Lost: A New Adult Contemporary Romance Part 6

I watch as she takes off, but I don't follow her. I'm not ready to go quite yet.

I skate up to the edge, look down, and take a deep breath. It is so early in the morning that the snow is still fresh and the course nearly empty. The world is silent around me but for the wind, and for the first time in a very long time, things are simple.

It's just my board, the snow, and me. It's time for me to fly.

I start slowly-cutting back and forth, weaving, relearning the moves that I've mostly forgotten-and I let myself go faster and faster as my confidence builds. I don't know if it's the fresh, cold air or the empty mountain around me, but I don't care that I'm out in public now or that there will be people waiting for me at the bottom. I feel fantastic as I soar down the mountain. Nothing could possibly go wrong today!

The wind is so loud around me that I can't even recognize it anymore. It's a strange, white silence instead, blocking out everything but the mountain and the wonderful feeling of freedom. I decide to be a little more daring, and I cut to the left and weave between two trees. My laughter can't keep up with me as I fly down the mountain, and I leave it behind for the next person down to hear.

I briefly contemplate trying to jump, maybe even do a flip, but I quickly slam the door on that idea. No way-I'm not that good! I let myself go even faster, though, and bask in the exhilarating thrill and the feeling of freedom as I surge down the slope.

Craig and Tina are both waiting for me when I finally reach the bottom, but Craig's friend is nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, where'd your buddy go?" I ask, panting excitedly. I can feel a huge smile working its way across my face and I want to get back on the lift and go again!

"Oh... um, he's not very good at this. He probably fell a lot."

Five minutes later, Craig's friend finally comes into sight. He slowly weaves back and forth as he goes down the slope, and by his fifth tumble, I have to agree with Craig. His friend is terrible.

"At least he's trying!" I think. If I didn't already know how to s...o...b..ard, would I have come at all? Probably not. He's braver than I am.

He falls over twice just trying to make it down the final two-hundred feet of the slope. By the third fall, the grade is too flat to make it the rest of the way to us. He pounds the snow with his gloved fist, unclips from his board, and runs the rest of the way to us.

"Alright, there'll be plenty of time to rest on the ride up! Let's go again!" shouts Tina. She hoots loudly, pegs Craig in the face with a s...o...b..ll and then bursts out laughing as she books it for the chair lift.

"Oh you b.i.t.c.h!" shouts Craig, and he takes off after her.

By the time I clip into my board and start skating after them, they're already on a chair and heading up the mountain together. I catch one quick glimpse of Craig shoving snow down the back of her scarf before they disappear behind the trees.

As I wait for the next chair, I glance nervously back at Craig's friend as he clumsily skates after me, and I take a deep breath.

I can do this. Nothing can happen on a ski lift. I'll be just fine.

Suddenly, an idea strikes me. What if Tina planned this?

I start to laugh. She totally did. She planned this whole d.a.m.ned thing, didn't she? She took off with Craig and left me behind with one of his friends-someone they both know is trustworthy-to force me to talk to a guy.

No way. Not doing it. I'll just go up alone.

"Come on. What could possibly happen on a ski lift?"

The thought bursts across my mind just as I'm about to hop on a chair and leave him behind, and I hesitate for just too long. The chair pa.s.ses me by before I can get into position.

"No, nothing could go wrong," I whisper, trying my hardest to convince myself it's true.

Tina's right; I have to do this. I have to force myself to talk to people again. As hard as I try, I can't think of anything that could possibly happen while I freeze my b.u.t.t off fifty feet up in the air. I can do this. I can sit next to a guy for fifteen minutes and talk to him.

"Come on! Let's beat them to the bottom this time!" I shout back to him, and I dash for the next chair.

When I look back over my shoulder, he's standing dead in his tracks as if he's seen a ghost.

"Hurry up or I'm going without you!" I shout, waving to him, and he snaps out of his trance and hurries to catch up with me.

The lift slowly turns the corner, and I carefully line up my board so that I glide safely onto the chair. Craig's friend tries to emulate me, but he only barely makes it on without getting crushed.

"Now starts the hard part," I think as the chair takes off and pulls me high into the air. I'm sitting next to a guy I don't even know, and I'm going to be here for almost fifteen minutes.

"Relax... you can do this," I think to myself, but my heart pounds all the same.

"Jesus Christ, how do you make getting onto this deathtrap look so easy?" exclaims Craig's friend, and I freeze like a deer meeting its first pair of headlights as I recognize his voice.

No way. She didn't do that. Tina would not have done this to me!

Owen takes off his goggles and then his scarf, using the end of it to wipe away the fog forming on the inside of his lenses.

Tina put me on a ski lift with Owen.

I'm going to kill her. If I make it off this chair without having a heart attack, I'm absolutely, totally going to kill her for this.

I feel panic start to rise inside me. I would run away from him, but there's nowhere I can go! I'm stuck on this chair, sitting right next to him, for fifteen minutes. My heart races in my chest, and I feel like I'm going to faint.

He looks over at me, and suddenly his eyes go almost as wide as mine.

"Maria?" he asks incredulously.

I nod silently.

He closes his eyes and sighs, and as he looks away, I suddenly realize that he hadn't recognized me with my helmet on.

"I'm gonna f.u.c.king kill him for this," he mutters under his breath.

Just like that, the ice is broken. Maybe it's more like a single brick falling out of a wall between us. I don't know-I'm terrible with metaphors! What I do know is that as I heard him, I warmed up a little. He doesn't want to be here either, and that's a good enough start for me.

Now I just need to work up the nerve to talk to him.

I stare over the railing of the chair lift at the snow-covered ground far below. It looks so peaceful. I wish I could be down there instead of being stuck up here in nervous-land.

"Hey, Maria?"

His voice makes me jump, but I force myself to turn and look at him.

"I... well, I wanted to apologize for getting you upset back at the exam."

My eyes go wide. I don't know what I expected him to say, but that certainly wasn't it.

"It's okay," I try to answer, but my words come out as a nearly inaudible whisper. It takes me three tries to get the words out, and I'm already starting to get frustrated with myself. Just talk! Why can't I just talk to him like a normal human being?

"You okay?" he asks, and I turn away from him.

"I... I'm sorry. I just don't do well around people. I get too nervous," I answer. I feel like I'm shouting at the top of my lungs, but only the weakest of croaks is coming out.

I'm terrified. I don't want to talk to him!

"Sorry... I'll be quiet and leave you alone. I'm just... well... I just wanted to talk to you."

I look silently down at the deep snow beneath us. I'm high up in the air with freezing wind howling around us. Nothing can hurt me. He can't do anything!

"For G.o.d's sake, Maria, talk to him!" I scream inside my own head, but I can still barely get a word out.

"It's okay," I say, finally managing to force a few words out of my mouth. "Bear with me, please... I'm just nervous."

Suddenly, the lift creaks to a stop.

Owen and I stare awkwardly at each other as the chair sways back and forth in the high wind. If this isn't a sign, I don't know what is. Even Greek Peak wants me to get out of my sh.e.l.l.

"Sure you don't want me to leave you alone?" he asks.

"No!" I blurt out, much louder and stronger than I meant to. I turn away as my face gets hot. G.o.d, I'm so worthless. Just talk to him!

"No, I'm okay," I repeat, this time at normal volume. "Sorry about that."

"You don't have to apologize," he answers with a smile. "Don't worry about it."

"Oh... sorry."

He bursts out laughing, and I turn red and look down at the trees below us.

"I saw you fly past me on the last run," says Owen after a long silence. "You're really good."

"Thanks," I answer quietly. I'm starting to feel awkward at being in the spotlight again, even though it's only the two of us.

"Do you come here a lot?"

"No," I answer. "I haven't gone s...o...b..arding since I was a freshman, and only once then."

"Jeez! That's awesome!"

"You missed my face-plant while getting off the lift earlier today."

"You missed me face-planting the entire way down the mountain," he counters.

I can't help but giggle at the image in my mind of him flopping head over heels the entire way down the slope, and he grins at me. I take a deep breath and rack my mind for a question for him. It shouldn't be this hard.

"Where are you from?" I finally ask.

"Long Island."

"Where, though? Everyone here is from Long Island or Jersey."

I can't help but feel proud of myself. I actually found a few words! That just doesn't happen; my brain usually locks up when I have to talk to guys.

"Oh... um... Montauk," he says awkwardly.

"Seriously? Wow."

"Why? What's so amazing about Montauk?"

"Well, other than the beaches, you just don't meet people from that far out," I answer. "Everyone I meet is from Queens or Na.s.sau."

"Yeah... I'm a bit out there," he says, shrugging.

"A bit? You can't go any further!"

"Well, where are you from?" he counters, clearly sick of me poking fun at Montauk.

"Promise you won't judge?"

"Nope. No promises at all!" he answers with a wide, toothy grin. I can't help but laugh.

"North Arlington, New Jersey. It's like twenty minutes outside Newark."

"Oof. Sorry."

"Oh it's not that bad," I argue.

"Are you kidding me? Newark?"

He looks at me like I have three heads, and I cross my arms and shake my head.

"No, not Newark! Newark sucks. I meant North Arlington. It's just your normal Jersey town."

"So... impossible left turns, narrow streets, and the worst snow-plows north of the Mason-Dixon?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

I can't really argue with him on any of those points. They're all true. Instead, I go on the offensive and push the focus back to Montauk and away from mocking my hometown.

"So, you live out at Montauk... are you big on beaches then?"

"Ehh... not really. I stay here during the summer," he answers. "I... I like Ithaca better."

I don't know if I'm just used to looking for strange things in people, but my eyes suddenly dart down to his hands. He's clenching his fists so tightly that he's shaking.

I look back up at him again, and he immediately looks away from me. I've hit a nerve by talking about home.

"It's pretty nice here in the summer," I say, trying to soften the conversation.

"Yeah..."