“Should we go on the count of three? One… two…”

I push off on my poles at two, and let momentum pull me forward as my skis tilt onto the modest slope. And I’m flying, albeit at a rather leisurely speed. I barely have to move my legs—the mountain moves me, and wind and cold carry me as I glide along past everything. Past trees, past children, past Jack, even. The world somehow blurs and becomes more sharply focused at the same time, and this is new.

This is everything. I hunch lower, using my poles to move faster, to let my body exist in this new way. It protests slightly, unaccustomed to actual movement, but even as my muscles ache, my body also sings. I’ve been frozen for so long, and I feel like I’m climbing out of my icy confinements to rediscover the world isn’t as terrible as I remembered.

I turn my head to the left and see Jack there, where she said she’d be, right beside me. Looking at me, too. And I wonder how much longer I have to look at her.

It’s while I’m looking at her that I miss a small mound of densely packed snow. I hit it just right, and my right ski flies up and my left ski flies sideways, and if I am not mistaken, I think I do the splits midair before I fall firmly on my ass and roll several times before I come to a stop in the middle of the trail.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I hear Jack shout as she comes to a controlled stop beside me. She drops to her knees and rips her goggles off. “Are you okay? Elle, say something!”

I explode with laughter.

“Shit.” Jack shifts her weight so she’s no longer leaning over me like she’s about to administer CPR. “I thought you snapped your spinal cord or something.”

“I thought you said you were going to enjoy watching me fall?”

“Oh, fuck you.” But she’s smiling. And I’m smiling. I just skied for the first time. “Can you get up?”

I nod, but my sore ass begs to differ. Jack reaches out to grab my hand. In one effortless maneuver, she hoists me off the ground. It’s not at all sexy. The laughter doesn’t get caught in my throat or at this display of strength.

“Want to keep going?” she asks.

I absolutely do. If this is the last day I get to spend with Jack, I want to spend it flying down a mountain beside her.

Chapter Twenty-One