Page 50 of The Mountain
I turn to give her a wry smile, then add: “Give it another season and I bet you could even go heliboarding if you wanted.”
Her expression lights up with pure, almost childlike exhilaration at my declaration, then hardens with determination as she looks back toward the distant ridge. I follow her gaze, squinting through my goggles against the sun as I try to make out those far-off figures.
And that’s when my whole world crumbles.
Chapter 17
Lily
I’ve seen avalanches on video before. Short snips on TikTok. Grainy educational videos in the training room under Liam’s bored gaze, before I got my instructor’s certificate.
I’m completely unprepared.
It starts off small, a few teasing snowballs that trail in the wake of a barely discernable skier. At first, it looks like nothing, like it will amount to nothing. And then the whole mountainside peels away, slipping like icing melting off a cake, like snow slipping off a roof. Only a million times bigger.
Snow rises up, clouding like slow-motion explosions in an adrenaline-fueled movie, sending snaking tendrils toward a cloudless sky. It swallows everything—the trees, the giant boulder. The five figures making their way down that fresh-powder run.
The sound comes after, rumbling like distant thunder against the mountain. Strangely muted compared to the screaming in my heart.
I press my icy gloves to my face, a wordless cry catching in my throat, panic and nausea twisting frantically in my stomach. The lift lurches to a stop, and we dangle above the glistening tops of fir trees, the top of the lift at least a hundred yards away. Helpless. So helpless.
“Lily?” Jackie’s voice is faint, barely audible against thewhoosh, whoosh, whooshof my heart. A firm hand on my shoulder. “Lily?”
The clouds of snow clear, settling on a scarred landscape, flawless white now streaked with brown and green and gray. The underbelly of the earth exposed alongside trees and dead grass and rocks and ice and snow.
A whimper catches in my throat. I can’t see them. I can’t see them anywhere.
“Lily?”
The lift is moving again, but everything seems to be happening in hyperspeed now, like someone paused time and is fast-forwarding to catch back up. Trees whip past, momentarily hiding the distant slope from view.
“That was them,” I rasp, fumbling blindly to strip off my gloves, holding them between my knees as I claw at my coat pocket for my phone. “My guys. That was them.”
My fingers are slick with sweat, my phone nearly slipping through them as I pull it free with trembling hands. Tears prick my vision, hot and aching, causing my goggles to steam. I liftthem up to my helmet, then quickly dial Seth’s number—the last number I called—and hold the phone to my ear.
It rings and rings and rings.
“Lily, the lift...”
The safety bar moves up and, moments later, my board is thudding and scraping against the icy ramp at the top of the lift. I stand, gliding down the ramp on autopilot, barely aware of Jackie shuffling alongside me. I crane my neck, trying to see the ruined slope, but it’s hidden from view, tucked on the other side of a hill and a thick line of pines.
“Here. Come over here.” She grips my arm, guiding me to a low bench beneath an oversized map of the resort. “Sit down.”
I obey, knees buckling, board skidding out from under me as I land with a thud, then press dial on my phone again. I try Antoine this time.
Nothing.
“They’re not answering,” I whimper, giving Jackie a beseeching look. As if she somehow has the power to peel back the snow. To find my guys where they’re buried beneath. To bring them to me. “Why aren’t they answering?”
“Lily. Take a deep breath.” She grips my shoulders, turning me to face her. Making me meet her eyes with my own. “That avalanche we just saw—you think your roommates were caught up in it?”
Roommates.
That word rolls around in my head, feeling like a lie. Worse, like an insult. Like I’ve reduced the most incredible connectionI’ve ever shared with five other people down to an impersonal, commercial arrangement.
I see it then, my future, sharp and brittle as uncracked ice.
A little house somewhere, the snow piling up outside, a fireplace crackling. A dog curled up on a rug, ski coats and boots dripping from a day out in the snow, my muscles aching from a day teaching snowboarding. Seth and Antoine shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen, smiling at each other, speaking in French. Matty and Eddie on the couch, laughing at something on the television. Liam coming from the shower, his dark hair curling over his forehead, his lips curving down in mock disapproval, even as his gray eyes tilt up with silent amusement.
