Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
“Land it, land it,” I begged.
She did.
Then she tucked her legs up on the last, biggest cliff, crossing her skis…
And landed it.
The crowd clapped and I took my first breath. I didn’t give a shit what the judges thought of her run. To me, she’d nailed it.
It took another few minutes before she found us in the crowd. “Did you see me?”
“Of course I did!” I yanked her into a hug, uncaring if it wasn’t cool to have your mom basically smother you in public. “You were amazing!”
“Solid run! You nailed it!” Weston threw up his hand, and Sutton high-fived it.
She sat with us as the rest of her team made their runs, and my shoulders finally lost their tension. I’d signed the waiver. She’d made the run. It had all worked out. And even better? I wouldn’t have to deal with this stress again until next season—and I wasn’t about to borrow tomorrow’s trouble.
“You made round two!” Sutton’s coach told us a half hour after that, waving a paper.
“Wait.” My head snapped toward Weston. “There are two rounds?”
An hour later, I emptied the last of my water bottle, trying to dislodge the boulder in my throat.
Sutton was at the top of the competition zone with the other finalists—twelve in total—and since she’d scored the lowest in the initial round, she was up first.
She’s going to be fine. She just showed you she can do this.
But then her pink hat appeared a little to the left of where she’d begun last time.
“What are you doing, kid?” Weston whispered, his eyes narrowing.
“What is she doing?” I had his fingers in a vise grip.
“Not taking the same line,” he muttered. “She wants the higher run score.” He shook his head, and Sutton dropped in.
Higher run score meant she’d upped her difficulty.
Her posture was just as confident, her moves just as controlled as the first run, which helped ease my blood pressure as she hit the first jump. She tucked her knees, crossing her skis just like she had with the final jump before, but she barely got them back under her before landing, and she wobbled.
“Come on, Sutton,” Weston whispered. “Think smart.”
She carved left, then right, coming down the steeper chute, and she skidded right before the jump. She pulled the same maneuver, crossing her skis for what I guessed had to be style points.
She tipped backward.
My heart froze as the backs of her skis hit the terrain. One went flying. Her butt hit. Her back hit. Her head bounced.
I muffled my cry with the back of my hand.
She slipped right off the edge of the highest jump…and fell…and fell.
We were too far away to hear the impact, but she slid down the rest of the run like a limp doll, her arms above her head, her equipment everywhere.
Weston dropped my hand and bolted, dodging spectators as he raced across the snow. I took off after him, but I was no match for his longer legs as he sprinted forward through the silent crowd.
I ran my heart out over the open terrain once we were beyond the ropes. Be okay. Just be okay. Ski patrol was already there, hovering over her, their snowmobiles parked just off the side at the end of the slope.
Weston stood close enough to see her but far enough to keep out of the way.
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t happen. Not to her.
“Can you hear us?” one of the ski patrol asked. “What’s her name?”
“Sutton,” Weston responded, his voice tenser than I’d ever heard as I got there, my lungs burning and legs screaming.
“Is she okay?” I pushed past Weston. “I’m her mother.”
I’m the one who let her fling herself off a mountain.
“We’re checking her out.” One of the ski patrol guys looked up at me while the other peeled back Sutton’s eyelids.
“You there, Sutton?”
She moaned, and I went limp. She was alive. Weston’s arms came around me, holding me upright.
“Can you move your legs?” the guy asked.
She whimpered in pain.
“We need to board her,” the other patrol member said. Four people jumped into action, collaring Sutton’s neck and putting her onto a backboard. “We can take her down the mountain on the board, or we can call the helicopter up.”
Buzzing filled my ears. They had her strapped to a board.
“Callie, it’s up to you,” Weston said, but he sounded miles away. “They can pull her on the board, and take her down with the gondola, or they can call the helicopter up.”
One body. She only had one body. “Whatever’s fastest.”
“Call the bird.”
“Hey.” Weston pushed open the door to Sutton’s hospital room, juggling two cups of coffee. “Thought you might need some caffeine.”
“Thanks.” I took a cup and set it next to my cell phone on the rolling table beside the chair I’d been in for the last nine hours. Weston leaned against the wall—the position he’d mostly been in since he got here—but I couldn’t look at him.