Chapter 12 #2
I watch the switchover, people getting off, people getting on, and listen to the murmur of conversations buried under the spanning stretch of the mountains.
It’s only ten minutes that pass by, with Landon and I stuck in a silence that I’m not quite sure is awkward or not, before we’re first in line.
And when the chairlift groans to a gradual stop, hanging from the black wires, my heart jolts.
Mildred takes up most of the seat herself with her stocky frame, and her sister, Melody, is a wispy thing lodged in beside her.
My insides stamp at the sight of them.
For a beat, I wonder how Mildred made it onto the slopes before us. But then, we did take an hour to get ready. It’s not like we rushed or anything.
Now, I wish I took my time, or wriggled out of this whole thing entirely.
Melody clammers out first, her frosty lashes fluttering with the surprise. Her gaze flickers between me and Landon, over and over, before she scrambles out of the way, and Mildred pushes out of the chairlift.
Her boots smack down on the concrete platform, the dullness of her eyes alighting into embers, and she takes a purposeful step towards us.
“What the fuck, Landon?” Mildred almost whispers the words, no inflection for the question, nothing more than disgusted shockwaves rolling through her. “What the fuck…”
There is hurt in those eyes.
The betrayal is in the desperate pleading way she looks at him and in her wispy voice, the parroting of her own disbelief.
If Mildred was anything less than a beast, I might almost feel sorry for her in this moment.
“How was it out there?” he asks, all casual-like, not as though Mildred Fucking Green blocks our path to the chairlift, probably on the verge of knocking me out, and not for the first time. “Winds were favourable?”
Unease tenses my face.
Disbelief slackens Mildred’s.
Melody edges onto the path back to the academy, her gaze flinging between the three of us.
She’s smart to create some distance.
The urge is itching at me, too.
But with a glance over my shoulder, I realise I’m blocked in. A few students are queued up behind us, impatience in their huffing breaths and lolling heads, and they are crammed too close to my back for me to easily inch out of Mildred’s range.
Mildred’s question comes firmer this time, an accusation, “What are you doing with her?”
The snowboard should creak in her grip, it’s so tight. But it’s her face, that ugly purple complexion I’ve seen so many times when I’ve risked too much and backtalked, that has me itching to slide behind Landon’s frame, to hide behind him.
His thoughts mirror mine.
Landon steps aside, moves right in front of me, and the relief that unribbons through me sags my shoulders.
“I’m hitting the slopes,” he says, as though it’s the most obvious, simple thing ever.
Mildred breathes the response, guttural. “With her?”
“With my friend?” He cocks his head to the side. Black curls slip over his brow. “Yes.”
“Your friend…” she echoes, her face furrowing, her slow mind scrambling and churning to catch up. Then her jaw starts to tighten, and I hear the faint click of it. “Since when?”
I chance another look back at the queue.
Stormy faces are aimed right at us. Some check their watches; some are brave enough to groan loud and impatient—and they aren’t alone.
I wish she would hurry up, too.
The cold is nipping at my cheeks, burning them raw, and if I could get moving on the slopes, that will at least fight off the cold from my bones.
“Since I developed standards,” Landon says—
And fuck the weather, because that was colder than any snowy mountains I’ve ever known.
I blink at him, his cold smiling profile, the warmth of his complexion never matching the hardness of his eyes.
And that unwilling pity rises up in me.
Again, I almost feel sorry for her.
Landon pushes into step, and that shoves his shoulder into hers, pushing her back, out of our way.
I scurry behind him, keeping the snowboard lifted at an angle, a shield from her dumfounded look that could morph into rage at any moment.
Landon seems to think the same.
He ushers me onto the chairlift first, and only when my backside is firm on the seat out of Mildred’s reach does he clatter in beside me.
The chairlift offers no comfort to me as it jerks into motion, and draws me up the mountain, further away from Mildred—and her slack face.
Even when I can’t make her out much more than a blocky silhouette, the breath is tight in my chest.
The look I slide to Landon’s already frosty cheeks is dark. “I’ll be paying for that later.”
Landon doesn’t respond.
He stares straight ahead, and I don’t know if he heard me or just decided he doesn’t care to acknowledge the truth of what I said.
Mildred won’t let that go.
I hope Dray’s protection is strong enough to warn her away from me.
Above, the cable hums, and below, the academy shrinks. The mountains stretch, endless and white beneath the morning sun, the academy’s spires, like black stone teeth, shrink in the distance.
The ride goes on in silence.
I focus on the valley falling away beneath us—the silver thread of the frozen river, the black pines dusted with snow. The lift sways slightly, and I grip the snowboard tighter.
Then, finally, the bars lift with the groan of cold metal.
We slip out of our seats, boots thudding down to the flat concrete podium.
The chairlift continues onto the curved wires ahead, then going back down the mountain, all the way to the end of the slopes, where it’ll pick up more students, and take them back up to the academy.
Landon sets out the skis, then gestures me to step into them. I do, and clip in my boots as Landon clasps into the snowboard.
His profile is tense, a feathered jaw that lashes against the pale mountain sun, and I wonder, now that I look at him, if it hurt him.
Speaking to Mildred like that, saying those things to her, a friend he’s had almost his whole life, to snub her—I suspect it cut him deep.
“Ready?” Landon straightens up beside me, offering me the twin poles.
He ignores my answer, a grumbled, “Nope,” before I tug down my goggles.
We shimmy down to the dip of the podium, a concrete ramp that descends into the snow.
The slope stretches below, smooth and treacherous.
The next chairlift is advancing on us, inching closer through the clear skies.
I can’t stall, can’t delay, not without witches suddenly dropping onto my head.
So I stab the poles into the snow and push off from the podium—
Cold winds rush over me.
The shout that rattles me is hollow.
Landon follows within the second, his laughter stolen by the vast landscape.
Beneath me, the skis are firm on the thick snow of the mountain, my legs bent—and I guess it’s like riding a bike, as they say, because my body remembers.
My torso tenses, muscles pinned, and all the years I have avoided this don’t seem to matter much—
Spoke too soon.
Landon swerves by me, a kick up of snow crashing over me like a wave, and I flinch against it.
He cuts ahead in the mist, his laughter coming in and out of focus.
The joy doesn’t find me.
I’ve never loved it, the slopes, the snow, the sport of it all.
But Landon seems free.
His interaction with Mildred is forgotten as, ahead, he arches and swerves and zigzags through the dustings of snow.
My lack of practice keeps me slow.
That might be why he takes it easy, not a race to the bottom, and we’re passing the academy when another pair of snowsuits whizz by us.
Skiers, darting by like flying arrows.
I blink and they’re gone.
It’s a while before we reach the bottom of the slopes, where—over the short hill—the village is a mist of chimneys billowing smoke and bakery stoves perfuming the air.
Landon leads the way to the rows of benches near the chairlift station. He drops with a huff before he peels off his goggles—and reveals a charred face.
I can only imagine what mine looks like, all red and blotchy, as I pull back my own goggles to rest on my forehead.
My legs quiver as I manoeuvre onto the bench, the side of my thigh pressed against Landon’s.
Something about the slopes softens him.
His dark hair is damp with drizzled snow, and he turns his warm, lazy smile on me. “You did alright for someone who hasn’t skied in—how long?”
I have to think about it for a moment, running through the semesters at Bluestone and family trips, until I land on Aspen.
“Three years.”
He scoffs, then leans forward, elbows planted on his knees. “You talked to James this week?”
The air between us sharpens.
I give a slight shake of the head. “Not really. Haven’t seen him around much.”
James and Courtney have been out of sight most of the week back at the academy. Study hall has Courtney hypnotised, I think.
But James has probably found his way back into the infirmary.
Landon stares at the snow for a long moment. “Same for me,” Landon says. “He stitched me two nights ago.”
“Stitched?”
“Didn’t show. Stood me up.”
My mouth slants. “Maybe he’s sick again.”
His smile is faint. It’s… affectionate.
My face furrows, a question dancing on the tip of my tongue, do you care about him?
Sure, they have a physical relationship that I know of—but this, right now, watching the smile fade from Landon’s face, watching him stare out into the vast span of stark mountains, I get the sense it’s more than that.
More than sex.
But I don’t push it.
This, the skiing, the snowboarding, the slopes, the conversation, it’s all part of a show.
It’s pantomime.
We’re not really friends.
I don’t let myself forget that.
The chairlift arrives, and we clammer onto it, skis and a snowboard and poles knocking off each other.
It’s an overstimulating moment, and I ache to shove him and his snowboard away from me.
I bite down on the surge, and a heartbeat after, the bar comes down on our waists.
The chairlift continues up the mountain.
“We’ll go again,” Landon says as Bluestone rises up against the white landscape.