“Hallie,” says one of my cousins—one of the high school–aged ones. Lydia is a freshman and everybody kind of wants to protect her; she’s just that kind of person. She grabs my biceps and pulls me in the room, then shuts the door conspiratorially. “We’ve been laying a plan.”
Lydia waggles her eyebrows. “The cousins are sneaking out tomorrow afternoon.”
My face never hides surprise (or anything) particularly well, so I assume this is why practically everyone in the room collapses into laughter.
“Seriously?” I say, looking back at the most serious, oldest person in the room (Tzipporah) for confirmation.
Tzipporah, who I can usually trust to be a rule-follower (like yours truly) smiles slow and sly, berry-colored lips going from studious to mischievous. “You up for it?”
I scoff like, Duh. Wouldn’t miss it. Psshhh, of course I am. Ha ha. This seems fine.
“She’s not up for it,” says Jolie, and I shoot a look at her.
“You traitor,” I say.
“Come on, look at you. You’re about to pass out.”
“I am not about to pass out. I’m fine.”
Jolie stares at me, clearly nonplussed and cocky about her maddeningly correct reading of me.
“I’m studying to be a firefighter, Jolie; I’m not risk-averse.” Cool. Say more stuff like “risk-averse.” “If I can handle charging into a burning building, I think I can handle sneaking out. Jesus.”
“Yeah,” Lydia pipes in. “She’s a firefighter.”
I say, “Well, I’m like half a paramedic.”
Lydia wrinkles her nose. “Aren’t those, like, totally different?”
I scratch at my ponytail. The sudden attention of everyone on me while I explain the intricacies of my career choice is kind of a lot. I’m practically mumbling. When I say, “Kind of but like, being a paramedic or an EMT is the best way to become a firefighter. So that’s . . . yeah, anyway. Anyway I’m just saying. I’m not prissy, Jolie.”
Jolie looks a little shamed, a little called out, and says, “Hey, I’m sorry. I was messing with you.”
“I know,” I say, although I’m not totally sure it’s true. Like I said, I love Jolie; she’s my favorite cousin. It just sometimes feels like . . . like I’ve been stifled in Massachusetts. Like growing up with my parents and away from the entire rest of my family that lives in Colorado has forced me into being this totally separate person from everyone else and I hate being singled out. Because I don’t . . . I don’t want to be That Person. I just want to be a Jacob.
“So,” I say, mustering a confidence I don’t really feel. Really amping myself for some rule-breaking, hell yeah, fun, THAT’S HOW WE HAVE FUN. JUST. SHATTERING SOME RULES. THEY WON’T KNOW WHAT HIT THEM. THAT IS ME. AND THAT’S HOW THIS SOUNDS. F-U-N. “What’s the plan?”
The plan, as it turns out, is to wait until late afternoon, when all the parents are exhausted from the back pain of barreling down a mountain and wish to retire to their wine and cheese. Then we send a scout (Tzipporah) to inform them that some of the elder youths are having a cousin night and we will be out late—dinner and exploring the little mountain town.
When we get the all-clear, we head out with coats, snacks, and various party provisions (the over-21s understand this to mean ALCOHOL, PLEASE, and at least a few of them understand it to mean weed, because that’s apparently the only thing that makes Colorado tolerable). We meet up in the parking lot, divide into cars, and head down the mountain to Old Snowy Ridge.
Snowy Ridge is where we are now. It’s where we’ve gone for years—where all the rich folks (or way-less-than-rich family of rich folks who don’t bother to consider the toll that might take on them for family meetups, sorry, Jaxon/Jolie/Oliver/Jonah) come to ski. Celebs ski this place.
Old Snowy Ridge is where the slope used to be before all the money showed up and the family bought a new fancier plot of land a half hour up the road. Back when it was just something medium-priced to do back in the mountains and the slopes were a little shitty and hidden and the trees weren’t as cleared as they should have been. That’s how they tell it to me, anyway; I don’t think anyone here remembers Old Snowy Ridge the way it was in its heyday.
They know it as the place adults sometimes go to snowshoe At Their Own Risk and the place you go to party when you don’t want ski patrol and cops up your ass.
I’ve never been.
It seems . . . a little risky, I guess, night hiking in the woods, but some of the cool advanced-at-the-time solar lights are still up there, trails snowshoed enough that it’s probably not a big deal. Plus, at least a few of my cousins have snuck up there a million times.
I think I’m just nervous because I’m a baby. But hell if I’m gonna let them figure that out. I’m going whether or not my nerves are rattling in my body.
I pack so much shit, though.
Like.
Enough shit that it’s going to weigh me down—What if we get hungry? What if it’s colder than we think it’s gonna be? What if someone gets hurt and needs first aid? It would be stupid of me not to take this kit; I’m going to be a paramedic/firefighter for goodness’ sake; this is not me being paranoid. No one else is going to do this; it’s up to me. Maybe a blanket. Maybe—well, I can’t fit two. What if? What if, what if, what if . . .
My bag is super heavy with what ifs.
But dammit.
If someone needs some toothpaste or some Doublemint for some breath-based emergency, well, THEN who will be laughing?
I pack some gum.
I pull everything out to double-check.
Like a completely reasonable person, I pack it all again.
CHAPTER THREE
IT FEELS SO MUCH more dangerous, so much edgier than it is, piling into these two old vehicles with the cousins. I mean, I guess it is a little dangerous; Tzipporah’s truck is only really built for four, three comfortably—the backseat is miniscule—and five of us are packed into it like sardines. Seems fine in the dark in the mountains in the snow.
I swallow and lean my head up against the back seat, ears smushing themselves between Jolie and Lydia. If I breathe, no one will know how nervous I am about all this. I’m not nervous! I’m cool!
Note how cool I am.
Note all the breathing.
Tzipporah has Top 40 on the radio, which seems about right because that’s the most likely to universally appeal to everyone here—this is the girls’ car. The boys are in Jonah’s beater coupe, and there’s only three of them coming tonight so they’re probably a little more comfortable than we are, but also it’s close quarters and the boys’ car so it probably smells like BO in there. Or who knows what.
Whatever it is, it’s too chilly to justify rolling the windows down, so it can’t be an ideal scenario.
We wind our way down from this mountain and then up to the other, and the mountains seem so much more treacherous from here. The roads are windy and thin, nothing like they are in the Northeast. There, everything is built around cow paths. Here, transportation is carved into ancient stone. It feels too shallow, too high, like every hairpin is taking a risk, even though it’s not even dark. The roads are barely icy. I see guard rails.