Page 7 of It’s Me, but Different (Merriweather Sisters #3)

Sloane

Ana Sofia's scream echoes across the entire slope like the echo of a nightmare. Before I can process it, I'm skiing toward her at such speed as if I were in one of my competitions from years ago.

“Ana!” Esme comes behind me, and I pray she doesn't fall too in her rush.

The girl remains sitting in the snow, with one hand covering the right side of her chin, while her eyes fill with tears. Small drops of blood fall on the snow like tiny red flowers.

“Let me see, honey,” Esme whispers, kneeling next to her daughter and trying to catch her breath.

“It's just a scratch,” I murmur, though I'm not sure if I want to calm the girl or her mother. “You had the bad luck of landing on a branch that had fallen from one of the pines. Nothing serious,” I assure her.

Ana Sofia sobs harder, I think not so much from pain as from surprise and fright.

“Hey, champ,” I interrupt, taking off my gloves to dry her tears. “You know what? All the best skiers have scars. They're like medals of honor. You're nobody without a scar or two.”

Ana Sofia looks at me with wide eyes, as if she had just discovered a great secret.

“Do you have scars?”

“I have a bunch,” I admit, pointing to a barely visible line on my chin. “I got this one when I was about your age. I fell on a slope in Switzerland and thought it was the end of the world.”

“And what happened?”

“My sister River made me hot chocolate with marshmallows and told me the best adventures always come with some scar to tell. And she was right. I'll show you the one I have on my knee later. That one is really big.”

Esme gives me a look I don't quite know how to interpret, but there's something in it that makes me feel like we're back in those college days when we thought the world was ours and everything seemed possible.

“Do you want to keep skiing, or would you prefer we call it a day?” I ask, though I shift my gaze toward Esme, seeking her approval.

“I want to keep going,” she responds immediately, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her pink jacket. “But… can you stay close, Mom?”

“Of course I'll stay,” Esme assures her, standing up and brushing the snow off her jeans.

During the next hour, I ski with Ana Sofia down the green slope, not separating from her for an instant; the last thing I need is for her to fall again.

Esme watches us from the side of the slope, talking on the phone intermittently.

Her conversations reach me in fragments, but the words I manage to hear hurt like stabs to the heart.

“…the opening of the new office…”

“…discussions about the partnership…”

“…I can't commit to full time…”

“…I need the extra money, but the kids are still small…”

“…I prefer to maintain flexibility…”

Small fragments that tell a story of struggle. A mother who is rejecting the opportunity for a brilliant professional future to better care for her children.

Exactly what I wasn't capable of doing eleven years ago for her.

Exactly what I should have done if I had been half as brave as Esme.

“Sloane! Look!” Ana Sofia shouts while making a perfect turn. A shout that pulls me from my thoughts, from a mind divided between the present and the ghosts of the past.

“Incredible!” I yell. “You're a star, seriously.”

When we finish the lesson, Esme puts her phone in her jacket pocket with a gesture I know too well. Contained disappointment. Frustration disguised as kindness.

“Is everything okay?” I ask while helping the girl take off her skis.

“Yes, just… work stuff, you know,” she responds with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. “Nothing important.”

But it is important.

I can see it in the way she avoids my eyes or how her shoulders have tensed slightly. In the way she sighs when she thinks I'm not watching.

“Mom?” Theo suddenly appears when we reach the resort, running toward us with his cheeks red from the cold. “River taught me how to make French hot chocolate! She says it's a secret recipe, but now I can teach it to you guys.”

“Really? And is it good?”

“It's delicious. Though I think I need a little more practice. Do you want to try it? And Sloane too?” he adds, turning toward me with adorable shyness.

Before we can answer, the four of us are sitting in the hotel cafeteria in front of cups of hot chocolate. Theo watches us nervously, while his sister drinks the first sip with a dramatism that would be fitting for a professional food critic.

“It's…” she makes an almost theatrical pause that reminds me of River when she presents her desserts. “It's delicious!”

Esme's proud smile could melt all the snow at Silver Peaks.

“Here, let me try,” she says, raising her eyebrows before bringing the cup to her lips.

I watch her close her eyes while savoring the chocolate, the same way she used to when tasting my attempts to replicate River's recipes during the months we shared an apartment in college.

“Oh my God, Theo. This is incredible,” she confesses, and the boy practically melts with happiness. “Did you really make this all by yourself?”

“Well, River helped me a little. But she says I have a natural talent for cooking,” he adds.

As if she had been summoned by mentioning her name, my sister appears next to us with that mischievous smile that announces she's plotting something.

“Did someone mention my secret hot chocolate?” she asks, winking at Theo before stealing a sip from Ana Sofia's cup. “Mmm, not bad at all, little apprentice. Though I think you put too much cinnamon in it.”

She gives me a look that clearly says: “I see how you're looking at her, and you need to relax,” but instead of responding, I just roll my eyes.

“You've practically adopted my son,” Esme jokes.

“What can I say! I think he likes cooking more than skiing,” she jokes, sitting in an empty chair and stealing a piece of Theo's cookie. “Or maybe it's the teacher. I'm nicer than Sloane.”

I try to protest, but River knows me well and attacks first.

“Do you know Sloane has a lot of weird habits?” she asks. “I once saw her do a rain dance because she thought it wouldn't snow enough for a ski competition.”

“It wasn't a rain dance, idiot!” I protest. “I was stretching my muscles.”

“Yeah, while singing.”

Esme lets out a laugh, I think the first since she arrived, and that simple gesture takes me back to those days when just seeing her laugh made me forget any worry.

“Well, to be fair,” Esme intervenes, wiping away tears of laughter, “in college she ate a banana before every exam because she thought it gave her luck.”

“That was supposed to be our secret, traitor,” I complain.

Soon, River dedicates herself to telling crazy stories to the kids while we watch her with a cup of coffee by the fireplace.

We remain in a silence that isn't exactly comfortable, but isn't as tense as the first days either.

It's more... strange. As if we're both waiting for the other to say something, but neither dares take the first step.

“They adore your sister,” Esme finally comments, nodding toward her children.

“She's always been good with kids,” I admit. “When Lumi was a baby, she was the only one who could calm her tantrums.”

“Can I ask you something?” she says suddenly, absentmindedly turning the cup between her fingers.

“Of course.”

“Earlier, when I was talking on the phone… did you hear something? I saw you stop sometimes near me and…”

Shit.

“I really wasn't trying to eavesdrop on the conversation or anything like that,” I rush to respond, gesturing with my hands and getting very nervous.

Esme sighs and leans back against the sofa, as if wanting to take a weight off her shoulders.

“They've offered me to be a partner at the law firm where I work. It's... it's what I always wanted. What I'd been waiting for years.”

“There's a but, isn't there?”

“Yes, I'd need to dedicate time I don't have. The kids have already lost their father. I can't… I can't disappear from their lives too, no matter how much I need that money right now.”

“I understand…”

“No,” she interrupts me, raising a hand and shaking her head.

“Please, don't tell me you understand. Because you…

you chose the complete opposite. And I'm not judging you for it, seriously, Sloane.

I'm not going to pretend I understood your motivation back then for choosing a competition over your girlfriend.

I don't understand it now either, but I guess each person is different.”

“And look where that choice led me,” I add with a bitter sigh.

“It led you to the Olympics. To a bronze medal. Few people can achieve something like that.”

“It led me to being alone,” I correct. “It led me to lose the most important person in my life for something that, in the end, didn't last more than a few months.”

“The most important person in your life?” she asks almost fearfully.

“Mom! Sloane! Come see this!” Ana Sofia's voice interrupts the spell.

We get up from the sofa as if we'd been caught doing something forbidden and follow the girl.

“River is taking us tomorrow to a restaurant that's at the top of the mountain to make brownies and watch the sunset,” she announces excitedly.

“She says that way you two can be alone,” Theo adds with the innocence typical of eight-year-olds, making both Esme and me blush.