Page 35 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mariah watched Veronica bolt for the ladies’ room. “She seems pretty upset.”

“She does. And I’m glad to see you noticed.”

“She hasn’t been divorced very long. Something you should remember,” she said with a cocked eyebrow, “Mr. Your Eyes Are So Expressive.”

To her surprise, he looked slightly abashed. “Mind your own business, kid.”

“I’m not a kid, buddy.”

He grinned. “No, you’re not. You also seem a little better today.”

She nodded, looking around. “I wonder what she reacted to in here? Nothing about this place says Colorado at all, does it?”

He shook his head, glanced toward the stairway where Veronica had disappeared.

Mariah thought of her and her mom sitting here. “How long did it take you to feel like yourself again after—”

“The bomb? A year, for the physical.” His fingers moved over the top of his camera, touching the buttons, the sides, caressing it. “But you don’t go back to being the person you were before. You become somebody new.”

She felt the truth of that, a knowing that she could never go back to being the Mariah who could snowboard at literally a hundred miles per hour through fresh powder. “I get that. So sad, though. Do you miss it? Your old life?”

“Yeah, I guess. But unlike you, I’m not young, and it was getting pretty brutal.”

Mariah took that in, thinking about the people she’d known who’d stayed too long in the competition arena, hoping for one more minute of glory. Almost worse than getting an injury that ended it all abruptly.

She spied Veronica coming back down the stairs. “Damn, she looks like she’s been crying. Don’t look! Let’s try to cheer her up.”

He covered her hand. “I’m in.”