Page 13 of Forever Mann
“Me too,” I agreed, low enough only he could hear. “Most action I have had in months.” The next thing I heard was the glorious sound of his golden laughter ringing out in the snow.
“Game on, jackass,” he teased, taking his skis off the snowmobile, and heading toward my brothers. He made ‘jackass’ sound like an endearment. I hadnever known anyone who could do that.
No one saidanything about my board as I approached my brothers, but I sure as hell gotsome eyebrows and then therewassome exchange of glances with each other; Iignoredthem. Piper hadmentioned, not a few times, that she wanted to snow-board, and I was going to be damned sure Iwasthe one teaching her. Matt asked for the keys, and I tossed them before adjusting my knee brace.
I saw Perrin’s eyes on my knee brace, but he didn’t say anything. Matt took off to start the lift that would take us back up and down this side of the mountain, and then he skied off into the sun as soon as the liftwasrunning. I saw Quinn making his way toPerrin, and I assumed that was to tell him which runs would bring him back to the lift to keep skiing.
Perrin was oblivious. His head was back, soaking in the sun like the golden god he was. The look on his face was pure bliss, taking in the quiet, the sun, the snow, and the tantalizing promise of hours of hard runs on fresh powder. I didn’t even think twice about snapping the picture of him like that with my phone, blue sky and long trees in the background.
Perrin
“Hey, P,” Quinn said, skiing over to where I was slowly coming out of my initial bliss, thinking clearly enough to begin checking the newly tuned bindings now that my gear was on.
“Q!” I greeted in returninhis same cheerful way. Spirits are high among these guys, and none more than me. Bear Valley was small, but had challenging skiing. Professionals trained here, and the blacks were known tobe long and technical. I couldn’twait to take one on because so far I had only skied the front of the mountain. Doing it in near private conditions? That is fucking heaven.
Quinn explained the runs that led to the ski lift beside us, giving me the rough lay out so I end up back at the lift and not off on a run that only goes to the base of the mountain. I nodded, listening closely because I haven’t really even looked at a trail map for this side of the mountain and I wanted to do as many runs as possible, so getting lost isn’t exactly an option, since there are no lifts operating that could bring me back to where we are. If Igotlost, Iwould beback at the base and done for the day.
“You got it?” Quinn asked, and I pointed to the run to the left of us.
“That one’s mine,” I told him with a smile.
Quinn shouted, letting out a whoop just like Matt’s from earlier, and like Baylor immediately after Quinn.
Jack went down the farthest run, letting out his own whoop.I didn’t even see him but I heard him. I needed to do this on my own, the cut and slice of the skis on the snow, the rhythm back under me, the quiet in my head.
Finally.
Five years since I hadbeen state-side, five years of running from one hospital to another, one challenge to the next. For a while now skiing had been the only thing that kept things sane in my head.
It wasn’t lost on me that I had been trying to both find myself and outrun a bad break up, and coming back to the states meant, in some way, that I wasn’t running anymore. I quit running and there was Jack.
I couldn’twrap my head around what that meant.
I took off with the familiar twang of my skis, my heart expanding with the fresh air and the work, the mountain, and the run before me.
Itwasfucking magic. Skiing has always seemed to be the perfect magic combination of man, nature, and effort.
Bliss, really.
Soon, I was so far in my zone that time and everything else fadedaway. The voices in my head started singing with the rhythm of the rest of my body. Then, before I couldcatch when it happened, everything in my head got quiet.
Itwasjust me, the sound of my skis sliding through powder, and the mountain. Nothing else in the entire world — just me and rhythm andeffort.
I didn’t count runs, but a cool damp coveredmy entire body under my snow gear and the sunwasin a different place, casting long shadows, telling me it must have been hours before I really cameout of it. There were still jubilant whoops and good-natured ribbing going on between the brothers, and I realized how fucking lonely the last five years had been. I never had much time to get to know anyone as I went through my self-imposed winter version of endless summer, searching for the best snow in Europe, the best hospitals.
Searching for myself.
There were hook-ups and friends, but they were fleeting and didn’t last. Much more of the past years had been long stretches of needed solitude. But, being around these guys who were all close to my age, made me hope for something like friends here. They were all in their late twenties and early thirties I would guess. They just accepted me like it was nothing.
It wasn’t nothing to me.
I was finally slowing down, not just skiing as hard and fast as I could. I noticed that for the first time, the other skiers started down the same run.
“On your left,” came a voice and sure enough, there went the smaller Quinn. Hecut to the ramp that had been built to the side of the run for skiers like him, and laidout an aerial I could never hope to achieve, but nearly missed the landing with equal parts curses and laughter. Baylorwasfarther down the run, but skiedit backwards long enough to watch Quinn.
“Jack!” came another voice, it was Matt, flying with skis long and parallel to a perfection that even I envied.
Suddenly, over the same ramp Quinn had used came a snowboarder, grabbing air and landing with just enough edge to get past Matt. In a beat, I realize it was Jack on the board. Itwasa testament to how out of it I had been on the mountain to not put it together that Jack was the lone boarder, which, honestly, I would have pegged him as a skier.