A Beautiful Dark

strange shapes. Standing there, I tilted my head back and stared at the blue-gray sky, pretending I was the only one around for miles.
    Ian and I positioned ourselves in the middle of the group, teetering on the edge of the double black-diamond trail known as Jacob’s Ladder. The girl standing on his other side caught his attention, and he began talking with her. Past his shoulder, I could see Devin waiting patiently at the far end of the line.
    The sharp swoosh of someone coming to a stop behind me was startling. I glanced back.
    “Good day for this, no?” Asher shaded his eyes with his hand as he squinted into the sky. “I hope the weather holds up.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “Look, about last night—”
    “Forget it, okay?” I turned to face him. “It happened. It’s over. We’re moving on.”
    “We are?” His voice was serious, but his eyes, as always, were smiling. It felt like he was making fun of me, and, annoyed, I pulled my goggles down and faced the slope.
    “Are you a good skier?”
    “Haven’t lost a race this season,” I replied without looking at him.
    “Wow,” he said. “You must have amazing control.” Steady on his skis, he swooped a slow, graceful arc behind me, coming up on my other side, forcing the guy who had been beside me to make room for him. Asher’s voice was low in my ear. “But it’s something else for you, too, I’m guessing.”
    “And what would that be?” I stood up straight again, eyeing the edge. We were standing too close to it. One slip, and we’d be soaring down the mountain. I backed up.
    “ Losing control. That’s why you like to ski, isn’t it? The feeling of falling but still knowing you can catch yourself. You’re a control freak because you know that if pushed, you would topple too far in the other direction.”
    “I’m not a control freak,” I challenged. What did he know? Once we got going, I was going to wipe that cocky smile right off his face.
    Asher pulled his goggles down over his eyes, secured his grip on his poles.
    “My mistake,” he said. “Let’s race.”
    And he took off, body leaning into the wind, poles straight back and tucked under his arms. Seconds later, I was right behind him, my plan to ski with Ian abandoned. Asher had presented a challenge I couldn’t ignore.
    “I’ll win!” I called, my blood boiling.
    “Prove it!” he yelled back. His voice was remarkably clear above the wind.
    I kept my focus on Asher—I wasn’t aware of anyone else on the mountain. If he swooped left, so did I. If he cut a sharp turn right over a bump, I followed. It became a game, a challenge. I’m not sure why I felt the sudden need to prove myself to him, but my body kept pace almost involuntarily. He knew I was watching him, like he’d been watching me since we’d met outside the Bean. Well, now he’d know what it felt like. And damn , he was an amazing skier. In his black parka and ski pants, he was like a dark star, hurtling forward. And I was his shadow, furtive and quick. Asher’s movements were sure, controlled, and he flew with seemingly no effort at all. I didn’t see him stumble once. I could feel the earth rippling and moving underneath me as I surged ahead.
    And suddenly I was passing him. His crouching figure pulled alongside me, and then he slipped back until I couldn’t see him anymore. Every bump, every notch, every roiling swell of snow and rock and earth beneath me seemed to fall away like sand in an hourglass. And then it really did . The snow underneath my skis really was moving, falling away. My footing faltered, and on the verge of pitching forward, I glanced back.
    Blind panic shot through my veins. Snow was ripping down the slope, balling up like boulders and thundering toward me with breathtaking speed. My heart was beating fast, and my breath came in sharp, ragged gasps. The snow drove down harder. I looked around wildly for some kind of sheltering rock or overhang. Anything at all to hold on to. But I was moving too fast. No one was behind me anymore—no one, not even Asher. I was alone. I was alone, and I was falling.
    I hit the side of the mountain hard, the wind sucked out of my lungs like a vacuum. I felt a sharp twist of pain as my ankle buckled and snapped beneath me, and I went down.
    I’d gone from calculated control to being completely helpless in the blink of an eye.
    The sensation of falling: the fear, the elation.
    The ground fell out from underneath me, and I dropped away. To