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What happens when a hapless snow-boarder meets a driven figure skater? Chapter 1 is here.

Josh Greene:

I hardly knew why I was here. I hadn’t gone to this hill since I’d hung out with Selene at it. And now I was standing here at the bottom of the hill looking up at the slopes and thinking about last time.

‘Cuz I’d just realized something very important in my life – that I’m absolutely miserable without Selene in it, and that I’ll do anything to get her back in it. I’d rather have her as just friends than not at all. But how was I to do it?

With my hands jammed in my pockets and my board under one arm I caught sight of myself in one of the long, reflective lodge windows. I looked the same as always. Maybe too much the same as always. When you saw a girl again you haven’t seen in ages, would she rather you looked the same as always, or your looked so improved in a good way you knocked her off her feet?

Not that I thought I could improve much in a good way. Freckles still spread across my face like the plague. My red hair was jammed under my toque. I stood there in a puffy boarding jacket and boots. Oh man, I’m sure girls just dig the jackets so loose they can’t tell if the guy’s hiding a lack of muscles or not (though I like to think I don’t really have a lack of muscles), and who looks like a boarder through and through.

Though since I am a boarder I might as well be myself. It drove me crazy just thinking about it.

Maybe I was thinking about it too much. Because as I went off the jump on my first run and executed a move I had done a hundred times, all the while thinking somewhere in the back of my mind maybe today I could screw up enough courage to find out if Selene ever wanted to talk to me again, I found myself spinning wildly out of control. I don’t know what happened. All I know is a couple seconds later I hit the ground, and everything went black.

What a newbie mistake. I landed completely brick-on-back.

And then when I opened my eyes to see the sky spinning above me, hoping I hadn’t busted something important, and people nearby hurrying my way and muttering to each other about ‘daredevil kids these days’, and I could hardly believe my eyes because I thought one of them was Selene rushing towards me, with a snowboard!

I knew, as I struggled to push myself up out of the snow, that this was even worse than I’d looked before, because no guy could look cool flat on his back in a snowdrift. And I was going to burst into a zillion apologies and promises I’d never do anything so dumb again when I saw her just the sweetest, frantic expression, and her lips were slightly rounded – the ones I’d caused so much trouble by kissing last time.

Everything I was going to say to her died on my lips, and my face probably lit up like a Christmas tree so the whole world could probably see how I felt about her, and I was struggling to say any words at all.

I pulled myself up, though my world was spinning dazedly.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Selene, I didn’t mean to!” I found myself bursting out wildly, “I’m sorry – it’s all my fault – just don’t be mad at me again!”

Then we were both laughing like it was the most natural thing for us to do when we saw each other, and to hear her laugh again was the most glorious sound in the world. She hit me at my middle with her momentum, making me go “Oomph!” and stagger to catch my bearings.

I was still seeing stars – though whether it was from my fall or from the sight of Selene, I didn’t know.

“Are you all right?” she asked. And I was gabbling about how I’d hurt myself worse plenty of times before, all the while thinking how amazing it was I could still look down at here when she was standing higher up the slope than me.

“You haven’t called,” she said.

“I didn’t think you liked it,” I said. “But I – wanted to.”

And suddenly I wanted to tell her about everything, about this religion-thing, and how Valerie had died, and how I had started to go to church lately – because she was the only girl in the world who would understand. And I felt like I hadn’t adequately explained what I’d done last time – or how I’d ended up flat on my back just moments before she arrived when I hardly ever wiped out. But her eyes were widening and glimmering and she was leaning closer to me, and suddenly I couldn’t concentrate on anything anymore.

“I wanted to tell you – “ I tried.

“I missed you,” she told me softly.

And while I was still gasping like a fish because I was so happy and amazed she had said that, she reached up and kissed me like I didn’t know a girl could do on a ski hill, still frosted with snow, hanging onto a snowboard with one arm.

And though I didn’t know what made a great girl like her change her mind about me, I enjoyed it for all it was worth.

I must’ve looked about as dazed as if I’d landed on my head again. She leaned back to look at me, almost apologetically, “I forgot to finish it last time.”

Hey, I wasn’t going to argue with that.

The End

If you enjoyed this story, also check out:

- Spring Fever, over at the Amrah Publishing House

- Why Polly?

(read Chapter 1 first)

…

“Hey, hey,” Satin said, waving in front of my face. “I said maybe you should ask Josh about it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I should.”

And in the weeks that followed I really did think about it – somehow before I’d always thought people who needed religion were weak, like those athletes who prayed before a competition were relying on something besides their own strength. And I’d always thought if I succeeded I wanted to do it on my own, and not because of some special help from something else. It would be my concentration that’d get me through, I’d win because I trained harder, made myself healthier, focused more.

But as I thought about it now I realized I was feeling tired enough that if there was a way to let someone else worry about things for a change, I’d take it.

“We’ve got to find you a new guy to hook up with,” Satin would tell me whenever she’d see me. Obviously she’d decided that was the root of my problem. My coach thought somewhat differently.

“You’re looking worn down to the bone,” she told me. “Why don’t you take some time off?”

“But,” I gaped at her, “What about my skating? I can’t go without skating!”

“Oh, I’m not telling you to quit skating,” she replied. “In fact, I want you still to skate. Get out there on the rink and do a couple laps around, without thinking about what’s supposed to be done. Do what you want for a change. And then maybe you can come back next season remembering why you love skating.”

And so I was suddenly left with a pile of free time on my hands to think.

At first I didn’t even, because I discovered my coach was right, I was worn down to the bone. I don’t really remember what I did those first couple days, it felt like my body shut down and I went about on auto-pilot for a little while.

Then I began looking around at churches and organizations and things, and as I did I found myself wondering what Josh would think of this – because as much as he’d liked to talk that Christian girl’s ideas over with me, I could tell he’d really had a respect for her, either as a person or a boarder, and he listened to what she had to say.

And to my surprise, as boredom set in, instead of heading to the rink I found myself hitting the slopes again. It was one of the most awkward things for a figure skater to carry a board around under her arm, but I kept coming back. And I didn’t know what I was looking for, until I realized all the time I was there I was keeping my eyes peeled for a certain mop of red hair.

And when I was hanging out with friends I’d find myself smiling because I remembered something he had said. And whenever the phone rang a crazy idea ran through my head that maybe he was calling me just like he used to

Because I began to realize two things. First of all, I missed him more than I’d ever thought I would – back when I thought he was nothing much but one of those cocky, jumped-up boarders and we’d never have anything in common. Until I realized he’d never been like some other athletes who thought they were the greatest and let everyone know it, he’d never treated a girl like objects.

And second, that whenever I thought of him I found I was thinking of him as he’d looked in that street that night just before he’d kissed me – and that I no longer knew why I’d wanted him to stop.

I wanted to shake myself. I’d had a dream illusion in my head for too long. Being asked in interviews so many times what I looked for in a guy had led me to create such a stupid image in my head that I hadn’t even recognized the real thing when it came along.

I thought about things too much. My skating programs were always technical, calculated precision. But this was one thing I shouldn’t have involved my head at all.

It was far too late now. The reason I’d been feeling down and miserable lately was because I’d probably hurt the only guy who had always made me laugh.

And that whenever I hit the slope they were completely empty of a certain head of red hair.

What happens when a hapless snow-boarder meets a driven figure skater? Chapter 1 is here.

Selene Colton:

I felt absolutely miserable. It was the worst I had ever felt in my whole life, and it began showing up in my competition and training. I just couldn’t skate clean. And all I wanted was to hide from the world and not face anything anymore.

And the worst part was I couldn’t call up Josh Greene and count on him to make me laugh. More than once I’d stopped with my hand hovered over the dial, remembering he was part of the reason why I felt this way.

I hoped I hadn’t hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt him. But knowing that I probably had made me feel worse than ever.

And I couldn’t hide from anything, life just went on and on and I went everywhere I was expected, and talked to the media though they were intent on driving me into the ground, and threw myself into my training, though my concentration was completely scattered.

And somehow I went on because I felt the expectations still around me – I was supposed to.

My coach suggested I see a sports psychiatrist, after about my fourth or fifth flop. And I went. But when I found myself in front of him and facing his gentle probing into my life I suddenly couldn’t say a thing.

“Selene?” he said. “I’m here to help you. Isn’t there anything you want to say?”

And it was funny because he seemed to think that fact I’d crashed and burned once during competition had scared me off in every program since. He didn’t seem to realize it was because I’d lost one of my best friends, and I didn’t think I’d ever meet anyone like him again.

Even my friends noticed. Busy schedule as I had, I barely ever got together with my friends for very long, and even from that they saw how down I felt.

“What’s up with you, Selene?” Satin asked once, when I ran into her once on the street. We headed over to the coffee shop, and took a table together. “You haven’t been yourself lately.”

I sighed, wrapping my fingers around my mug. “No, not really.”

“Hey, the good times will come again,” she told me, in a valiant effort to cheer me up. Then she leaned forward. “Hey, you haven’t been phoning that red-haired guy lately.”

I just shrugged. “No.” Though I didn’t know why she should care, because she’d been the one hitting on him.

“If I had the phone number for a guy like that, I wouldn’t let him get away from me,” she said, flipping her hair back and liberally pouring sugar into her mug. She could never think rationally about athletes, like they were some kind of super-heroes or something.

When I didn’t say anything she looked at me, as if wondering how to get me to tell her what was eating me. I felt faintly like smiling. Satin was just that kind of girl – she didn’t like people to feel down because it made her feel down herself.

“I just feel in the dumps lately,” I told her, “Like everything’s spinning out of my control. And so much is happening, I just can’t keep track of it! And there’s always so much to do.”

“Maybe you need a break,” Satin suggested.

“Coach said that too,” I sighed. But somehow I couldn’t imagine hanging up my skates. It didn’t make me happy as it used to, but it was the only place I could escape from the pressure in my life.

“I don’t know, I just fee like I got a million things weighing me down, you know?” I said. Then I thought of something and almost laughed. “Josh always told me he knew a girl who was telling him how to get rid of burdens, but he didn’t think he had one.”

I stopped. I’d refused to let myself think of him since that evening in the parking lot. So why was he popping up now?

“How did that girl say to get rid of it?” Satin asked with a grin.

“Oh, throw it on Jesus,” I replied. Then I paused with my hands around my coffee cup and said more slowly, “I wonder if it works.”

Satin looked at me with her face pulled sort of to one side. “Maybe you should try it,” she said, with a funny expression. Usually she wasn’t one for religion, but I knew she was thinking that if it dragged my spirit out of the dumps, how could it hurt?

But I was seeing Josh in my mind as he had told me about what the girl had said, and how his eyes sparkled with flecks of green and chocolate, as if he knew I would laugh, and his lips tilting up in his boyish, crooked grin that made me know I wouldn’t be long holding it in, and the way he ruffled his red hair like he was a cool snowboarding dude and he was hoping someone would notice it. And the way he never stood still, but hopped around in an excitement that was infectious.

And then I was remembering the night after my horrible performance, and how glad I was he was there and cheering me up, and how I was thinking he was one of the greatest guy-friends a girl could have… and how much I did like his mop of red hair even though I’d thought when I’d first seen it that I didn’t.

And then I was seeing his stunned expression after I’d pushed him away… and I knew why I hadn’t wanted to be letting myself think about this, because it was true that girls could be too cruel to guys, even when they didn’t try to be.

“Hey, hey,” Satin said, waving in front of my face. “I said maybe you should ask Josh about it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I should.”

Go to Chapter 9

What happens when a hapless snow-boarder meets a driven figure skater? Chapter 1 is here.

Josh Greene, continued:

Then Valerie LaCroix absolutely stunned me.

There was a group of us boarding, and I was just barging tricks for all I was worth because there’s nothing else in the world that I can just put my whole mind into like boarding. And the guys had been ragging me this morning on how I wasn’t saying much these days. And then I looked up to see Valerie LaCroix hot-dogging down the pipe like a pro – except for the last jump, where she skidded through the snow with a cry of pain.

And before I knew it someone had called for First Aid, and we were jogging off the mountain after her and following her to the hospital, all looking at each other with white faces and saying, “What happened?”

Because it’d totally shattered the ‘nothing’s gonna happen’ attitude we have – we’d had injuries before but the person’d always blow it off like everything was fine, even if they were being carried off the hill on a stretcher. ‘Cuz we don’t like bad things to happen, you know?

And sometimes, though we feel they never will, they do. When I was finally allowed in to see Valerie in the hospital I found her lying on her side with her face to the wall and her silver cross still hanging out of her hospital gown.

“They say I’ve shattered my collar-bone,” she said.

“Oh boy,” I said, not sure what to say. “So you’re still allowed to board, right?” Man, I couldn’t think of anything worse than that.

“No,” she said, “It’s not like that. “They’ve – they’ve found a lump.” She turned to face me. “They think it’s cancer again.”

“What?” I blurted. “What do you mean, cancer? You’re the most healthy one of us out there! You can’t – “ I stopped. “What do you mean, again?”

“I had it when I was younger,” she told me. “It’s been in remission ever since. But they think – it’s back again.”

All at once I found myself babbling. “But – “ I shook my head, “But you believe in God, right? Won’t he save you?”

She gave me a small, wan smile. “That’s what I’ve been asking. But it’s completely up to Him, isn’t it”

And suddenly nothing about the world anymore was how it’d seemed to be.

It wasn’t right that a bubbly, innocent kind of girl like her should be lying there, or why a dude like me who should’ve killed himself in some crazy stunt was still standing right here. It sure helped to distract me off Selene, all right. It helped distract me off everything.

“I took up boarding ‘cuz I couldn’t just sit around waiting for cancer to come back,” she told me. “And in boarding I was just as likely to be killed by breaking my neck as cancer coming back to get me.”

“Man, that’s why – “ I said.

Why I was such a daredevil?” she said. She grinned. “Snowboarding’s nothing knowing I could’ve died anyway. And I knew God was on my side.”

I couldn’t just send Valerie a card and forget about her, it didn’t seem right somehow. Between training sessions I showed up at the hospital as much as possible – just ‘cuz it was good to hear her still lecturing about God-stuff, as if reassuring me she wasn’t dead yet.

“Josh,” she asked once. “Don’t you want to give up your life to Him too?”

And I almost told her yes, because it was like I suddenly knew what those burdens were that she had been talking about before, but when I thought of it it was still like heading down an icy slope when you can’t see where you’re going, and it completely freaked me out. I couldn’t take the plunge.

“It’s not much longer now,” she told me. And she was right. A couple days later they told me she was gone, forever.

And I was standing by her casket at the funeral with the other members of the boarder team, some who knew her better than others, in a crowd of people dressed in black, with her parents weeping silently and proudly by the side – and I knew we couldn’t stay in our happy-go-lucky bubble anymore. Because bad things happen. Including inside me.

“I don’t sin,” I’d told Valerie, “Not anything that counts, anyway.” But main, had I ever got it wrong. Everything counts.

So I stood there, and decided, right at that moment, I would knock my pride and face up to God what a mess I’d made in my life.

Go to Chapter 8

What happens when a hapless snow-boarder meets a driven figure skater? Chapter 1 is here.

Josh Greene:

I was so stupid. I knew that. I knew I’d had a good thing going with Selene, and I’d had to ruin it. Did anyone need to tell me I was the stupidest kid in the world to think I had a chance with a girl like Selene?

She didn’t return the one call I could nerve myself up to make. And suddenly something in my day was lost not to hear her excited chatter on the phone, or feel the challenge of making that voice laugh.

I’d always looked up to Selene. She was a real committed athlete – gutsy too – and she knew what she wanted and went out and got it. Snowboarders sometimes make fun of these ‘serious athletes’ who become so focused on things they forget the point of it all, but Selene was different. I admired her for it. She’d just begun making waves when I’d discovered my life-long hobby could be brought to competition, and it had been partially her who’d inspired me. But she’d always seemed so high and far above me, like she was heading for goals I would never reach, and for most of the time I’d known of her she’d seemed too great to be an actual person at all.

I’d been tongue-tied when I’d met her. Bowled over. How did any guy in the world get my good luck?

And how many of the guys who did ruined it like I had?

I hit the half-pipe that training season harder than I ever have. I needed something to distract me.

‘Cuz when I’d met her I’d still stood in awe of her, even as she became a person to me. Even as we became friends. She was a great girl to become friends with, and that was what I told myself I had always wanted. I’d wanted a chance to get to known Selene and talk to her. But somewhere along the way I’d fallen for her too.

Then Valerie LaCroix absolutely stunned me.

Go to Chapter 7, Part 2

What happens when a hapless snow-boarder meets a driven figure skater? Chapter 1 is here.

Selene Colton:

Oh shoot, what did I do? When he stumbled back he was just looking at me with the most stunned and hurt expression on his normally cheerful face that I couldn’t stand it, and ran. I’d never wanted anything but friendship from him. Somewhere in front of my eyes I could see visions of my dream guy dancing mockingly in front of me, and I knew not even Josh Green could measure up.

When I reached my car, still parked by the arena in the parking lot, I shifted into gear and headed for home. I knew everyone would want to talk to me now – the media on what had gone wrong tonight, friends and family to comfort me, and my coach to talk the performance over. But I couldn’t face any of it right now. I just wanted to curl up in my bed and cry.

Go to Chapter 7

What happens when a hapless snow-boarder meets a driven figure skater? Chapter 1 is here.

Josh Greene:

Man, Selene was a great little gal to talk to. The first week after I’d got her number I’d sit staring at the phone and wonder what she’d actually do if I phoned her. Had she given the number to me just to be nice? Because I helped her there out on the hill? Or would she think I was coming on too strong if I called her too quickly after I’d actually really met her?

But the first time I talked to her all my fear dissipated. We didn’t really talk about any important stuff, but it all seemed so important and meaningful just to be talking it over with her. And I loved to hear her laugh. She just had this perfect tinkly sound that isn’t a screech or a grating giggle like most girls’ are, and I made it my duty to make her laugh as much as possible.

And whenever the snowboard team was traveling around now I’d check to see if it was anywhere near where Selene was, so we could ‘accidentally-on-purpose’ run into each other. We always had a great time whenever we saw each other.

The rest of the people on the boarding team started ribbing me on her, ever since they caught me sitting over a copy of News Weekly and looking at the picture of ‘Figure Skating Champ, Selene Colton’ on the front. Every chance they got they’d jab me about that ‘cute little figure skater’.

Valerie LaCroix was still going on about all that religion-stuff to me, too. And I couldn’t help it, sometimes I was tempted to head up like her too. Valerie was a phenomenal little boarder, a real hot dog – she just attacked that half-pipe with zero fear in her eyes, as if God was the one standing above her and pulling all the wires so she wouldn’t fall. She went out there every time like she had nothing to lose. Her ability to do that was pretty impressive for a boarder of her calibre.

And she’d explain how it helped to lay all her burdens at the feet of Jesus till it kind of made me want to lay mine there too, though when I thought of it I couldn’t really think of any burdens I was having. And she talked of a relationship with God in so glowingly that more than once it almost won me over – a state of mind that seriously upset my brainpower. I never worried over those things because I’d never thought I needed to worry over them, and when I began to wonder if I did it gave me a feeling of sliding without knowing where you’re going, or the feeling you get when you’re a newbie and you’re riding completely on the flat, not knowing if you’ll catch an edge before you absolutely tumble over.

I talked about Valerie to Selene a bit. But that kind of stuff wasn’t the kind calculated to make Selene laugh so I didn’t so often, besides I think Selene thought the way I did. We were pretty decent people, so what was there to worry about in religion?

Then one day I found Selene had a competition back in my home city of Greenbridge, on the very weekend I had off, and I knew I had to get back there and watch it.

The others ribbed me, of course, about my sudden craving to see my home base again, but after knocking each other around we laughed it off.

When I came to the arena before the long program of the competition I found it already full of Selene Colton fans, and then I remembered she came from this city too, and everyone here probably supported her.

I’d told her last night I was thinking of coming to see her if the competition was in Greenbridge, and she’d said she wouldn’t mind that. Now as I sat here I felt kind of like a fish-out-of-water in the middle of a horde of figure skating fan, who were all figuring out the angles and critiquing the performances put before them on the ice, when I could barely tell a triple axel from a triple toe, much less know the names of all the competitors and decide which ones had a chance of toppling Selene.

Figure skating is not something snowboarders are supposed to go for. It totally wrecks our image of cool.

The crowd’s murmur rose to a roar when it was time for Selene to step out. This was her home-ice advantage, and her competition, and the amateur skating experts beside me were saying how she already had this one wrapped up.

And she lost it. I don’t know what she did, but she came out there looking strong and then she was down on the ice three jumps in a row. She just crashed her program – man, even I could see it was totally wack – and when she skated to a stop at the end of her music that heart-shaped face of hers was just filled with disappointment. She looked like somebody’s butterfly out there in the middle of that wide arena of ice, with her wings completely crushed.

Beside me the ‘figure skating experts’ were already starting to take her apart. What had happened to her edge? – she must totally just have cracked under pressure. I ignored them because I knew it didn’t really matter what individual fans like that thought – but the media was going to have a field day over this, and they’ll just throw Selene to the dogs. I knew that. They’re so focused on winning something that if you put on the greatest show of your life but crash and burn on one thing they’ll be all over you over how that cost you the medal, not how great you were on the rest of it.

Though there’d been more than just one thing wrong with Selene’s program. When the marks came up she was plummeted to seventh place from where she’d been on top after the short program. And she’d been third last to skate, so when it was all over she’d been pushed down to tenth.

The medals were being presented but I didn’t care a jot for any of the girls up there, and I left my seat to rush outside because if I knew Selene she’d want to get out of there as soon as possible, and I wanted to catch her.

Sure enough, when I came out into the parking lot she was headed out too, with her head bent down inside her jacket as if she was hiding herself from the world.

“Hey,” I told her as I came up beside, “Hey, it’s okay.”

And she turned towards me with just disappointment written on every feature – ‘cuz when you’re a champion-level you know you may not win every competition, but it’s hard to forgive yourself when you crash like she did.

She gave me a look with surprise that I’d known she’d be here, but glad I’d come out after her.

“It’s just I was so – ” and her whole body slumped as if she couldn’t find words to explain it.

“I’m not usually like that,” she went on, “I’m not, I’m not. I can do it, I just don’t know what happened – ” as if worried since this was the only time I’d come out to see her I’d think this was how she always skated. As if I didn’t know how much she was a champion.

“It’s okay,” I told her, “I get it, man.”

And a look came into her widening eyes as if realizing maybe I did understand, because I’d had the experience of going out to competition before, expecting to do well, and absolutely burning. Maybe not at international level on the road to a spot at the Olympics, but I had and I knew how it made you feel down-in-the-mouth.

“Aw, you gotta just chill, Selene,” I said, though I didn’t really know what was right to say. “You love skating, skating’s fun, right? So what’s a thing like this?”

Her little concentration V appeared in her forehead like she couldn’t imagine a thing like this not mattering. “Well, mostly…”

And that was bang-on the difference between her kind of athlete and mine. She took her sport one with such intensity she couldn’t imagine failure not being crucial.

“Come on, lay back like us snowboarders,” I told her. “It’s no biggie – trophies are just perks in your own experience. Man, when you hit the sweetest air and just sail so it takes your breath away – and everyone watching’s just got ancillary stroke, man, and you know no one’s seen anything like it before – then it doesn’t matter whether you’re doing it in competition or somewhere else. It’s the greatest feeling in the world.”

I watched her face relax and smooth out, and a bit of a grin appeared on it. She shifted her sports bag from one shoulder to the other as she stood there. then she looked at me with a sly grin on her face.

“All right,” she said, “I’ve tried your sport now. When’re you going to try mine?”

I’m sure the flabbergasted expression on my face was something to see. The girl had really got me there.

“Dudes don’t skate,” I blurted out.

“Plenty of guys do,” she replied.

“Not boarders,” I said.

And then we were standing there in the middle of that deserted parking lot with peals of laughter all around, and I was so glad to hear her tinkly little laugh again and know she was alright. I was half-afraid she’d been about to cry after her program, but Selene’s too tough for that. Man, she’s a great little girl.

“Let’s get out of here,” I told her, and I took her hand. We rushed out into the streets, her just as eagerly as me, definitely not wanting to get caught in the hordes of disappointed fans that would be spilling out of the arena. Though she’d probably already been caught by the media inside after her skate.

And we ran down the wintry streets that were still edged with snow because Greenbridge is kinda up north. We both knew the city very well. It just gave me the highest feeling in the world to be wandering up these familiar street with the great Selene Colton – THE Selene Colton – the girl who’d come from this same city as me but I’d never imagined hanging out with her like this.

“You’ve dirt on your nose,” she told me, eyes sparkling as we ran under the streetlights.

“Sure it isn’t freckles?” I asked, rubbing a sleeve over it.

She cocked her pretty head to one side. “How can you tell?”

And then we were chasing each other down the street, pelting each other with snowballs and trying to stuff the stuff down each other’s coats, and I got just a face-full of it, till we fell about on our backs laughing. Then we spread out and made snow angels in the drifts.

I was relieved she’d totally lightened up. We spent the rest of the evening just talking, like good friends who’d just got to catch up, and she didn’t even mention her performance once.

Only at the end when we were heading back to the parking lot did she suddenly look down. It was as if it all his her like a brick wall.

We met eyes. “Hey,” I said, “Hey, it’s cool.” She was suddenly so pale and sad-looking that I reached out and hugged her.

And then, I don’t know how it happened but when I had her in my arms and her beautiful hazel eyes were looking up at me, I found myself kissing her.

And, for a guy who has been kissed before ‘cuz he’s a super-hot boarder and that kind of thing always attracts the girls, found something inside me was just beating crazily the way I’d never felt before except now.

And my mind was going crazy wondering what a kid like me thought he was doing, standing here in the middle of the street kissing a girl like her, and if I was crazy to think she’d ever let me. But a part of me was wondering if I’d ever stop.

Until I felt her push back. Before I had a chance to react, I was stumbling backwards towards the curb.

“I’m sorry,” I told her, “Aw – shucks, Selene, I’m sorry.”

But she had already turned away and was pelting off down the road.

Go to Chapter 6

What happens when a hapless snow-boarder meets a driven figure skater? Chapter 1 is here.

Selene Colton:

I don’t know why I did that. I have been getting rather good lately at turning down stupid requests for my phone number with scorn, but the way he asked didn’t make it seem like he was leering all over me as he asked it and couldn’t wait to ask me out and see how quickly he could get his hands on me. His quirky sort of grin came out as he asked it, and he asked it like he was going to use it to keep in touch, like he wanted friendship from me.

I’ve got a picture in my mind of the absolute dream guy I want to meet someday, and Josh Greene doesn’t fit it at all, and is a couple years younger than me, besides. But he was a lot more decent than many others I’ve met on my quest so far.

My dream guy is definitely taller than me. That’s not a tough qualification, because I’m so small. But if I ever did meet someone shorter than me he’d definitely be ruled out, because that guy would be miniscule.

And my dream guy would be intelligent. A gentleman. The kind who holds doors and pulls out chairs, and knows how to treat a girl right. He’ll have dark hair and dark eyes, and when he looks down at me his voice and character will be full of mystery, just like the heroes in those romance novels…

Of course, I don’t think it’s likely I’ll ever meet such a guy. But that’s what I want if I could choose. In the meanwhile every other guy who’s come along has absolutely failed to measure up. Too many think the definition of the word girlfriend means a trophy to hand on their arm.

Anyway, I was glad I gave Josh Greene my phone number. We called each other all the time after that. He usually made the first call, but soon after we started talking I would always find myself somehow spilling all the events of that day, and sharing all my experiences with him. We had things so similar to each other even though we were in such different sports because we both were in training, and we could compare notes with each other (“I hung out in the gym this morning, what did you do?”). That was different than other friends of mine, whose college and job lives were so different than mine.

And he was funny, too. No one can ever make me laugh like he does. No one ever has made me laugh like he does.

“Is everything all right in there?” mother asked me once while I was on the phone, knocking on my bedroom door when I was home one time for the weekend. I suppressed an outburst of giggles.

“Yes, mom, everything’s alright,” I gasped out.

“Well, all right,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be going to bed soon? It’s almost ten o’clock.”

That’s the life of a skater. You’re always going to bed early.

And once or twice, whenever we’d run into each other while going places with the National Teams, we’d stop for a sec and chat. I never realized how often we must’ve run into the snowboarders before, when I barely paid any attention to them and didn’t notice them there.

And it was one of those times, when I was looking up into his eager, freckled face as he described a particularly funny mishap the newest member of their team had made the other day, that I remembered an interview I had given, back when I was still a pretty novice skater, with Ted Sawchuk on NEKO once when he’d asked me,

“And lastly, Selene, there are a lot of people out there speculating what kind of guy you’re interested in seeing,” he said. “Would you mind clearing this up a bit for us?”

“Do you want me to?” I asked, and when he motioned for me to go on I said, “Well, he’d have to be taller than me, of course. And pretty nice-looking.”

Ted Sawchuk had nodded intelligently. “And is that all? Will any tall, nice-looking fellow do?”

I’d cocked my head to one side. “Well, I like funny too.”

I nearly burst out laughing now when I realized if Ted Sawchuk were here he’d think Josh Greene fit that description to a Tee.

Go to Chapter 5.

What happens when a hapless snow-boarder meets a driven figure skater? Chapter 1 is here.

Josh Greene:

No one was more surprised to see Selene Colton on the slopes of Grun Hill than I was. I’d think a girl like her would be more worried about injuries to her skating legs. And anyway, I hadn’t been thinking much of Selene Colton at all, because I’d met Valerie LaCroix.

Valerie LaCroix was a new boarder on the women’s half-pipe team, and she was bubbly with bouncing curls and wide, sparkling eyes. She was the happiest snowboarder I’ve ever seen in my life, and I don’t think snowboarders as that much of an uncheerful bunch.

She wore a silver-metal cross around her neck every time she boarded. And she would tell anyone that asked she was a Christian.

Man, it’s not like I don’t believe in God. I totally do. I mean, there’s gotta be some kind of Being out there somewhere, right? And a heaven and hell and stuff. And I think I’m a pretty good person, so why should I have to mess up my head with all that religion-stuff, right? But Valerie didn’t see it that way at all.

“God doesn’t just want you to know He’s there,” she’d go on time and time again. “He wants you to know Him.”

“Sure, I know him,” I said. I looked up at the sky. “Hi, God.”

“No, you can’t ever know Him properly,” she told me, putting her hands on her hips. “You know why? Because of sin. Sin is the blockage in our relationship with Him, because He can’t stand sin. You gotta let Jesus take your sin away before you can ever know Him.”

“Hey,” I defended myself, “When’d you get off knowing so much. I don’t sin.”

“Sure you do,” she said.

“Nothing that counts, anyway,” I’d tell her, and blow off down the half-pipe in a cloud of powder. But she sure was interesting to talk to. I didn’t know half the stuff about religion she told me.

Anyway, I was more busy thinking on that, and rounding off the last of my competitions for the season, to think about how I’d botched up my only meeting with Selene Colton.

Then that giggly fan-girl had latched onto me in the lodge – the kind that really drives me up the wall ‘cuz they’re posers for sure, with all their fancy snowboard stuff they don’t really know how to use and only have so they can chat up with the boarders. And you always think they’re going after you because you’ve got the bucks from endorsements, and otherwise they’d never look twice at you. I mean, I’m a pretty ordinary guy, except the red hair, I think. Some guys get ego-boosts from a girl like that, but not me.

And when Selene showed up to take her off my hands I could’ve hugged her. I mean, she always looks so sweet and lovable and huggable, but she really took off there when she was rescuing me from a girl like that.

So when I saw her out on the hill, with her little, lithe body wiping out completely, I slid down to pull her up and dust her off. I usually hate beginners because they’re such drifters, and even worse than poser-fangirls, with no control and even bigger mouths. They all think they’re hotshots because their parents bought them all the stuff and they can only do one trick on them. But Selene was totally different from all of them. She attacked that little bunny hill as if it was a problem she was intent on conquering – even more intent than when I’m totally barging jumps. Man, I’ve never seen that much concentration in my life! That little V appeared in her forehead and stayed there till near the end of the day she was catching some control over her glide. No wonder she was figure skating champion, if she put that much effort into her ice routine too.

We were standing outside the lodge after, and my mind was racing looking for ways to spend a little more time with her before we had to go, and I was thinking of asking her if she wanted to go out and get hot chocolate. But she remembered she’d come here with a bunch of girls, and turned to go.

But this time I knew better. I wasn’t going to stammer around and end up asking her for her autograph. This time I asked her for her phone number.

And she gave it to me.

Go to Chapter 4

Okay, this story is in honour of the upcoming Winter Olympics. Actually, I wrote it four years ago after the last winter Olympics, but hopefully it works for this Olympics too. Chapter 1 is here.

Chapter 2: From the Point of View of Selene Colton:

Selene Colton:

When I turned around to catch Chantelle Swan as she went by I nearly was toppled over by someone else. Staggering back a few steps I found myself looking up at an absolute mop of red hair and a freckled face that was grinning nearly from ear-to-ear. He was one of those snowboarder guys – Jeff Somebody, or something – and I vaguely recognized him. He’d been one of a couple guys who’d said publicly on T.V that I was ‘cute’ – I mean, what kind of cocky, jumped-up teenager does that?

He was looking at me apologetically and bouncing around eagerly, like the kind of pumped-up adrenaline guys who can’t sit still. “You’re Selene Colton, right?”

And then – get this – he wanted my autograph! I mean, not too often do athletes go around getting autographs from each other, unless they’ve got an aunt at home who’s dying for an autograph from a certain somebody, or something. Athlete’s egos usually get in the way of autograph-hunting.

So I gave it to him, and left it at that. I didn’t think I’d ever run into him again.

Snowboarders have always been a different breed in the Winter Sports. I mean, they always hang by themselves and show a kind of enthusiastic camaraderie that other sports don’t show – like they know they’re from a totally different world than us, and the rest of us have no idea what we’re looking at when we watch them. It’s not winning that’s important to them, it’s the show they put on when they win. So when someone does a face-first nose-plant in front of everybody during competition because he’s doing something different nobody’s ever heard of before, they all applaud him even if he’s given up a gold medal to do it.

And they’re always scrambling around at breakneck speeds, cracking ribs, wrists and ankles, and worse, and spouting so much slang you’d need an interpreter just to understand them. Sponsors love them, though. They’ve got just the kind of counter-culture that sells products.

Now my sport is completely different. We’re into artistry. Out of any winter sport there is, I think figure skating is the one that counts performance so much for the sport. It’s not just the ability to do jumps and spins and footwork, they judge you on how you look doing it.

In snowboarding, it’s just how cool you look.

So one day when a couple of my girl-friends suggested I try it I looked at them like they were crazy.

“Come on,” laughed Satin, my craziest friend of all. “You’ve got to lighten up a little, Selene.”

I’d been training pretty hard lately and hadn’t hung around them much, and I don’t usually do wacky sports like that for fear I’ll sprain something I need in competition. But it was nearing the off-season and I was growing tired of the rink, and I decided it’d be alright if I was careful and I’d have some time to heal if I did do something.

“Okay, I’ll come with you guys,” I said.

It wasn’t until we reached the hill and Satin made a bee-line for the half-pipe that I realized why she’d been so eager to come here – she was watching the boarders sailing on the hill with a rapt expression on her face. Then she pointed at one. “That’s Josh Greene, did you know?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, “I know him.”

She turned to me and squealed. “You do?! He’s only the greatest snowboarder ever! He’s won so many medals – and he’s so cute, don’t you think?”

“I don’t really know him,” I said, “I talked to him once.”

“Oh, you’re so lucky, Selene,” she told me. “Rubbing elbows with all these good-looking athletes.”

I snorted if only she knew half of it! The egos you run into if you’re wading through the testosterone-driven world of competition when you’re nothing but a sweet-faced pretty girl.

So after I’d done a couple runs down the bunny slopes, making numerous wipe-outs (no wonder people wiped out so much on snowboards, it was rather easy to do) and doing my best not to run into any skiers, I realized Satin had disappeared. I gave the rest of my friends a break from explaining what I was supposed to do with a board strapped to my two feet, and went to find her. Somehow I thought I knew where she’d be.

Sure enough, I found her down at the lodge leaning on the table Josh Greene was standing beside, and giggling.

He was looking at her with a bit of a funny expression on his face, which surprised me because guys usually love it when a girl suckers on to them like that. Frankly he looked a little put off.

“Satin,” I said with a sigh, taking her arm.

“Oh,” said Satin, looking all around, “And this is my friend, Selene. Selene – ”

He looked at me till his eyes widened, and an absolutely boyish grin spread over his face. “Hello,” he said.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend,” I told him, pulling Satin away by the arm.

But when I was back on the bunny slopes and making another spectacular nose-plant I looked up to see him skid to a stop just behind me.

“Hey,” he said, “Where’s that triple axel?”

“Well, it’s pretty hard to do when you’ve got a board strapped to your feet,” I replied.

His eyes just filled with laughter. “Here, I’ll teach you.”

And he proceeded to do so. He totally knew what to do, flipping from toe edge to heel edge and patiently guarding me down the hill while I wobbled and flailed arms wildly to keep from falling. I felt incredibly stupid. I usually could keep quite a handle on myself, and it was almost as bad as falling on one of my jumps to be flailing this way.

I’m so used to being in control, it was odd there was someone when knew more about this than me.

“You gotta catch an edge,” he would say, “You gotta catch an edge.”

And he’d show me how to hold onto it, and to switch from heel edge to toe edge in long, carving turns. When I spun out of control again he’d catch my shoulder and we’d stumble there in the middle of the hill, standing there till he got me to laugh at myself, and snowflakes were catching in our eyelashes.

He had tremendous control, though. He could just glide alongside or behind me – he wasn’t one of those boarders who clip skiers as they go by and send them flying into the snowdrifts because they’re going too fast to avoid them. And he helped. I stayed on my feet much better than when my friends had tried to help me, though bumps in the snow still threw me off.

“Oh no,” I said, looking down at myself as I came up from the ground again. Snow stuck to me all over.

“Snow slapped,” he said, brushing it off me. He jerked his thumb back at the lift. “Come on, let’s try again.”

And we did, until I managed a perfect sliding turn. Then we headed down the hill relatively side by side, whooping and hollering as we carved to the bottom. I never knew what a thrill catching an edge could be. Josh stopped at the bottom in a spray of snow, and I went sailing onto my butt again.

He grinned at me as he gave me a hand. “Man, you’re really slaying these hills out here. Ever think of switching sports?”

“For snowboarding?” I asked. “Never.”

“You could do the half-pipe, like me,” he said. He bounced on the springy end of his board. “Introducing Selene Colton… medalist in both figure skating and snowboarding.”

I laughed. “No way. I’m over the hill.” Snowboarders are always young, young. You need to be in a sport where you break and strain as many things as they do.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said, and he looked as if he was thinking how odd it was we both were in a business where you hit your peak before thirty. It was an interesting career, this winter athletic stuff, but I loved it.

We went to the top again. He flashed his thumbs up at me and headed to the left to the group at the half-pipe. “I’ll meet you at the bottom,” he said.

I took the easy run down, and it went faster than I’d thought because I slid to the bottom in a kind of uncontrollable skid. From there I stood and watched Josh Greene make his way down – and though I am completely clueless about snowboarding I could see why he was so often World Champion. He out-classed the others on the pipe like they were a pack of stragglers, twisting and jumping and flipping down it, with his red curls flying out from under his helmet, till he caught a toe edge and flew down to me in an absolute shower of snow. He tipped his goggles up to look at me.

“How was it?” he said.

“Oh, very good,” I replied.

The ski lift operator had been telling people these were some of the last lifts up the mountain, because it was nearing the end of the day. We picked up our boards and began heading down towards the lodge.

“So you decided you wanted to try snowboarding?” he said.

“Oh no,” I said, “My friends got me to. They said I need to lighten up a little.” I looked at him. “You train here?”

“Not really,” he said. “When I was a kid I used to come here on weekends – this’s where I learned all my stuff. So I still come down here sometimes, when I’m not with the rest of the boarding team.”

I nodded. We were both standing in front of the lodge now, leaning on our boards as groups slowly departed around us and the early winter sunset lighted the slopes. The reddish glow gave him a more fiery, cheerful red than ever, and when I met his eyes I found they were looking at me.

Right then I remembered my friends, whom I’d somehow become separated from on the slopes. I picked up my board.

“Uh, I’d better go,” I said.

Go to Chapter 3