—
Caleb let me borrow these once, during a group outing back in January, seasons before our hiking trip. There had been a picture of this day on the wall as well. A snowy background, the group of us bundled up, all smiles.
My parents made Julian come with us. Not that I’d asked if I could go. Not that I thought I needed to. I’d told them about the trip, and they’d said, “Who else will be there?”
I said, “Hailey, Sophie, Max, Caleb.”
I know now I should’ve led with Caleb. By listing him last, it made it seem like I had something to hide. Something that I was keeping from them, that they should not trust.
“If your brother goes,” was their response. A freaking double standard if I’d ever heard one. Julian had gone skiing with his friends the year before. But Julian, of course, was trustworthy. And I’d just been caught with Caleb in my room when Caleb was not supposed to be in my room. We were only doing homework. And okay, his hand was on the small of my back, under my shirt, but still. Homework. The mortification still burned. The lack of trust burned even more. Apparently, I was the only one who required a chaperone.
Julian had had plenty of girlfriends, I had learned from being at the same school. I assumed he had just not been bold enough to sneak them into his room. Or to tell our parents about them.
Julian acted like being required to accompany us on our ski trip wasn’t a big deal. He even drove. Pretended he’d been meaning to hit the slopes that weekend anyway, and if he knew I was interested, he would’ve gone sooner with me. We picked up Hailey on the way, but Caleb drove Max and Sophie. The whole thing felt like a chaperoned date, one that cut both ways. Hailey’s crush on my brother had only grown over the years, and there were few thoughts that weirded me out more than the idea of Hailey and my brother together.
I had not banned her from her attempts, though I did beg her not to share any details. Ever. Ever, ever, ever.
Thankfully, Julian didn’t seem super interested. But I think it weirded him out even more, to realize that Hailey was my age, and I was dating someone he knew, was friends with some of his friends too, and suddenly our worlds were interlocked, overlapping, with no defined borders or protocols.
Later, at the resort, Max, Julian, and I picked up our rentals, and met up with Caleb, Hailey, and Sophie, who had their own gear, in the locker area. Caleb took one look at the goggles I was adjusting and frowned. “Those are crap. You’re going to break your nose if you can’t get them fitted right.”
“Unfortunate, since I can’t get them fitted right,” I said.
He slid his off his head, swapped with me. He used my crappy rentals, which fit to his head just fine.
“Thank you,” I said, kissing his cheek. I lowered his goggles over my eyes, and the world filtered to a duller red.
He grinned. “I happen to like your nose.”
—
Hailey and I were testing out the easier slopes first. Me, because I liked to work my way up, out of habit. Her, because she was terrible. But she was terrible in an adorable way. Sliding down on her butt while yelling a string of ohcrapohcrapohcrap. Getting up, making her way slowly over to the lift again. Her skis interlocking on the next try, sending her skidding. I thought she was beyond lucky that she had never seriously injured herself. I wished I could fail as spectacularly.
Even Julian seemed to watch quizzically. Captivated by the mess, and the wonder, that was Hailey Martinez.
I was waiting for Hailey at the bottom of a run, because she’d gotten knocked over near the start, and was currently working through the slow process of righting herself. Julian was watching her and not me; he had been accompanying us on our runs, like he’d been put in charge as babysitter by our parents.
I caught sight of Caleb making his way toward the lift from the other direction, and I raised my hand, about to shout his name—and then froze. A girl had pulled up beside him, and I could tell from his body language, even from the distance, that he knew her. That he liked her. And what wasn’t to like? She had a long blond braid trailing down her back, fitted white and red snow gear, a confidence in her stance. And it was obvious she could ski better than me.
I heard him laugh. I looked behind me to see if anyone else noticed, but Julian was still keeping his eye on Hailey. I turned back around just in time to see Caleb with his arms around the girl, her face pressed up against his, everything monochrome and buffered through the goggles.
But then I second-guessed myself. Because the world was the wrong color, and the edges dulled, sunlight and ultraviolet rays filtered, and reality was skewed. I looked again, and he was skiing away. Like the last second hadn’t happened.
Later, back in the locker room, when I was taking off my gear and handed him back his goggles, he said, “Go ahead, Jessa. You can ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
He looked at me, widened his eyes. “What I know you’re wondering.”
Had he seen me there, watching them? Before, or after? He hadn’t acknowledged me standing there, one way or the other. “Okay,” I said. “Who was that?”
“Ashlyn Patterson. We went to sleepaway camp together a few years ago.”
“You went to sleepaway camp?”
He smiled, amused this was my biggest take-away.
“I did. And, before you ask, yes, she was my girlfriend.”
I remembered his laughter, the way her face was pressed against his as they hugged, and I felt something twist inside. “Is she confused about whether that position is still available?”
He laughed out loud this time, peeling off his boots. He leaned closer. “Not anymore,” he said. Then he kissed me quickly on the lips as we sat beside each other on the wooden bench.
“Hey,” he said, when we stood in our regular shoes, carrying the remaining gear back to the cars. “Thanks for not freaking out.”
I bristled, wondering what he really thought of me. Or if it was because he saw himself as older, somehow more mature. That he could kiss an ex-girlfriend on the cheek in greeting, calmly express his lack of availability, wish her well, see me watching and not saying anything—but know I’d be worried anyway. I told Hailey about it on the walk back to our car as they drove away, lingering on his comment.
“Thank God,” she said, “the spell is finally broken.” I remembered her holding an imaginary wand, asking for her friend back.
She cut off my look by circling her fingers around my wrist. “Look,” she said, “I’m just saying, it’s normal to see the good and the bad, you know? It’s not all sunshine forever.”
I nodded. Like I had finally removed the filter from my eyes. Seeing all the sides of Caleb, along with his past, and finding a way to work with it all together.
On the drive home, I kept replaying the image, filtered through red. The rush of snow and adrenaline. The curiosity making me pause and look again.