Page 5 of Avalanche
“That was better. Maybe your best one yet?” Snow flies as Tessa pulls to a stop below me. She’s grinning, her smile white as the snow around us, her cheeks flushed from cold. She looks as if she’s just gone for a casual stroll, and not dropped down a few hundred feet of steep, ice coated moguls.
Gloved hands lift up her goggles as she squints at me through the midday sunlight. “You’re doing heaps better. You’ve got real good technique and your demos are mint. You’ve just gotta stop doubting yourself on the steeper stuff.”
I give her a dubious, half-hearted smile and tilt my head to the run we’ve just come down. Steeper is an understatement, I want to say, but I’m still trying to catch my breath. That slope was practically vertical.
“You’ve got lessons this avo?" she asks.
I nod.
Tessa hums sympathetically. “Same. It’s bloody brutal, isn’t it?” She flicks her goggles back on, then bends to brush snow off the knees of her uniform. “I mean, the tips have been great, but this is the first hour I’ve had off in two weeks.”
My throat tightens and I’m suddenly hit with the overwhelming urge to cry. Maybe because this is the first hour I’ve had off in two weeks, too. Maybe because I’ve been going from lesson to lesson each day, working without lunch or even bathroom breaks from before the sun comes up until after the lights for night skiing decorate the slopes.
Maybe because, out of everything she could be doing, Tessa offered to use the first hour she’s had off to come help me train.
“Oh shit.” Tessa’s eyes widen in alarm behind her goggles. “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”
I shake my head, but my trembling lower lip betrays me.
Before I know it, Tessa is unclipping her back foot from her board and hobbling up the hill, clearing the short space between us in a matter of seconds and wrapping her arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” I wail, my face pressed against her shoulder. Her jacket is cold and rough against my face, and I’m probably getting snot on it. “I’m fine. I promise.”
Tessa pulls back, gripping my shoulders in her hands and giving me a disbelieving look.
“No, you’re not. And you shouldn’t be, either. No one should be alright after doing this job for weeks without stopping.” She waves one hand at the ice-crusted pines, at the people rushing past on their skis and boards in a flurry of expensive gear and flying snow, at the resort nestled at the base of the mountain below us. “These hours would be illegal in Australia, you know. In most countries. We put up with it because the tips are great and because we really don’t have a choice, not unless we want to get fired and have our work visas cancelled. But it still fucking sucks.”
There’s a sharpness to Tessa’s voice that I’ve never heard before. I blink at her in surprise from behind my goggles.
“Ask Liam or Eddie,” she continues. “They’ll tell you. It’s not like this in Australia and I doubt it’s like this in New Zealand, either. I mean, it’s not perfect, and sometimes you still end up with an idiot for a manager and the mountain is always trying to pay you less than you deserve, but at least you can get a break to take a piss.”
Her words swirl around me like snowflakes caught on the wind. I try to make sense of them. But my mind is a fog of exhaustion, and it’s hard to conceptualize anything but this—the mountain, the condo, the guys. It’s hard to imagine what working as a snowboard instructor in New Zealand would be like.
Truthfully, I haven’t even allowed myself to think that far ahead. Because if I don’t pass my New Zealand snowboard instructor’s course, if I don’t get my certificate, I’ll be flying back home to Hawaii. In disgrace. Completely broke. And at the mercy of my parents.
“I just want to pass.” The words wheeze out of me, my throat tight. “I just want to pass the exam.”
Tessa’s lips pull into a tight smile, her gloved hands squeezing my shoulders. “You will.” She says it like an oath, like a promise. “We’ve got heaps of time to train, okay. But you’ve got to rest too. Sleep. Eat. Hang out with the guys.” She pauses, then gives a small smirk and adds teasingly: “With Liam.”
My cheeks heat, my gaze dropping to the snow-covered boots still strapped to my board as guilt twists uncomfortably in my stomach. I still haven’t told her. I mean, I think she knows about me and Liam, but I haven’t told her about the other guys. I’m not even sure where to start. What sort of opening line do you use to begin that conversation? Oh, by the way, I’m actually dating all of my roommates.
“Yeah. Okay,” I tell her weakly.
“I’m serious, Lily.” She releases my shoulders, then bends to strap in her back foot again. Our break is almost over. We’ll both need to be at the private lesson line-up in a few minutes. “I’ve known lots of riders who burnt themselves out training too hard. Shin splints, bone spurs on your feet—that’s the sort of thing that can put your training back a month or longer. When you’re tired, that’s when injuries happen.”
I nod along. She’s right. I know she’s right. But she doesn’t know what is at stake here.
This isn’t just me wanting to be able to get a pay raise or wanting to travel to New Zealand. If I don’t get my certificate, what I have with the guys will be over. Maybe not at the end of this season, but eventually we’ll drift apart. They’ll continue on, chasing winter around the globe, and I won’t.
“That means no more gym after work.” Tessa gives me a pointed look over her shoulder before turning the nose of her board downhill.
“Your boyfriend is a narc,” I tell her, laughing as I tag after her down the run.
Jason, Tessa’s boyfriend, trains at the small gym Liam first took me to several weeks ago. The first time he saw me there, he’d given me a wordless chin tilt in greeting as he pounded a punching bag. I almost thought maybe he didn’t recognize me. Since then, he’s said hi to me. Even smiled.
“He knows who he reports to,” Tessa replies airily. “A fact you’d best remember if you try to sneak in extra gym time when you should be resting.”
Green and white fly around us, blurring in my periphery as we race to the base of the resort. It gets busier as we reach the easier slopes, the gentle incline packed with learner skiers and boarders, with crying children and grumbling parents, with the laughing faces of people on vacation. We’re forced to slow down, both of us sinking into graceful, careful turns. Both of us conscious of our uniforms, of the eyes that always follow us.
