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I can feel myself flushing. I don’t want him to look at me like he can read my mind, which he obviously can because that was the exact word I had in mind for him.
    The driver recognizes us before we recognize him, and before long we’re in a van, on the highway, and on our way out of the city and up to Snowbird.
    “You’re competing at Snowbird this weekend, right?”
    I nod. “Yeah.”
    “You skied it before?”
    “Yep,” I say. “Lots. Just not last year. Are you here to compete?”
    “Nah. Just wanted to try something new for a while. It’s a good place to train.”
    “With Mike?”
    He shakes his head. “Ames only coaches skiing. He’s out here permanently now. They have a pretty decent super-pipe I can train on, so I’m doing that.”
    “So, why does Ames think you’re a lost cause?”
    He grins. “Did he say that?”
    “No, you did.”
    “I never said that.”
    “Before we took off.”
    “Mm. Ames doesn’t think I’m a lost cause. I was just trying to make you feel better.”
    “Thanks?”
    “No problem.”
    I bite my lip and glance out the window. I hesitate before I ask, pretty sure that I know the answer already.
    “So, why does Mike think I’m a lost cause?”
    He rubs his chin nervously and shrugs his strong, broad shoulders. “I don’t know if he does. I can be kind of a dick for no reason sometimes.”
    “No, seriously. I would like to know. Why does he think that?”
    “You really shouldn’t listen to anything I say. Nobody should listen to me.”
    “I want to know.”
    “I made it up,” he offers helplessly. “I was being a dick. I don’t know.”
    “Because of the avalanche?” I offer. I’m the one who makes him look away from me this time.
    He doesn’t dispute it. “Look, I get really agro before I fly…I was trying to make a joke and…”
    I look at him and then back out the window.
    “Sorry,” he mutters.
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “Look, if it’s any consolation, I think you’re brave for coming back,” he said. He meets my eyes for longer this time. “As someone whose run away from a lot of shit…” He lifts one shoulder helplessly. “Sorry.”
    I tighten my jaw. I should have expected comments like that one. And, I should have known what he meant without demanding an explanation.
    My dad told me to prepare for other people’s insensitivity. You can’t control what anyone is going to say to you; you can only control how you respond to it. And some people are going to see me and see an avalanche and my dead boyfriend and our dead best friend, Ryan.
    And they’ll feel sorry for me forever, and I won’t be able to do anything about it. Or worse, they’ll try and make light of it—like Hunter Dawson—and if you let it get to you, then you give them power they shouldn’t have.
    I inhale narrowly. If Danny lived, I’d want him to be strong about it. If Danny lived, I’d tell him not to take shit from anyone.

Chapter Five
    They gave me a nice suite in the training lodge. There’s a big, airy living room, a separate bedroom with a huge bed, and a wide balcony overlooking the mountain. When I walked out to look over Snowbird, my throat caught a little. I hadn’t been so close to a real mountain in a while. The lifts were still running—tiny skiers and red-jacketed instructors zipped down the blue and green groomers and around the tight corners of a tricky, looping catwalk.
    The snowboarders look more like they’re floating, not really changing the angle of their bodies, just tilting this way and that— a sport for people who don’t give a fuck , Ryan used to say, half-jealously. Hunter seemed exactly like the kind of person who didn’t give a fuck.
    I turn back to my room to grab my phone to let my dad I’m here and I’m fine. And I focus on that. I am here. I am fine. The walls aren’t caving in on me. It’s quiet, pretty and peaceful.
    I came here with Danny—twice in his last year—neither of us ever considering the possibility