unexpected cliff edge.
It wasn’t until Kit appeared, speeding by my side like some goddamn winter Olympic champion, that I stood any chance of survival.
She stepped across, grasping my body and shouting instructions at me, all the while using her sticks correctly to begin to slow my speed.
Through some trick of timing and terror, Kit managed to hook an arm around my waist before we collided with a snowbank.
We tumbled together, skis tangling, snow flying. When we stopped moving, I was on my back, she was on top of me, and I felt like I’d swallowed half the slope.
“Holy shit,” I gasped, my heartbeat still wild. The cold from the snow pressed against my exposed skin, but I didn’t mind, only grateful that, against all odds, I hadn’t crashed to my death.
Kit burst out laughing, her breath puffing little clouds into the cold air, her weight more than welcome on me. “I thought you’d never stop.”
I blinked up at her, and despite the pain in my tailbone, the cold seeping into my jacket, and the burning in my thighs, I couldn’t help but laugh too.
“Are you alright?”
“I think I’m dying,” I groaned, the muscles in my back beginning to ache. It was nothing serious – besides getting too old for this shit.
“You’re not. But your dignity? That might need resuscitating.
” Kit tsked, her face still so close to mine.
With her teeth, she bit the end of her glove, pulled it off, and moved up her goggles.
“You’ve got a little blood.” Her light touch skimmed my forehead, hand pulling back to show a couple spots of red. “It’s just a scratch.”
Pain grumbled through my aching body. “Can we go home now?”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” she said. “I’m not going to subject these pro skiers to you any longer.”
She rolled from me, a surprising expert in untangling skis, and found her balance on the snow again. Kit replaced her glove before offering her hand to help me up from the snow.
I huffed a laugh as she pulled me to my skis. “I’m surprised I haven’t been banned from the slope yet.” Looking around, I could see the passing people looking at us strangely, checking me out to make sure I hadn’t broken a limb.
Kit laughed, the sound enough to send heat into my frozen bones. “Let’s get you down to the bottom first.”
Once we made it to the bottom, Kit insisted on getting me checked out by the onsite first aid. They cleaned up my small forehead scratch and made sure I wasn’t showing any basic signs of concussion before allowing us to leave.
Even when we reached the car, Kit refused to let me drive. I was unsure at first, but I relented and threw her the keys. She followed the road signs back towards Ciallach, singing loudly – and terribly – along to the radio that was on full blast. I didn’t mind.
Things could be much worse than getting a mini Sinclair concert. Like no Kit at all.
“Do you mind if we take a detour?” she asked, stopping at a crossroad. I scanned the area, the signpost pointing towards Lairg, another towards home.
“Of course not,” I answered easily, not thinking twice about it, at least not until she became quiet, the radio long forgotten in the background. She drove slower, taking her time, pondering every turn, losing herself in deep thought, muttering under her breath.
I let her drive like this for ten minutes, before I asked, “Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer at first, her head somewhere else. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m fine.”
“You seem distracted.”
“I think…” She trailed off before turning on the indicator, taking a sharp left exit. The road was an overgrown single track, the surrounding bushes encroaching on the tarmac, so close it threatened to brush the paintwork of my car. “Do you remember I said my gran lived around here?”
“Yeah, you’ve mentioned it a couple of times.”
“She lived up here. I think.”
“Really?” Stress began to wrap around my chest like a cobra, tightening with every breath. “Are you thinking about staying with her?”
If she had a relative here, why would she stay with me? She could visit, see out the rest of her trip with them. Our time…it could have reached its end before the new year.
“No,” she said, and an embarrassing amount of relief washed across me. “You’ll understand when you see it.”
Kit didn’t explain any further, instead carrying on up the long and winding drive.
When we reached the clearing, I took in the sight of the sprawling house, white stone walls overgrown with frosted ivy that zig-zagged up broken pipework, up towards weathered window frames that hadn’t seen a fresh lick of paint in at least a decade.
The garden was overgrown, weeds poking through the snow, and every single one of the downstairs windows was boarded up, sprayed graffiti across some.
If Kit’s gran was alive, it had been a long time since she’d lived here. Since anyone had ever shown the house a little care.
“The Sinclair family home,” Kit remarked, bringing the car to a stop. She leaned forward, taking a good look. “Dad always hated it. Too drafty, too quirky. It was built in the thirties and decorated by a really famous designer. Gran took it over and never dared to redecorate. She loved it.”
I took another look, finding those elements of beauty in the building.
Through the upstairs window I could just make out tall mahogany furniture, pretty floral wallpaper peeling from the walls.
There were hints to its former glory everywhere, the grand double front doors, stained windows to the side, a huge sunroom built onto the left.
“What happened?” I asked, sitting back in my seat.
“She died.’
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shrugged me off. “No, it was a while ago. I was seventeen.” Kit fell silent for a moment, her eyes searching the building as if wanting to see the house in anything but the sorry state it was in.
“And then they let it fall into disrepair. I think they tried to sell it, even though I begged them not to. Developers came and went but never had enough interest to actually buy. Then there was a fire, and damp crept in very quickly after.” She waved her hand like it meant nothing, but there was a sadness etched so deeply into her features it sunk deep into my own heart.
“That’s sad,” I said, unsure what else to say, given the resignation across her features.
“I know.” She sighed, her lips pressing together. “It’s a beautiful building. I dream of buying it from them some day.”
“Still saving?” I asked, my brows pressing together. If her parents owned it, then it couldn’t be that difficult for them to transfer it to her, could it?
“Still convincing them,” she said bitterly. “I don’t speak to my parents all that often. The discussion doesn’t go far before we get into some sort of argument.”
I didn’t say anything. What could I say? Instead, I reached my hand out towards hers, interlacing our fingers, and squeezed once.
“One day,” she added, her voice almost breaking. “Mark my words, I’ll fix it up.”
“Why does it mean so much to you?” I asked. If she was willing to not only reach out to her distant parents but beg to purchase the house too.
She took a moment to answer, as though trying to find the right words. “It’s a kind of legacy, I guess. Magazine covers, adverts, these things last for a few weeks, a campaign, and then the world moves on. Nothing I do lasts.”
I thought about my parents’ house, my grandparents’ even. How heartbreaking it would be to see anyone else living there, replacing and overwriting our memories. How much harder it would be to watch that home decay like this one had, watching a home slowly turn into rubble.
“This could be that thing for me,” she added. “Something that could outlast me.”
“Like what people hand down to their kids,” I said without thinking.
The wince that appeared in her features was a stark reminder of what she’d been hinting at. “Kind of like that.”
When we’d left Archie’s, she’d asked me if I wanted kids. Her response hadn’t been no, but it definitely wasn’t yes. I’d been avoiding it – no need to talk about the future when all we had was days.
“One day,” she swore again, starting the engine back up, “I’ll be back.”
It gave me hope: for her, for the beautiful house that deserved the love Kit would give, for me. Even if we didn’t have the luxury of time, she was the kind of person to think back, to remember.
That maybe, if this ended – when it ended – she might come back for me.