I could see her appeal—she was comely with dark hair, long limbs, and breasts that seemed far too big for her slender frame—but I didn’t want to think that this was the kind of girl Luke was into. The kind whose hair was always perfect and makeup piled on. I suddenly realized what kind of girl I wanted him to like: me. I also didn’t see how he could be interested in anyone who wasn’t a skier.

“Whatever, I guess I’m the only one who cares about seeing Blair.”

“Bomber, don’t be a pain about this, we’re just watching it at her place. I’d invite you but . . .”

I rolled my eyes and huffed dramatically.

“Can you just get to know her at some point? Please? For me?” He threw his arm around me and my heartbeat quickened. God, when had that happened? We’d all been friends for so long. “Come on.”

“Fine,” I said, smiling and nestling into his armpit—we’d always been physically close, the three of us, our lives being so hyperfocused on our bodies. “Bring her up with us then, tomorrow. I’ll be nice, I promise.”

“Atta girl,” he said, ruffling my hair. He wasn’t much taller than me, though at six foot three he towered over most girls. Blair was a hair over six feet, meaning we were almost exactly the same height.

Was I planning it? Subconsciously I must have been. Bring her up with us. I was challenging her on my own turf, after all. And I knew that she was an intermediate snowboarder at best.

Predictably, Breanna spent the day tumbling over even the most unimpressive of moguls and generally slowing us all down. Luke has never been patient, and he certainly wasn’t when he was nineteen. I could practically feel his attraction to her leaking out of him on each successive run.

“Jesus,” Luke said, stopping to laboriously backtrack up the hill to make sure she was okay after her tenth fall of the day.

I could have predicted he’d dump her, but I wasn’t ready to imagine what came next.

A few days later, as we were finishing up at the gym, he said, “Hey, let’s ski backcountry tomorrow. There’s supposed to be fresh pow.”

The snow was perfect—the kind of airy powder that makes us all better skiers than we’d otherwise be. I took my training seriously, but there was nothing like just being on the mountain with my friends. It returned me to my primal love for the sport: the brisk air, the spray of snow, the connectedness with the natural world, the spikes of fear and adrenaline and joy that pumped through my veins. I don’t remember learning to ski; I only remember that my life was always divided into skiing and everything else, which naturally faded into the background.