8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Nate
Samantha’s dad was a dick.
Meeting him, seeing the way he treated his daughter versus how he treated me, a veritable stranger, clarified everything.
Why I was here. Why Adrian had been worried about her. Why she’d spent all her time at our house growing up.
He’d barely acknowledged her then easily dismissed her once he did. It had made me sick for her, and since I was practically the captain of the Dick-for-Dads Club, that was saying something.
And she had been more concerned over the bed situation than her own father not hugging her. That said something too.
“Oh my god. We have to do the alpine slide!” she cried.
“What?”
I frowned, first at her, then at the sign that had caught her attention on our walk around the resort. I could only guess what an alpine slide was. The way Samantha was bouncing on her toes, she was more than familiar.
She hooked her arm around mine, her long, lean body aligning with my side. “The slide, Nate. I haven’t done it since I was a little kid.” Her lashes fluttered as she blinked her big hazel eyes at me. “Will you come with me? Please?”
“I’m game. I can’t say I know what you’re getting me into, but if you say it’s fun, I’ll trust you.”
“It was fun when I was ten.” Thin lines formed on her narrow nose as she scrunched it. “It’ll either be a disaster or the time of our lives.”
“Let’s go find out.”
For all her family’s faults, they’d chosen a beautiful location for this wedding. The resort’s timber-and-stone main building was tucked at the base of a mountain, the slope covered in pine trees and wildflower-dotted meadows. Everything was lush and warm, golden and sun-kissed.
Samantha kept her arm around mine while we walked toward the gondolas, only letting go to step into the enclosed car. I followed, sitting on the bench across from her. We were like glass beads on a string, gently swaying as we pulled away from the loading platform and started up the mountain.
“I didn’t ask you if you’re afraid of heights.”
“I’m not,” I confirmed.
Sometimes I was afraid of myself when I was somewhere high up, but it wasn’t the height itself that caused the fear.
I’d heard it referred to as “the call of the void.” It wasn’t one I thought I’d ever answer, but I didn’t always trust myself.
Today was a good day, though. I had Samantha to focus on. My duty to get her through this weekend unscathed. The void wasn’t even whispering.
The ground slipped away faster than I expected. Below us, the resort shrank. Rooftops turned miniature. People were reduced to slow-moving dots. Ahead, the mountain opened, endless ridgelines layered in hazy blue, stretching farther than I could track.
Samantha pressed her hands against the glass, her excitement palpable. I could almost picture her smaller, melding herself to the glass in the exact same way. My memories had been smudged by time and trauma, but there were snippets where Samantha came through sharp and clear.
She’d always been tall for her age. Gangly like a colt.
Her hair had been cornflower yellow, darkening as the years passed to a dirty blond.
I could still hear Adrian making fun of her the first time she got highlights and picture how pink her cheeks had flushed.
Rome had helped him come up with an apology for that one.
Two days had passed before she’d come back.
When they’d been really young, Adrian would hide her in his room, like me or Rome would have told her to leave if we’d discovered her presence.
We’d always known she was there. They weren’t great at hiding their giggles, and Adrian was a terrible liar, stumbling over excuses for bringing two sandwiches to his room.
After a while, they’d stopped hiding so much.
Samantha was just there, like another sibling.
I could picture her with her bare feet propped on our coffee table.
Sitting on the counter in our kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal.
Watching movies late at night by herself in the living room.
Hunched over the dining room table studying.
Flashes of all the years I’d known this girl, who was now a woman, played out in my mind. For someone who was woven through most of my clearest memories, it was astounding how little I really knew her.
“Is this bringing you back?”
Samantha glanced back at me, her grin slipping into place.
“One summer, my parents let Adrian come to Silver Springs with us. Probably so they didn’t have to deal with me.
That doesn’t matter, though. It was the best time I’d ever had.
He and I rode this thing a hundred times.
We only went home when it shut down for the night.
” She got up and shuffled across the gondola to sit on the bench beside me.
“Let’s take a selfie to send to him. He’ll be so jealous. ”
She held her phone out in front of us and pressed her head against mine. Seeing myself on her screen, smiling as wide as she was, was like looking at a stranger. Her glow was shining on me, making my smile brighter, my eyes glimmery. Like I was enjoying myself.
I guessed I was.
She stayed beside me as she sent the picture then showed me his response when it arrived.
Adrian: If you come back and tell me Nate’s your best friend, I’m going to riot. Do not allow him to replace me.
She laughed. “I think he’s forgetting this was his idea.”
“He is jealous,” I murmured, mostly to myself.
Was this what Ben and Roman had meant? It still didn’t make sense to me. If he and Samantha wanted each other, there was nothing stopping them.
“I don’t think he’s actually worried about you usurping his position.”
“I doubt anyone could.”
“No, they couldn’t,” she confirmed. “I wouldn’t let them.”
The air was cooler at the summit, and the view was breathtaking. Valleys spilled out in every direction, distant mountains stacked against the horizon. A wooden deck wrapped around the top station where passengers from the gondolas ahead of us were disembarking.
And just beyond it…
I followed Samantha’s gaze.
A winding metal track carved down the mountainside, hugging the slope in long, twisting turns. Little sleds shot down one by one, riders leaning into the curves, flying like they had a death wish.
Her fingers clamped down on my arm. “There it is.”
I huffed a quiet laugh, bracing myself. “That’s…the alpine slide?”
“That’s the alpine slide.” Her knees bounced as we approached the station. “You’re going to have so much fun.”
I wasn’t convinced.
But when the doors slid open, I followed her anyway.
Samantha went first. One second she was there, and the next she had disappeared, leaving behind the echo of her battle cry.
I glanced at the resort employee. He was completely uninterested in me, not paying me any mind. Getting nervous wasn’t like me, but I found myself hesitating before climbing onto my sled.
I didn’t want to die today, so throwing myself off a mountain seemed counterintuitive. Then again, I’d been walking around on solid ground all my life and it hadn’t done much for me. Maybe this was exactly what I’d been missing.
I took a seat on the sled. The bored employee went over the exact same safety instructions he’d just given Samantha and the half-dozen riders before us.
Then I was off.
The first few feet were deceptively slow, giving just enough time for doubt to creep in. The track dipped, making the sled lurch forward, and my grip tightened on the brake handles, instinct screaming at me to keep control.
Then gravity took over, and speed hit all at once, a rush that ripped the breath straight out of my lungs.
The mountain blurred at the edges, green and gold streaking past as the track curved sharply to the right.
I leaned into it without thought, heart punching hard against my ribs as the sled picked up even more momentum.
“Oh shit—”
The words were gone before I could even hear them.
Wind tore through me, cool and wild, dragging a laugh out of my chest that didn’t sound like it belonged to me. It was loud and reckless and edged with something unfamiliar. Something dangerously close to joy.
I eased off the brakes, and the sled surged faster.
A sharp turn whipped toward me, but instead of panicking, I leaned harder, giving all my trust to the track. The metal rattled beneath me, the world tilting enough to make everything feel a little unhinged.
Adrenaline flooded my veins like lava, lighting me up from the inside out, burning away all my thoughts and worries, leaving my head empty. Almost calm. Just my body barreling down the side of a mountain with nothing to protect me.
For the short burst of time, I lost my mind in a way that made me feel lighter than air. A maniacal laugh tore out of me as I hit another straightaway and let the sled fly.
By the time the bottom rushed up to meet me, my hands were shaking, and my pulse pounded so hard it felt like it might crack my ribs open. I had to force myself to drag the brakes at the last second, the sled slowing in a screeching protest before finally rolling to a stop.
“Samantha!” Her name came out a half laugh, half shout.
She was waiting for me at the exit, jumping up and down, her whole face lit up. “I thought you weren’t going to brake,” she called, her hands cupped around her mouth. “You were flying, Nate!”
I shoved my fingers through my hair, breath still uneven, skin buzzing like I’d been struck by lightning. “I think I blacked out halfway through.” I grinned despite myself. “Or I died. One of the two.”
I pushed off the sled, legs a little unsteady as I climbed to my feet. My hands were still shaking when I reached for her. Her fingers slid into mine without hesitation.
“What did you think?”
I exhaled, my gaze drifting up the mountain I’d just flown down. “I think…” I turned back to her and squeezed her hand. “I think I want to do that again.”