Page 16 of Head Over Skis

6

‘Don’t get your phone out, you idiot, do you have a death wish?’

‘Stop being so dramatic,’ David says, lifting his phone to take a selfie of the two of us on the chairlift. He’s ditched his usual glasses for a pair of prescription sunnies, and he looks much cooler than me with my massive ski goggles. I smile at the camera even though I’m freaking out. I managed to get on this thing with minimal issues, but I worry getting off it will be another story. I watched a YouTube video on how to do it and figured it looked simple enough, but then I saw a few clips of people falling off and psyched myself out.

For now, at least, we’re so far away from the end of the lift that I can’t see it, so instead I admire my immediate surroundings.

The chairlift cuts a path through the otherwise unspoilt mountainside, the ground of which is blanketed in snow so thick I picture sinking into it like a soft mattress. The branches of the trees which surround us are dusted with white, the colour sparkling against the darkness of the bark. Down below me, the tops of the trees poke up, and I wonder how far the trunks stretch beneath.

Here and there, barely perceptible ski tracks appear, revealing the marks of some very daring skiers, and elsewhere there are animal tracks I can’t decipher. I wish I was brave enough to take my phone out like David, so I could take a photo of all of these details to sketch once we’re back in the chalet, but the most magical thing, which I know my pencils will never quite capture, is the peaceful silence. Only broken by the occasional juddering of the chairlift as we go past a support tower, and now the sound of David’s voice.

‘Okay, so you see the top where the lift curves around and starts going down again?’

I follow where he’s pointing and watch as the people in the chair in front of us push up the bar that’s keeping them in place and get ready to disembark.

‘That’s where we’re going to get off. When I say stand up, all I need you to do is pretend you’re coming out of a squat and then push your skis into a pizza to stop. You think you’ve got that?’

‘What the hell is a pizza?’

‘Stand up!’ David shouts, not answering my question, and I panic. He grabs my arm and hoists me up off the chair and I start sliding away from it against my will.

‘Pizza, Lottie!’

‘For the love of god say something that makes SENSE!’ I shout back at him as I continue sliding further away.

Shit, what do I do? All those little tips from Instagram reels that I’ve watched have fled from my brain.

‘A triangle! Push your heels out and toes in to form a triangle!’

I do as he says, making little mounds of snow where I’ve aggressively pushed against it with my ankles, and by some miracle I eventually stop. I can feel my heart hammering against my ribs and my palms are sweating despite the fact it’s freezing up here.

‘Well, that could’ve gone better,’ David says, chuckling as he comes up to rest to the side of me in a much more controlled manner.

‘Don’t act as if you were a pro the first time you ever put on skis. I haven’t even had my first lesson yet.’

‘Speaking of,’ I hear Meghan’s voice calling from behind me and I turn around to see her and Tilly pushing themselves along with their poles. ‘We’d better hurry if we’re going to make it on time, care to lead the way, boys?’

Lucas skis up to David’s side, followed by Adam, who I try to avoid looking at for too long. Especially after this morning when he stumbled into mine and Tilly’s bedroom wearing only a towel after his shower, claiming he’d gotten the rooms confused. Seeing him like that definitely weakened my resolve to not get physically close to him over the holiday. But then I remembered the other woman he’d last been shirtless with and instantly, the anger was back.

‘Lucky for you three, the ski school is very close,’ Lucas says. ‘It’s at the bottom of that little slope.’

I look where he’s pointing and if that is his idea of little, I really don’t want to know what big is, because that is not small to me at all.

‘Fancy a hand?’ Adam’s got his arm stretched out towards me, but I bat it away with one of my poles.

‘I think I can handle this on my own, thank you,’ I snap, before digging my poles into the snow and using them to push myself past him.

I know I’m being petty, but it feels good to deny some of his obvious advances.

I watch as Lucas guides Meghan down the slope, skiing backwards so he can watch her as she inches down with her skis in a triangle. She makes it to the bottom, her black and white striped all-in-one ski suit not even creased, and they high-five as I wonder, how hard can it be?

I push myself forwards until the slope dips, and I look down at my skis to make sure they’re making the right shape. I feel surprisingly controlled so far, my knees slightly bent and my skis in what I think is a good position. Maybe I’m getting the hang of this, maybe I really will be skiing on reds by—

‘Lotts, watch out!’ Adam’s voice calls out from where he’s trailing me a short distance behind. I’d been so focused on watching my feet, I didn’t see the fencing I’m heading straight towards.

‘Aaaah!’

I yell and twist my body away from it, but now my skis are both facing straight down the hill and I pick up speed so quickly it’s like I’m on a jet ski.