Short plumes of exhaust crystallized in the chilled air as the white valley rolled by my window. The distinct combination of trapped moisture, wilting blue leather seats, and conversation were unmatchable to any other type of transportation. The wheels of the bus creaked along the near-deserted highway, crushing powder in its grooves as it inched towards  our destination.

 “Hey, Leya,”, I was shaken out of my warm daydream, “you want to start off on a beginner slope with me?”.

 My attention shifted over to my friend Hanna, pondering  her offer, but quickly returning down to my lap, thinking to myself,  “I’ll need new pants after today”. 

The worn grey pants I’ve donned many Thursday evenings prior no longer matched with the fuschia jacket that I had gotten a few months back. 

 “Oh, sure!”, I had responded, sprinkled with faux enthusiasm. It’s not that I didn’t want to ski with Hanna today, I just had other things on my mind at the time. But she knew my tells all too well after so many years, 

“Come on, Leya, I’ll leave you alone eventually” she definitely would, as much as having her around really helped the flow of conversation, “besides, I’m not ready for The Dragon’s Scale yet”. I reassured her,

 “I doubt that, all of your runs have been pretty smooth this year”, which was true. Lost in debate over whether or not she wanted to try out a harder slope with me, the vehicle creaked to a stop in front of the main building, giving every passenger a little jolt forward. After a short period of waiting for the students to settle, the chaperones began to repeat the same instructions as per usual. After walking out of the bus one by one, students began to stand up and take their leave as well. I always dreaded this moment, as instead of being separated by lifts, trees, and skis, she’d nudge right past me, and my heart always skipped a beat.

Mel Hartford, the student leader of our school’s ski club, slid forward towards the door with a passing, 

“Hey Leya, Hanna”, as she made her way onto the icy asphalt. She had moved into the district freshman year, and with the charisma and confidence of an olympian, she obviously fit right in with the crowd. I was lucky enough to share quite a few of my classes with her for those 3 years prior, most notably Chemistry. As Hanna wasn’t in that class, I would’ve been mostly a straggler when it came to projects, since the class was split just as to where everyone had someone they’d partner with before I came to mind. But Mel took me under her bright wing, texting late into the night about all the things carbohydrates do for the body, and general getting to know. Our twilight catch-ups continued to rise with the moon almost once a week, every week; and so our friendship blossomed, as I was yet to realize what else took root alongside it.

After unloading our equipment from the trailer, our clan of students skated towards the entry gates. With the air as filled with chatter as much as oxygen, I had slipped in line amongst my usual group, 

“Hey Mel”, I tapped her perfectly square shoulder, “Which slope do you plan on riding first?”.

 “The Dragon’s Scale, might as well start off with something easier” she laughed, that intermediate course took a different lift than Amité Trail, my shoulders drooped ever so slightly. That day I was hoping to be able to spend more time with Mel, more than the usual one or two slopes at the peaks at least.

Across the park from the more difficult hill, Hanna and I creaked up the high mound. Surrounded by metal bars beckoning a curious fingertip to become entrapped in the ice, we sat admiring the scenic trials below us. Half listening to her ramblings on my book recommendations I already gave her a year back, my mind drifted back to Mel. Do we really mesh as well as I think we do? Outside of cosmetics like sharing the same black hair, some classes each year,  and this extracurricular, we don’t have the most in common. My stature is not all like hers either, 9 inches her inferior and with a less athletic build, we’d seem quite different. She’s fated to head down a path of scientific achievement, but my heart lies in literature.  My moping was left hanging from the chairs though, as I hopped off the lift at the peak of the shortest hill and headed dashed towards the trail. Sprinting through the passage of trees, I quickly reached the beginning of the slope. Once we had readied ourselves for the rush downward, we pushed off. The strength of the breeze picked up tenfold as I blitzed down the hill, whipping my tucked braid of hair out from my coat. With the snow recently having returned, it gave me a thrill near-unmatched since the last ski club meeting during Junior year. As one unrelated event stood paramountly thrilling in comparison to the others. 

As light sprinklings of December began to fall a year ago, midterm season was quickly suffocating me. I was drowning in biology work, then Mel decided to come to my aid. We sat on the freshly steamed carpet of my room, separated by the short end table I had hauled upstairs. The back and forth of her explaining concepts and my sudden questions in return filled the room until past the sun’s departure. By the time she had finished her hours of tutoring me, the snow had begun to pour, and being a Friday night, it only made sense to host a sleepover. As the rays from the fairy lights wrapping my ceiling meshed with the static of the small TV starting up, unlike most nights, we sat on the edge of my bed; staring intently at the list of programs currently airing. I handed her the controller, scooting across the edge of the bed to reach for the case, laid snug to the edge of my nightstand. I then placed my reading glasses on for just a quick moment, it was hard to read the small channel names in the dark compared to when I left all the lights on. As I crept back over to the edge of the bed, Mel turned around, and stared right at my glasses. She gave a light laugh, the electric glow highlighting the faultless edges of her face;

 “Those look good on you, I never thought about how well glasses would suit you”, she focused her attention back on the television. I was frozen, with my knees boring into the mattress, but my heart was beating rapidly enough to warm me back up. 

“Where did that come from?”, I was bewildered as I finally took my place to her side, looking ahead. I began to lose focus quickly though, my head swiftly diverting paths, “Why am I so taken aback?, It’s just a compliment like Mel would usually give”. 

My head would continue to pressure itself, wanting to believe that all was normal, ignoring the fresh rain that had just been trickled upon a blooming love. We sat in a filling silence as our mutual attention was on the documentary presented to us; but I was not free from the heart-twisting occurrences of that night just yet. With a soft, unexpected tap, a  sudden warmth took over my left shoulder, soon spreading to the rest of that half of my body. She had leaned against me, our shoulders so slightly supporting each other. Comprehension was lost on me for the following minutes, all I could feel was a new sort of adrenaline coursing through my heart, a feeling inimitable by any other action. We rested on each other for the final 15 minutes of the show, then  deep enough into the night, we had decided to sleep afterwards. She would wake me up at 6, an hour too early for my liking, to the sight of her sleeping bag folded up on the floor and the light warning there being of an hour left before she had to head back to help with something of then importance. After a pleasant breakfast and normal goodbye, the festivities had ended, but my feelings were irreparably altered.

With the adrenaline having mostly seeped out of me at this point, I began to rest at the lift center of the relatively small park, most every slope ended up around here. Then, to my surprise, a sole figure in a turquoise ensemble had suddenly appeared in front of me. 

“Oh, hi Mel” I spat out much more shocked than I meant to sound, “Where's the rest of your group?”. She quickly responded, 

“Oh, we met up with Hanna and they decided to go back up already”, I stared up at her in a half daze, not yet comprehending the situation, “So, would you like to head up to Helena’s Way with me?”. 

“Oh, sure!”, I shot up off of the bench and began the short walk to the appropriate gondola. Why were we going there already?  Helena’s Way was usually the course we’d end our 4 hour expeditions with, as it was an easy course that led to others of higher grades of difficulty below it, but most importantly, it was nestled near the top of the higher peak at the park. A perfect place to view the sunset, whether you make it to the frontier in time, or are still on your way up before the grand star falls behind the hillside to the flatter pastures. We were far ahead of the sun by the time we had made it to the front of the line, the body  only just beginning to show its first tangerine hues against the valleys of blue and grey around it. The usual small talk about classes and new favorite videos continued as we began to ascend above the other skiers. Yet the conversation had begun to take a turn.

 “I’m happy we get to do this, it hasn’t been just the two of us in a while” Mel mentioned. 

“I am too,” I agreed, “Odd how the first trip of the year feels like forever ago”, Aiming for a good final year to wow the colleges she had been applying to, Mel had increased her course load by a large amount. What used to sound like our chats had become intermixed with new friends sounding off about bones, valves, and diseases as if I was studying them. Her colleagues for the year weren’t unfamiliar to me, as I had just seen some of them on the bus; nor were they impossible to talk to, but I had begun to find my brain weighed down under their talks of rigorous studying. As much as I wanted to talk to Mel as often as previous years, I couldn’t find it in me to make her choose me over advancing towards her veterinary passion that always warmed my heart.

 The chains then jolted to a halt. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence here, someone likely dropped something at the loading station further down. Yet in an odd coincidence, it would take another 15 minutes to get the system running again, some rare safety check happening up at the top. But that didn’t matter to me then, as our conversation had suddenly ended just as soon as it started, leaving an oddly tense silence that should have forced our heads to the scenery below and ahead. But my eyes were instead glued to her out turned head, her cheek standing out against the cold protected parts of her head. The sun had begun to set further, casting a warmth much weaker than seen in her complexion. Entranced by her beauty even in an odd situation like so, I had no time to correct my position when she turned to me,

 “Is there something on my face?”, she smiled. 

“No, sorry, I guess i just zoned out for some reason”, I sheepishly fibbed, scooting slightly closer to her as if there were a slight imbalance to be remedied. To my surprise, she countered, restoring balance in the center of the chair.

 “Not to dote on anything too much, but about what you were saying earlier-” she started, but wouldn't finish.

”I-I was thinking too”, I butted-in unnaturally, tripping up, “Why don’t we hang out more? We text almost daily anyways”, trying to steer the conversation away from where I feared it going too soon.

 “Oh, sure-” she responded with a dusting of dejection, but she didn’t give up often. Out of nowhere, I felt something warm wrap around my hand, I started to freeze up, contrary to the bubbling warmth filling my head as I reciprocated. Out of my peripheral vision, Mel turned to face me, and I met her eyes, just to hear, “But that’s not what I meant”.