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Kim is wondering if it's such a good idea to be out alone in the dark and the bitter blue cold of the Alps. She pauses, leaning against her board, the tip sinking into the powder. She pauses to breathe.
It's quiet out here. Back home she heard the quiet of morning snow, before the kids came screaming out because they've got a day off school. She used to sit on the steps and watch the flakes building up in her parent's tiny back garden, coating the grass and the hydrangeas as the other houses in the terrace lit up. It was so peaceful. Only now does she realise that the silence is the same, even here, miles from anyone in the Alps.
She feels alive. But she also can't stop thinking about that damn jump. It's exactly the same as before, when she was skateboarding. That first big jump when she was kid was like flinging herself off the tallest tower knowing that if she fell she'd get hurt. A helmet and elbow and knee pads could only cushion the blow, not get rid of it completely.
But she did it. She did that first big jump and she landed. She fell more often than not until her mother took her aside, kissing her grazed elbow, and said you've got to trust yourself, Kim. Next time Kim took to the high ramp, she nailed it.
Now her mum is gone. Except she's not, because every time Kim gets to that damn jump she... she freezes. She hears the crunch of metal, the squealing wheels, the blaring horn. The horror of it is like a bite. It sinks its teeth in and she can't get her body to move. It's not herself she doesn't trust this time. It's everything else. A rock hidden under the snow. A crevasse. A bloody great spike just waiting for her to think she can do it.
She looks back down the slope. The tiny indentations she made on this massive fuck-off mountain. Proof that she's here. That Kim Matthews is alive and breathing in the frigid morning air.
Kim keeps climbing.
At the top she leans on her board and blows out a breath, feeling sweaty but satisfied for making the climb. She takes in the view. It's still silent, just her breathing and the mountains filled with blue shadows, which is why she jumps when she hears --
"Hi."
Willy from the bar is there, not even out of breath, coming down the slope towards her. How long has he been there? she thinks before she laughs because no way. No way. He walks over, smiling shyly at her.
"So you are the Yeti," she gasps out.
"Must be the hair," he grins, and Kim laughs again. Her blood is buzzing.
They sit in the snow and catch their breath, occasionally glancing over at each other. They watch the sun rising in a companionable, easy silence, and when it peers over the distant ridgeline in a blur of orange and gold Kim feels hurt lance through her. Her eyes prick with tears.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" Willy asks. It's a question but he says it like he already knows that she does, desperately, yet hasn't found the right person to talk to. Still, Kim laughs it off, trying to swallow down the ache in her chest.
Willy's looking at her, a soft look. Not expectant or pitying. Empathetic.
Kim tries to get the words out for a moment, chewing on them. Then they pour like an avalanche.
"It's just something that... we were... we were driving home and I'd just won the London Trials and all of us were in the car, me and my mum and dad were singing at the top of our voices and we were all laughing 'cause none of us can sing for shit and, um," She stops. Stares at her mittens. Up at the horizon. Down again. "My dad had to swerve, and... and he skidded off the road. And my mum was on the side that got hit and... and she died."
It must feel good for mountains to shed all that snow, all that weight.
Still, she hates that her voice breaks. She hates that the first person at this resort that she's told this to is not Georgie, her roommate, or Jonny, her.... whatever, and not even fucking Mikki, who's been trying to figure out why she can't make the jump since he started training her.
It's Willy. The barman who gets up at the ass-crack of dawn after a blizzard and makes the first tracks through the powder.
"My mum died and I just really miss her." Kim starts to cry as the sun lands on them, golden, warm, bright, casting away the dark.
As she cries, Willy puts his hand on her shoulder. It's a steady weight, only there for a second, and he doesn't say anything. He just watches her, his brows tugging together in concern, in understanding.
Then she apologises, tries to brush it off. Makes some stupid joke about always crying when she's around yetis.
"Not around me, I hope," Willy says quietly, carefully. He squints out at the mountains. Then looks back at her. "There is not much I can say, Kim, that you have not heard before. I will say that it's okay to miss someone so much that it hurts. And it is okay to be happy at the same time. Do things you enjoy."
Kim sniffs, glances at him. "Like hike up the mountain in the dark."
"Otherwise I will be drinking at my own bar," he deadpans, and Kim laughs, the sound sudden and harsh.
She smiles at him, wiping away the remaining tears. The new chalet girl and the mysterious yeti.
She thinks of their interactions over the past few months. Endless chats at the bar between customers, when Georgie or Jonny or someone else had made Kim want to drink several pints alone. Except Willy was there. Friendly, approachable, talking with her when she needed to talk it out and merely topping her off and leaving her be when she wanted to stew.
They talked about the resort. About their lives back home. She in Birmingham, he in what he claims was the Austrian equivalent of Birmingham. His father had died when he was young, and his mother had remarried, and Willy had left as soon as he was able and had been working in bars and resorts ever since. He gave up this information freely. Kim had wondered if he'd sensed parental death and its associated trauma on her. Now she figures so what if he did? Jonny certainly wouldn't get it. He's stealing her wages from her for a stupid stereo, for fucks sake.
They've bumped into each other at staff parties and in the nearest town. They've rode up and down the mountain together. He loaned her a hat when she misplaced hers. She brought him cake from the chalet kitchen. Little moments back and forth. Kim had never felt the pressure she felt around Jonny, who was too rich to realise he could cause real damage to someone like her, or even around Mikki, who was so not her type but who she felt was into her anyway, which had been pressure in itself until she'd realised he was actually in love with Georgie. Not to mention the assholes on the mountain guessing her bra size or Bernhardt being a dick about everything.
Willy is just nice. A good dude.
He nods his head down at the slopes. "Let's ride."
Kim stands. Feels the sun on her face and the powder under her board.
"I always tell the mountains my problems. They're good listeners," Willy says, strapping his boots down.
"You must have come from a very small town if the only things you could speak to were mountains."
He shoots her a sarcastic look. "Says the English girl who talks to her beer."
"Hey," Kim protests, but he's already flying down the slope, and after a minute to take in the beauty of this place she's zipping after him.
When they get down to the bottom of the mountain she asks him what he's going to do with the rest of his day. It's still just barely the right side of dawn.
"Do you roam the woods, scaring off-piste guests?" she asks.
"Only after pay-day," he replies. For a brief second he seems a bit nervous, pushing his hair out of his face, his cheeks red from the cold. Around them the resort is coming to life. "I was going to head into town after lunch. Errands. You can come if you want. I can't promise any helicopters."
Kim feels all warm in a way she hasn't felt for a while now. She considers it. Errands. Simplicity. Maybe more boarding, later, if she's lucky.
"Do I get half-off at the bar if I say yes?"
"You already get half-off." He shifts his weight slightly, snow crunching underfoot. "So? What do you think?"
"It's a date," Kim says, popping up on her board to kiss him on the cheek before sliding away, the blinding snow nothing compared to the grin on her face.