everything Aksel told me, I am more drawn to him than ever.
Staring at his sweater, I feel a hesitant excitement in my chest. Maybe I’m not ready to leave Waterford after all.
CHAPTER 19
Charlotte corners me outside class. “It’s time you get a phone—”
“I’ll ask my father again but—”
“You better spill!” she demands as the bell rings.
Throughout the morning, I try to stop watching every doorway out of the corner of my eye, wondering when Aksel will appear.
In English, there are a dozen ways to say “nervous”—anxious, apprehensive, excited. Anticipating seeing Aksel again, I feel each one.
How will I act? How should I act? Has anything changed between us? Or was it all an interim facade, a primitive survivalist response that temporarily bonded us?
However, Aksel is not at school.
I double-check my clothes: skinny denim jeans, sneakers, a Ralph Lauren sweater, and a scarf. I probably should have brushed my hair, but other than that I don’t look that different. So why is everyone staring?
I sit down in the cafeteria beside Emma and unscrew the lid of my thermos.
“Come on,” Emma groans. “Share.”
I slide over the thermos of tomato bisque. “Sure.”
“You were buried in an avalanche with Aksel Fredricksen!” Charlotte hisses, slipping into a nonexistent spot between me and Emma. She’d been taking a test during French; we haven’t spoken until now. “How did that happen?” she demands.
I stare at her. “It was an accident!”
“I knew it!” Charlotte exclaims. “Something’s been going on between—”
“Has not!”
“So, you were accidentally in Aksel’s car, accidentally parked on the side of the road, and an avalanche accidentally landed on top of you?” Charlotte makes quotation marks with her fingers when she says the word “accidentally.”
“Charlotte, avalanches don’t accidentally”—I imitate her quotation marks—“happen.”
“Actually,” Emma interjects, “accidentally is exactly how avalanches happen.”
Charlotte grins at me. “So you were intentionally in Aksel’s car, parked—”
“How do you even know all this?” I ask her.
“Lydia told me,” she answers dismissively.
“How does Lydia know?”
“Liam.”
“How does Liam know?”
“Henry.”
“And Henry knows because—”
“Aksel used Henry’s truck to dig out his Defender this morning. Sounds like it was buried pretty deep. How did you survive? Did you have to cuddle naked—”
“Charlotte!” Emma scolds her, laughing.
“Look,” I say, “I only ran up Eagle Pass because you said it was picturesque—”
“You spontaneously ran up the road where I told you only Aksel lives?” Charlotte asks victoriously.
Blushing, I hear my father’s voice in my head—Nothing is a coincidence.
I tear off a piece of roll. “Why does it even matter? I didn’t plan it.”
“Right. You always run up dangerous, narrow canyons in blizzards?”
“No, I map out the most likely avalanche route and run there.”
“Sophia, you spent the night with Aksel in his car.”
“We weren’t in the back seat!” I protest, flustered.
“It’s not that, Sophia,” Charlotte says dramatically, looking around the cafeteria. There seem to be two hundred sets of eyes on our table. “It’s Aksel.”
The bell rings. We gather our trash, put it into the bin, and leave the cafeteria together.
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t grow up here,” Emma explains. “He spent winters here ski racing, and his family vacationed here often, but he attended some prep school back east. He was always super-focused and driven—”
“Athletic. Hot. Mysterious,” adds Charlotte. “That’s never changed.”
“We wondered why he didn’t move out here sooner … but after he transferred to Waterford permanently, well, besides Henry and a few others, he’s mostly cut everyone off. It’s just, well … he’s been different … ever since …”
… Different … the emphatic way she says it causes the hairs on my arms to stand on end.
We’ve reached Krenshaw’s class. The tardy bell rings.
“Since what?” I ask.
Charlotte switches her physics book from her left arm to her right.
Emma smooths her forefinger over her thumb. “It was all over the news. It was tragic … Henry’s parents knew them best because he and Aksel raced together. But even my mom sobbed for days …”
“What happened?” I persist impatiently.
Charlotte purses her lips. In spite of the rowdy hall, it is eerily somber in the pocket of air between us. “His parents died, Sophia, two years ago in a plane crash.”
“Are you staying?” Mason asks me several days later, on the way to gym.
I freeze in place. “Staying?”
“In town?” he says slowly. “It’s a holiday?” He crinkles his forehead. “Sophia, you know about Thanksgiving, don’t you?”
I break out laughing. “I am American, Mason!”
“Nah, you’re Parisian.” He grins.
“That’s not a nationality!” I respond as he darts into the locker room.
Throughout the week, my feelings about Aksel have only intensified—intrigue and trust