Golden Girl (6 page)

It was one thing to fall. That was humiliating enough. But then—when I realized I couldn't get back up no matter how hard I tried? That was when I wanted to crawl behind a snowbank and never come out.

Instead I lay there, sprawled out on the hill like the saddest of snow angels, with even the idea of standing up on my board making me sick to my stomach. My hands were shaking, and I could barely see through my tears. Coach Basil had to literally unstrap the board from my feet, just to get me to move. All while Olivia and the Boarder Barbies watched from their perches above.

Pride comes before a fall,
Olivia had told me that fateful day. She hadn't been wrong.

Seriously, what was I thinking—believing I could just pick up right where I left off before the accident, no big deal? It seemed crazy now that I thought back to it. The stupidest idea ever. But then I remembered their eyes, drilling into me. Olivia's self-satisfied smirk. I'd wanted so badly to prove I still had it. That I was still Golden Girl. Still number one. And so I'd let common sense take a backseat to idiocy and managed to prove the exact opposite.

At first I'd seriously thought the fall had triggered a heart attack. After all, I had all the textbook symptoms: shaking hands, shortness of breath, aching chest, numbness in my left arm. But when I asked the nurse in the first aid hut, she only shook her head. “There's nothing physically wrong with you, dear,” she told me. “You just had a panic attack. Probably post-traumatic stress from your accident last year. You need to take it easy for a while. Take your time getting back up to speed. Maybe try the bunny slope?”

A panic attack? I didn't even know what that was. At least a heart attack was something real. A physical reason for me to have crashed and burned in front of my classmates. I could have redeemed myself from my hospital bed. Brave Lexi who tried to snowboard with a broken heart. That sounded almost noble.

But no, according to some quick WebMD research, the cause of my epic fail was literally all in my head. And there was no quick fix for this kind of thing either.

Feeling defeated, I'd trudged back to the dorm, where I lay in bed for the rest of the afternoon. Ignoring my father, who called three times and knocked on my door twice. The last thing I wanted to do was face him—Mr. Broken Collarbone at the Winter X Games. I bet he never let a little panic attack keep him from the sport he loved.

“It's not my fault,” I moaned to my roommate. “You should have seen the way Olivia was looking at me. Like she was going to tell everyone in school how I'd lost it if I didn't go and prove that I hadn't.”

“Yeah, well, you sure showed her,” Caitlin snorted. I groaned.

“That's it,” I declared. “I'm never, ever leaving my room again. Seriously. Not even to eat. They can drag out my corpse when it starts to out-stink Susan's socks.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes. “No way,” she protested. “You do that and you let Olivia win. So you fell. Big deal. We've all fallen. Olivia more than most, I might add. The best revenge is to get right back out there and show her you couldn't care less. That it'll take more than some silly tumble to bring Golden Girl down.”

She sounded almost inspiring. But I knew she had an ulterior motive for the pep talk. Namely, to convince me to accompany her to the student ice cream social that evening. She said it would be good for me to get out of bed and enjoy the DJ and dancing and make-your-own-sundae bar. Normally I would have been all over this kind of thing—but now I just couldn't bring myself to face all the other kids staring at me and whispering.

“You've all fallen, but you've all gotten up,” I pointed out miserably. “I had to be rescued. Does that scream future Olympian to you?” I rolled over in bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Face it, Caitlin. My career is over. I might as well drop out and enroll in public school at this point. Give it all up for good.”

“Yeah, cause
that's
a well-thought-out plan,” Caitlin remarked wryly. “Seriously, Lex. Stop the pity party for one second and think about it. You suffered a major accident. And your brain needs time to recover too—just like your body did. So how about you cut yourself some slack here?”

I made a face. “Do you think Shaun White cut
himself
some slack?” I asked, naming the world's most famous snowboarder. “Or what about Jamie Anderson? You think she ever had a panic attack on a simple tabletop jump?”

“Yes, I do, actually,” Caitlin proclaimed. “In fact, I bet she's had some pretty major panic attacks in her day. And yes, I believe even Shaun White himself may have fallen once or twice in his illustrious snowboarding career. In fact, I've seen the YouTube videos.

“But luckily for us,” she added, “and the entire snowboarding industry—neither of them quit the sport they loved because they were afraid of what people would say about them.”

She popped up from the bed and grabbed her Skelanimals backpack, heading for the door. “Come on,” she urged. “If you won't do it for me, then do it for Shaun and Jamie. Show them they ain't got nothing on you.”

C
aitlin was right; by avoiding Olivia and her Boarder Barbies, I was only letting them win. And hadn't I already determined I'd never let them win again? Not that today's fiasco was a promising start, but still.

So I told Caitlin to go on without me, I'd meet her there. Then I forced myself out of bed, took a quick shower, and changed into party clothes, slipping snowboard boots on my feet in case the forecasted blizzard was still on its way. I headed downstairs and across campus to the student rec center, where the ice cream social was being held.

Mountain Academy was famous for its ice cream socials. They purchased the ice cream from a farm down the hill that made it by hand using milk from their own cows. So it was always super fresh and extra creamy. And that was only the beginning of the awesome. There was also the infamous toppings bar, jam-packed with every possible ice cream topping you could think of: hot fudge, marshmallow, butterscotch, M&M's, gummy bears, Oreos—you name it, they had it. And the best part? You got to serve yourself, meaning you could pile an inhuman amount of whipped cream on top—a virtual mountain of the sweet stuff—and no one said a word to stop you.

The snow had just started to come down as I made my way across campus. Light, fluffy flakes gently dusting my jacket. According to my Weather.com app, the true blizzard wouldn't start till around midnight. But when it did, it was meant to be a mean one—a real nor'easter. Hopefully, we wouldn't lose power in the dorms. That was always a pain, trying to study by candlelight.

Though at the moment, studying was the least of my problems. I reached the rec center, realizing my hands were shaking like crazy. As I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob and prepared to go inside, I couldn't help but imagine how the next moments would play out. In my imagination I'd step through the doors. The music would screech to a halt. Everyone would turn and stare. Then, after a moment of shocked silence, the whispers and giggles would erupt like a volcano, flooding the hall and forcing me to flee the scene, retreating back to my dorm room in shame. At least that's how this kind of thing usually played out in the movies.

“What do you think you're doing, young lady?”

I dropped my hand from the door, whirling around guiltily, though, of course, I wasn't doing anything wrong. My eyes fell upon none other than Olivia's father, Cy Masters, owner of Green Mountain Resort, fast on approach, a furious look on his jowly face. I took a hesitant step back as he lumbered past, seeming not even to notice me as he passed the rec center, his eyes locked on something ahead.

Make that someone. As I peered around the corner, I recognized Olivia standing over by one of the empty ski racks, dressed in an absurdly huge white fur coat and eating a chocolate bar. I watched as she looked up to see her father, startled, then dropped the candy immediately, as if it were a hot potato.

“Oh, hi, Daddy,” she chirped nervously, her trademark saccharine-sweet voice cracking at the edges. “I didn't know you were on campus tonight. What a great surprise.”

Her father didn't answer, reaching down to pick up the discarded candy bar and holding it up for observation. He raised a bushy eyebrow at his daughter, and I almost laughed at the expression on Olivia's face. So busted!

“It's not mine!” she protested, her voice rising into a panicked squeak. “I was just holding it for a friend.”

Her father walked over to a nearby trash can and discarded the bar. “How many times have we talked about this, Olivia?” he demanded. “An athlete treats her body as a temple. You keep filling it with junk food and your performance will continue to suffer. You're already third to last on the team. You want to get cut altogether?”

Olivia's face crumbled. “You know I'm doing the best I can.”

But her father wasn't finished. “To think I was under the impression that this would be our year. Our chance to pull ahead, with Alexis Miller out of the running. But no, you're too busy hanging out with your friends and poisoning your body with processed food to take advantage of this opportunity.” He shook his head. “And now Alexis is back. And any chance you had to slip ahead is over.”

Olivia's face twisted into a scowl at the mention of my name. “Please,” she spit out, regaining some of her bravado. “You should have seen her on the slopes today. I
hardly
think she'll be a threat.”

“That's your problem, isn't it?” her father shot back. “You hardly think! Alexis Miller is the best snowboarder at Mountain Academy—maybe the best in the world, in her age group. If you underestimate her for even a second, you'll find yourself in second place for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?”

“No, Dad, but—”

He shook his head, looking tired and defeated. “What would your mom say if she could see you now?”

Olivia's face went stark white, her words seemingly stolen from her lips. For a moment they just stared at one another. Then her father humphed, as if he'd proven some point, before turning and barreling off, his heavy boots kicking up quite a snowstorm in their wake.

Olivia watched him go, her face a tangle of emotions. Then she swiped her wet cheek with the sleeve of her fur coat and started plodding toward the rec hall. I tried to duck away, but I was too slow. Her eyes fell upon me, a look of horror flashing across her face before she could mask it. She knew I'd heard everything. She opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to change her mind.

“I'm sorry,” I found myself saying, at a loss for anything else.

But Olivia just lifted her chin up high and pushed her way past me into the rec center, not dignifying me with a response.

I
considered heading back to the dorm. After my encounter with Olivia, the last thing I felt like was ice cream and dancing. But I'd promised Caitlin, and I knew she'd be beyond annoyed if I let Olivia get to me again. So, after giving my archnemesis enough time to make a proper entrance, I slipped into the rec center, ready for anything.

To my relief, the music stayed pumping, the student body kept dancing and eating—as if the talk of the school hadn't just entered the building. In fact, the few people who did seem to notice my arrival didn't show anything more than the usual interest. Go figure.

I scanned the dance floor for my roommate, wanting to tell her about my run-in with Olivia. But first I spotted Cam, arm in arm with some black-haired girl in a cranberry-colored dress. Tera, I guessed. My heart squeezed a little as I quickly turned away. No big deal, I reminded myself. It just wasn't meant to be.

Still, could this day get any worse?

It was then my eyes fell upon a more welcome sight. Becca, standing alone over by the sundae bar, without a single Boarder Barbie in tow. Finally! The perfect opportunity to make my move.

Heart pounding in my chest, I approached, not sure at all what I was going to say to her once I got there. Should I make some kind of icebreaking joke? An emotional plea? Or how about a flat-out question? Like, for example, how on earth did “Darth Olivia” manage to turn my best friend and ultimate Jedi warrior to the Dark Side practically overnight?

Any or all of those strategies might have worked, except for the fact that when I did finally reach my friend, my tongue chose to stop operating altogether. Instead, I found myself standing there like an idiot, unable to form even the least coherent sentence. In return, Becca stared back at me with an unreadable expression on her face, also seeming at a loss for words. As we faced off in silence, I couldn't help but notice her outfit. A pink, frilly knee-length dress. Seriously, you could have bet me a million dollars and I would have sworn up and down that my tomboy friend would not have been caught dead in such a girly ensemble.

But times, they were a-changin'.

“Um, hey,” I finally managed to spit out after what seemed an eternity. Not exactly the most eloquent of openings, but it was the best I could muster under pressure.

“Um, hey,” she replied. “I heard you were, um, back.”

You did?
I wanted to scream.
Then why didn't you come talk to me at lunch? Why didn't you come visit me in the dorm?

“Yeah,” I said instead. “I, uh, arrived this morning.”

We lapsed into more awkward silence as the DJ added a Beyoncé tune to the mix. Gah! Why was this so hard? This was my bestest friend in the entire world. The girl I'd shared everything with since I was seven years old. The girl I'd giggled with under the covers during sleepovers in my dad's cabin, long after lights-out. The one I'd told secrets to that I'd never told another living soul. Becca probably knew me better than I knew myself. So why did she suddenly feel like a complete stranger?