Page 18 of Twisted Trails
And if it is, and she wants me to stay.
I can’t imagine I’ll ever leave.
CHAPTER FOUR
Alaina
The mirror is too clean.
I don’t even have to lean over the sink to see my cracked skin, the bruise under my jaw, or the exhaustion that rims my eyes with something brittle I don’t have a name for anymore.
My hair is still caked with dried mud, sweat, and whatever dignity I lost in the aftermath of what went down in the gondola, and all I want is to stand under the hot spray until it melts everything off me. Wash away the crash, the hospital, the panic in Dane’s voice, the hurt in Mason’s eyes, the way Finn’s lips tasted, and the way his fingers felt.
Besidesother things.
But instead, I’m here, ass freezing, trying to stretch medical-grade plastic over a limb that doesn’t cooperate. The stupid crinkly shit they gave me at the hospital to slip over my cast and keep it dry is simple enough in theory, but with only one good hand, it’s turned into my first nemesis of the day.
“Fuck,” I hiss, trying again, nearly knocking over a glass jar of cotton pads in the process.
I won’t ask Dane for help, not again. We’ve done this before, me broken and bleeding, him picking up the pieces. I’ve taken enough from him, and I won’t ask him to be my nurse again. I don’t want to be some tragic responsibility that never asked to be born but still landed in his lap anyway.
I tug harder, getting the plastic halfway on before it slips and pops off with a snap. My head drops with a thud against the cool tile of the wall.
Fuck!
The strong painkillers they gave me make everything feel far away. The ache in my hip is a whisper now, a memory dulled to a gentle hum. If I could feel this way all the time, numb but functional, I might actually start to believe life could be livable again, like Dane promised.
But nausea is curling low in my stomach, a bitter reminder that long-term use of this shit is already carving out pieces of me, and I know the road painkillers lead down. I’ve been skating the edge of it since the first surgery.
A thought of Mason’s mom flashes through my mind.
The overdose. The quiet, easy way out that I once told myself would be mine too. But now, the thought makes my stomach churn harder because I remember the way Mason looked when he told me, how his voice cracked, and his hands trembled.
Shit.
Now, even imagining doing the same thing feels like betraying him. And fuck if I haven’t done enough of that already.
Standing naked in the en suite bathroom of one of the guest rooms in Luc’s mom’s house, I grip the sink with my good hand and try to process how I got here. Élise Delacroix walked into the hospital yesterday like she was the goddamn queen of France and announced to us that as soonas I was released, we’d be coming home with her. I don’t know what Luc told her, orhow muchhe told her, but she didn’t even blink when Dane called me Alaina.
Dane tried to argue that we’d go back to the bus, but Élise looked at him once, and he folded like a cheap derailleur, and maybe it was because I was still high from the medication, but I just didn’t have the strength to say no.
So I let it happen.
Like I apparently leteverythinghappen to me now.
The crash. Losing my V-card. The disaster that followed—my secret cracking wide open for everyone to see. It all hit at once, and now the fracture lines are spiraling in every direction. I’m the epicenter of it all, but I don’t even remember the quake, just the rubble it left behind.
We were supposed to drive to Val di Sole and spend the short break until the next race in the mountains there, filling our time with pasta, pizza, and naps between training sessions. Breathe. Prepare for the final stretch of the season,the final few weeks of my life.
But now, I’m here, in a house that’s more like a chateau, because the towels are fluffier than anything I’ve ever owned, and the tiles are warm. Maybe there’s heating under the floor? I got out of a bed that didn’t dip from a busted spring or hum with the distant rattle of the bus engine, and whether we leave tomorrow or the day after is just one more decision I don’t have to make yet.
Piper and Otis, who Dane let in on the secret when we arrived at the house, are here, crashing with Luc for the break, but Finn is not. He’s in a nearby hotel, even though I told Dane he could stay here, too, but Dane said Finn wanted it that way. It would’ve been fine, because honestly, we’ve had enough practice pretending the other doesn’t exist the last few weeks.
My gaze flicks back to the mirror, and I wipe my finger across it, smudging the reflection right at my eyeline with a squeak.
I don’t know whether he chose to stay elsewhere because I asked for space, or because Finn actuallywantsit. Maybe he’s glad to be gone. Glad to be away fromme. And that thought, that maybe he’s relieved to be rid of me, hurts more than anything I can name.
God.
