I snap my skis into place and slowly move in the direction of the two thin lines that Yasmin left behind in the snow. She didn’t follow my tracks. She went down, closer to the edge.
The slope is enticing, but I don’t dare go fast. I snowplough the whole way. I start to understand what happened. The view is breathtaking. We’re talking absolutely impossible to look away from, so maybe she didn’t. Up ahead I see a cliff. It looks like it could be a mini one, that jumping off it would lead to landing in soft snow a few metres down, but something tells me there’s more to this jump than meets the eye. I slow down even more, not daring to meet the same fate.
As I near the edge, I see a huge drop, one that would inspire the kind of scream that still rings in my ears. I cannot undo that sound. Peering over, I half-expect to see her broken body, like a scene in a movie, but it’s too steep. No doubt she’s down there somewhere, and I’m pretty sure she could not have survived a fall like that.
A pang of pain comes over me. I fall to my knees and let out a kind of howl I’ve never heard before. I’m not crying, exactly. It’s something else. More like wailing. I’m kneeling exactly where Yasmin’s tracks end.
It’s too steep to make my way back with my skis on. Stepping up the mountain sideways is way too hard. I snap them off and carry them over my shoulder as I make the long climb back up to Tom.
Any other time, I wouldn’t have been able to scale the angle of the mountain upwards. It’s like those stories you hear of mothers who are able to lift up cars when their babies get stuck underneath. I know I have to get back to Tom, so I make it back, even though, logically, I never should have been able to. That’s how steep it is on the path Yasmin took.
I see a crew of people in red jackets with white crosses on their backs surrounding Tom. I must have been gone longer than I thought. I am experiencing time in a really bizarre way. It’s going both faster and slower than usual.
At first, they don’t see me. I can tell they’re busy trying to put Tom into one of the rescue toboggans. They huddle over him like football players.
From afar, one looks my way.
“Are you Marcus?”
“Yeah.”
“We told you not to leave your friend. Why did you leave?”
“I was only gone a minute.”
We look at each other, both of us aware I am lying. A woman with pink cheeks and wrinkles says nothing. She stares at me with piercing green eyes.
“What were you guys thinking?” she asks, shaking her head. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is out here?”
There’s really no response to that. “Is Tom going to be all right?” I ask.
“That’s not for us to say.”
A man on a walkie-talkie yells into the speaker. “Patient is ready.”
Far away there’s a noise like a drum roll. It gets louder and louder. A helicopter appears from around the bend of the mountain. It must have come from the village. I can’t believe it. In my mind, I imagined Tom being skied down on the sled. I thought it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe he’d broken a leg. It wouldn’t be the first time.
But when the helicopter hovers and the paramedics attach the toboggan to it, I get scared. There’s my best friend, suspended from a helicopter, tied by ropes. They’re taking him to the emergency ward.
Then it hits me: it’s me who put him in this situation. It’s my fault.
The woman with the sunburned pink cheeks looks at me. Her eyes cannot conceal the anger she obviously feels.
“So, there was another skier with you?”
“Uh. Yeah. Yasmin Alvarez.”
“Can you tell us where to look for her?”
I tell her about the drop.
I watch the helicopter ambulance take Tom away, while I stand like a statue. The rest of the rescue crew gather around me. They talk to each other, and two of them decide they’re going to retrace Yasmin’s trail.
The stern woman’s face softens a bit, and she puts her hand on my arm and pats me.
“It’s okay,” she says, looking at me watching Tom. “He’s in good hands. He’ll be okay. Let’s get you down the mountain.”
I nod, unable to say anything. “I’ll see him down,” she says to the others.
In silence, I ski down behind her. The woman slows now and then, looks back at me and gestures for us to keep going. Maybe she’s worried I won’t make it on my own if she doesn’t escort me. Then she gets out her radio and talks in code. I don’t remember breathing since the top of the mountain.
At the bottom, there’s Ms. Carmichael. She’s clutching her phone to her ear, and when she sees me, she turns it off and runs over.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says.
I notice she’s shaking.
I still can’t say anything. I can’t cry. I can’t smile or reassure her.
“Come here, let’s get you to the bench,” she says.
She talks to me the way the eldercare workers sometimes talk to my grandpa at the home. It’s as though she thinks I am senile or not quite with it, and maybe she’s right. For the first time in my entire life, I am in over my head. It’s hard to even get to the closest bench because I am dizzy, my head is pounding and I realize that I am trembling.
When I finally sit down, the exhaustion really hits.
“Wait here, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”
“Okay,” I say.
I have no idea where I would go. The only place I want to be is at home in my bed, but that world is very, very far away. I clutch my core like I’m in a straitjacket of my own making. I’m so cold my teeth are chattering.
Ms. Carmichael comes back to tell me that they found Yasmin’s body. All I can do is stare at her.