Page 11 of Born in the Spring

Ialways come right out here, where my brother died, whenever I have the dream. Our last moment together, replayed, like my imagination sending me back in time to save him will somehow change what happened.

Everythingthat happened.

Likeeveryonewho’s gone will still be here.

Like this slope will be thick with cheering skiers and snowboarders again, instead of just mounds of untouched snow.

Like I won’t see the barricade tape, warning of danger if ventured past this point, when the only danger was my brother to himself.

My head hasn’t guilt tripped me like that in a long while. I do that mostly myself now, except it changes when I’m awake. I convince Shepherd not to wander off alone, and like in the dream, we’re walking back together, but then I look to my side and he’s gone. Because he’sreallygone. I look back, shout hisname, then run for the slope.

I don’t actually shout for him and run here, like I used to—it was one of my big scenes I finally stopped causing—but I still think about it.

I’m out here now waiting for Mom to find me so I can reopen the discussion of reopening this area. She wants to preserve the spot. But she can do that without closing it off entirely.

She’s just not ready to see the place where her son died come alive again.

I understand, because, for a while, I almost couldn’t bear to see that, either, but the resort needs the slope open. It was our lane with the most traffic, the one we’re most famous for—I scoff at that now. Closing it off hasn’t been the best for the business, and we’ve always had the best. We’ve worked too hard. We’reworthhaving our best. And Shepherd wouldn’t want it this way.

It’s past time. To me and everyone else who frequents here.

I tried reopening the subject on Shepherd’s birthday, as like this way to celebrate his life, taking down the barricades on even his favorite slope. Which sounds moronic to me now, but Mom made herself so busy I couldn’t even smooth the way for talking about it.

So, instead, I spent a lot of the day thinking about how Shepherd’s supposed to be my older brother. Then finally acknowledging that I’ll start catching up, and in twelve years, I’ll be the older brother. I’m twenty-three now, then I’ll turn twenty-four, then I’ll turn twenty-five. . .

I’ll keep aging and he’ll be thirty-four forever.

I’ll keep aging, taking his place as the eldest son, as I’ve already taken Dad’s place asman of the house.

I never hated my father growing up. He saw more potential in Shepherd than he did me, connected more with him than he did me, and it was what it was. He was mostly hands off, but he was still there. And I’ve always had Mom. So I never even hated Shepherd. It wasn’t his fault he was the most popular all the time and the most successful, and he had a little brother as his follower.

I brooded in envy, and even a bit of resentment, but I never felt hate, so deep in my core, until our dad started treating our mom that same way. Ihatehim for walking out on us. He had no reason to leave and more than one reason to stay. Mom wanted to stay, keep the resort running, but it became too much for him, so he abandoned ship.

He used to sit here more than I did. Sometimes even beating me to the bench. And Ihatethat I always think of him too when I sit here now. Of all the reminders of everything that’s changed and everything that hasn’t. Of how I joined him once, and when he got up a few moments after I sat down, once was enough for me to see that I would still never be Shepherd. I couldn’t even get close. I would still never be thechosen one. The star. I would still fall below the radar. Still sit in his shadow.

My parents are still in the separation stage, but the longer we go without hearing from Dad, the more time I spendprayingfor him to just give her a divorce. Give both of us a clean severing.

A successive slicing sound behind me links with the thought and loosens the grip in my clasped fingers as I glance back at Court, his feet mashing the snow. My chuckle is quiet and I relax back against the bench as he sits beside me, shaking my head at the scissors in his gloved hand.

“For you,” he says. “To cut the tape.”

“It doesn’t have to be cut,” I tell him, with my best sarcastic pity smile. Some good yanks will do it.

“Just trying to bring a laugh to this corner of the mountain. Your face looks like it needs it.” His face stays serious through his honest quipping.

My eyes flit to the scissors as he cuts at the air again, quipping back, “You need to put those away before you hurt yourself.”

“I only ran with them one time,” he defends himself—a lie, that I know of, just to go along with me—as he stuffs the scissors into the pocket of his jacket. Still so serious.

My own small smile fades to a full-faced squint back toward the sun, its setting bouncing bright off the snow. We both know a real laugh won’t happen up here. He’s been my best friend since we were teenagers, and he’s never shown his humor without his high hat on.

He shakes some snow from his dark mess of hair and I have to scrape the fallout from my jeans and sweater. I notice some wet residue is also around his shoulders, like he’s been rolling around in it—or wiped out on his board before calling it a session and coming to me. When he’s not wearing all the proper gear, he’s just horsing around, so I don’t bitch at him. The gloves then click into place too, and as he opens his mouth, I know the ballpark of where he’s about to steer us now.

“Kaeden’s asking for you.”

I shift my back against the wood, pressing more into its cold. “He passed his lessons last season.”

“New arrivals are asking for you too.”

---