The Ex Games(9)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Josh scratched Doofus’s ears and seemed to be telling the dog rather than me, “I’m your only brother. And you bent my fingers back and hurt them.” He poked out his bottom lip.

“I will kiss your fingers and make them better, kissy kissy,” I threatened him. That got him up pretty quickly. He kicked off the rest of his snow clothes and skidded into the kitchen in his long johns and socks. I stripped down to my long johns, too—tripped over Doofus—and scrambled after Josh, angry already about what he might tell Mom, depending on how mischievous he felt.

Mom was giving him a big hug, wearing her yoga leotard from work, holding the large kitchen knife she’d just been chopping dinner with. If they weren’t my family I might have been frightened. “Well, how’d you do?” she asked, pulling back to look him in the face.

“I won third place in the junior boys’ division!” Josh exclaimed with wide, innocent eyes like an adorable woodland creature in a Disney cartoon. I wondered what he was up to. I wanted to slap him. But then I would be forced to explain to my mom why I’d slapped the adorable woodland creature.

“That’s great, honey!” She wrapped him in another hug. He was facing me now. He gave me a wink and a thumbs-up. Ugh!

Mom eased out of the hug with him but kept her hands on his shoulders. “Why are you acting like a parody of yourself?” she asked him.

Josh blinked at her. “That’s just a function of being a teenager. I feel so empty inside. What’s for dinner?” He slipped out from under her hands and wandered to the refrigerator.

Mom turned to me, and the big grin she’d worn for Josh sagged a little. She didn’t expect much from my first snowboard competition. “And how’d you do, honey?”

“I did okay.”

“I’ll give you five seconds,” Josh called from behind the refrigerator door.

Mom looked at Josh, then back at me. “What? What is it?”

I looked into her eyes, dark like Josh’s and mine. I took in her long red hair tamed into a braid down her back, her freckles that made her look younger than forty-six. At least, I thought so, and I hoped so, because clearly I was going to look just like her. Maybe she’d take my side, whatever Josh was about to tell her. She knew how hard my injury had been on me.

“Actually …,” I said slowly.

With each of my syllables, her right eyebrow arched higher.

“I won,” I finished.

“Oh my God, that’s great, you won!” With her braid bouncing as she jumped up and down, she looked and sounded a lot like Liz—except for, you know, the knife. “That means you’re a lot better at snowboarding than I thought! You’ve finally gotten over your fear of heights! And—wait a minute—why didn’t you want to tell me?” Abruptly she stopped jumping. “What’s the prize?”

Josh walked over with a stalk of celery sticking out of his mouth. He removed the knife from Mom’s hand and set it on the counter. Then he said around the celery, “Lessons with Daisy Delaney.”

“Daisy Delaney!” Mom gasped. “Hayden! I am old and out of it, as you’re so fond of telling me, but even I know who Daisy Delaney is. That’s some prize!”

“But guess what?” Josh went on, removing the celery from his mouth so he could rub this in as thoroughly as possible. “Hayden’s been avoiding comps all this time because they have jumps in them. Her fear of heights is so bad that Daisy Delaney’s going to think she’s a beginner.”

Mom turned back to me, and her other eyebrow went up. “Really?”

“She won’t set foot on the gondola,” Josh blathered on. “She won’t even get on the regular ski lifts that go too high off the ground. She sticks to the low, short lifts, which means she’s been boarding for four years and she’s never even seen half the mountain.”

“That half of the mountain is nothing but jumps and cliffs. I don’t want to see it,” I insisted.

“This is bullshit,” Josh shouted over me. “Mom, she’s supposed to take me with her. Like Elijah and Hannah Teter. Like Molly and Mason Aguirre.”

“Who?” Mom shouted back.

“One sibling goes pro and helps the other along.” Josh gestured dramatically with the celery. “You could have two pro snowboarders in the family. We would buy you a new minivan. You want a new minivan, don’t you?”

“Tempting,” Mom told him drily. She turned and gave me a long look. “Well, Hayden? You’ve said you want to become a professional snowboarder, but your father and I assumed you wouldn’t be able to do that because of your fear of heights. We thought eventually you’d give up, go to college, and major in …” Her voice trailed off.

And no wonder. Currently I had a C in chemistry, a C in history, and a D in algebra. Ms. Abernathy wasn’t the only teacher sending me out in the hall for talking.

“But if you’re good enough to win a contest in Snowfall,” Mom went on, “and you have a foot in the door with Daisy Delaney, you have as good a chance of going pro as anybody. Do you want help getting over your fear of heights? We could take you to the doctor—”

“Yeah, that’s just what I need, to miss my days snowboarding so I can sit in some doctor’s office and go through more rehab.” My voice rose and thinned until it petered out at the end, and rehab was a whisper. My fear of doctors might actually have been worse than my fear of heights, judging from my shallow breaths.

Mom must have noticed, because she put her hand on my shoulder. “Or a counselor of some kind?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Don’t let her get away with this.” Josh pointed at my mother with the celery. “She is a foolish, foolish young girl.”

Mom rolled her eyes at Josh. “Lay off her, would you? If she doesn’t want help with her phobia, she’ll work through it on her own, or she won’t go pro. It’s not something we can decide for her. Get your own lessons with Daisy Delaney. I’m going to call your father and tell him the good news. Where’s my phone?” She padded out of the kitchen in her bare feet, braid swinging gently against her back. Then there was a screech and a dog yelp. She must have tripped over Doofus lying on the floor in the living room. “I’m okay,” she called.

I was holding my breath. When I realized this and forced myself to breathe again, I smelled smoke. Mom had left dinner burning. I dashed to the stove to stir the tofu.