Page 181 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
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TRACY WOLFF
I CAN’T BELIEVE I won. Even more, I can’t believe I won here. In Taos. The place I left three years ago, so desperate to escape that I couldn’t wait until dawn. I drove out of town—bruised, battered, bleeding—in the middle of the night, blocking out everything but my need to get away. Even Dyani. Especially Dyani.
I was terrified that if I let myself think about her, I’d never leave. And I had to go, had to get away. Before I ended up dead. Or worse, just like my old man.
But now I’m back, and it all feels . . . surreal. This trip. My runs on the mountain. The medal that is even now burning a hole in my pocket.
Surreal, because I’m here.
Surreal, because she isn’t.
I’ve never been in Taos without her next to me, and the need to call her, to reach out, is a wild agony within me. I reach for my phone, for the name and contact info I’ve transferred from phone to phone numerous times in the last three years. I start to hit call, so desperate for the sound of her voice that I no longer care that doing so will mess up her life—and my own.
But in the end, I don’t do it. I can’t. Too much time and too much history stretches between us. Instead, I blank the screen, shove the stupid thing into my back pocket, and try to focus on something else. Anything else.
I pick up a handful of snow, mold it into a snowball, and pitch it over the edge of the cliff right in front of me. I watch it tumble into the abyss, waiting for that moment when it disappears. That one moment when I know it’s still there even thought I can’t see it anymore. It’s that moment that’s kept me going these last three years, that moment that let me come back here even though, on leaving, I’d sworn never to step foot in this town again.
For three long years, I’d kept that promise to myself. But when my sponsors put on the pressure for me to appear at this competition, it wasn’t like I could really say no. Not if I wanted to keep them. And not if I wanted to keep competing on the professional circuit. The Olympic trials are coming up next month and I need all the exposure—all the points-—I can get.
So here I am. With a gold medal in superpipe from one of the top snowboarding competitions in the world. It’s been two hours since they hung it around my neck and still I can’t wrap my mind around it.
The medal is heavy where it lies against my leg, but I know that has more to do with what it means than its actual weight. Part of me wants to take it out, to look at it in the moonlight. To just savor the fact that I did it. That after five years of boarding professionally, I finally got my first first-place medal.
I hope it won’t be my last.
My sponsors are psyched. Already they’re talking about bumping up my visibility in their ad campaigns, really getting my face out there before the next big competition. If things go according to their plans, a lot of people will know my name by the time the Dew Tour rolls around next month. And after that, the X Games.
This is the second year in a row that I’ve gotten an invite to compete on superpipe, but the first where anyone thinks I might actually be able to make a showing. Any other time I’d be beyond stoked, beyond wired. This is what I’ve been working for all along and it’s finally here.
But right now that doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing does, because right now, all I feel is empty.
It pisses me off. I’ve worked too hard to get to this point to not give a shit about what happens next. But—
“I thought I’d find you here.”
I stiffen at the voice, certain that my need for her has pushed me over the edge into aural hallucinations. But when I turn to look over my shoulder, there she is. She’s in a bright red ski jacket and beanie that do amazing things for her jet-black hair and dark, Native American complexion.
She’s beautiful, so beautiful, and for long seconds I can’t do anything but stare at her.
“Dyani.”
“Gage.” She smirks at me, but I can see the temper simmering in her eyes. Then again, it’s always been like that. No matter what expression she plasters on her face, I’ve always been able to tell how she really feels by staring into her jet-black gaze.
“What are you doing here?” I scramble up from the boulder where I’ve been sitting.
“I think that’s my line, isn’t it?” She crosses the area between us, her well-worn boots crunching on the snow. “I looked for you in town. Thought you’d be celebrating your first big win.”
“How’d you know?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy, and maybe I am. Right now I can’t say anything for certain except that seeing her again has turned me inside out. “I was there.”
“You were?”
“You thought you would come back to compete in Taos and I wouldn’t be there?” She shakes her head like she’s disappointed in me. Or worse, like she doesn’t know me anymore. Which I can understand. Most days, I don’t even know myself. “Where else would I be, Gage?”
