Page 2 of Since Always

"Oh, okay. Well, I'll leave you to it," I say, not able to stand it anymore.

He doesn't move, so I have to step around him in order to leave. I am out the door and almost to my room when he seems to come out of whatever trance he has been in and steps out of his door.

"Are you going out there?" he asks. His voice isn't cold, but it's not warm either.

"Yeah. I'm gonna get ready now."

"Your mom and Chris are on Aspen Mountain. Well, right now they are at Charlie's Bar and Grill, downtown."

"Happy hour?"

"Yeah."

I crack a smile. My mother has been a literal billionaire for almost twenty years, and you still can barely pull her away from BOGO appetizers.

"Well, then they'll probably be there for a while." I am trying to sound as casual as possible. Trying desperately to make any of this at all normal.

I see some of the tension in his face break. He smiles back at me. My chest constricts, some small ray of hope piercing its way out of the darkness.

Maybe we can do this. Be friends. Get something somewhat close to normal back.

His eyes slip again, glancing down to my bare legs. I can feel them there, traveling up my thighs, knowing how little is between him and what hides beneath. Parts of my body respond as though he is actually touching me.

He clears his throat and shifts back towards his room.

"I'll see you out there soon. I should make my call."

"Yeah. Sure. See you out there later," I say. But he has already retreated out of view.

I rush into my room and close the door behind me, leaning against the wall. I cringe and shut my eyes to erase the moment from my memory, as though I haven't spent the last two years trying to erase memories.

As though I have ever been successful.

He doesn't show up for the rest of the afternoon. That's the thing I love the most about snowboarding, though; it's hard to think about my problems when I am on a run. Hard to dwell on the awkward moment this morning or the awful day two years ago that caused it. It's impossible not to just be here, now. To not focus on the slope ahead of me and my center of gravity and the wind ripping across my face. On the lifts, I shift uncomfortably with my thoughts, but the second my board hits the ground, my mind is clear.

Meditation doesn't have to happen on a mat.

I meet up with my mom and brother when they get back from the bar and do a few runs together. I am the last one of us to leave the mountain. Mom and Chris claim exhaustion and blame their "advanced ages" before heading home, though I remind them it might have something to do with the afternoon they just spent drinking.

By the time I get back to the house, it's already dark and they have all left for dinner. I scramble to get ready to meet them.

I use a guest bathroom to shower off this time. I'm not taking that chance again.

At our favorite local restaurant, the hostess leads me to a table in a dim back corner. Mariachi music plays overhead and the smell of onions and bell peppers filling the air has my stomach rumbling. At the table, my family is already seated. My mom and Owen sit next to one another on one side, and I take an empty chair next to my brother.

"I ordered you a margarita," my mom says to me before I am even settled in the seat. "It feels like a tequila kind of night."

"Oh good," I say, "I was hoping to get wasted and end up dancing on the table."

"Ah yes," Chris says, rolling his eyes. His face is still pink from the cold. My father passed down his pale skin and hazel eyes to both my brother and me, but while I got my mother's dirty blonde hair, Chris inherited our dad's ginger hair, freckles, and often rosy cheeks. “I can just see the headline now: US Senator, Owen Blaze, Thrown Out of Mexican Restaurant with 22-year-old Heiress."

Owen chuckles. "Leave me out of this."

"Don't call me that," I say, kicking Chris's leg under the table. "You know I hate it."

"Why? That's weird. I get called an heir all the time. It's just...a fact."

"Maybe, but 'heir' has no negative connotation. You hear 'heir' you think 'to the throne.' Power. Strength."

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