The hill, from down here, looked ... small. Manageable. The kind of slope I wouldn’t have given a second thought a year ago. Now it felt like I’d just summited something in my own backyard.
Snow glowed around me, bright and untouched except for the track I’d carved through it. The pines stood sentry on either side, branches heavy with white, framing the cut of the path that led toward the dunes and the water beyond. The air had that sharp, clean bite that came only after fresh snowfall, like the world had been scrubbed down and reset.
A breath left me on a shaky, disbelieving exhale.
From the top of the hill, Clara whooped.
The sound knifed through the cold—bright and sharp and so full of delight it made my chest jolt. I tipped my head back.
She was a small, bundled shape against the pale sky, hat crooked, scarf flapping, one mittened fist punched into the air like she’d just won something.
“You’re alive!” she shouted. “I was only, like, eighty percent sure that would work out.”
My laugh came out rough and still half breathless.
She just grinned wider, practically vibrating. Then she dropped onto her own sled with the easy confidence of someone who’d never had to think about how her body moved through space.
“Move over, old man,” she shouted. “I’m coming for you.”
Before I could tell her not to call me that, she pushed off.
Her sled didn’t launch as hard as mine had. The plastic eased over the edge, then picked up speed, sliding down the track I’d carved. Snow kicked up past the runners. Clara shrieked, a high, delighted sound that broke into laughter halfway down. Her scarf streamed out behind her, hair spilling loose from under her hat, cheeks flushed bright pink from the cold and the rush.
The sight did something disorienting to my insides.
She wasn’t careful. She wasn’t calculating. She just ... let go. She fully trusted the hill and the sled and the moment.
She also trusted me, by extension, because I was the idiot sitting at the bottom without a plan if she wiped out.
“Lean left!” I shouted when her sled started to drift toward the edge of the track.
She did, laughing the whole time, and the sled straightened, coasting the last few feet in a sideways skid that brought her right toward me.
The speed bled off fast on the flat. By the time she reached me, the sled was more drift than bullet, sliding in slow motion across the snow.
Reflex beat panic to the finish line.
My hand shot out and caught the front rope, fingers digging into the cold nylon as I hauled the sled to a stop. The plastic bumped my boot, and her knee knocked lightly against my shin.
We rocked once and settled.
Her breath came in frantic little puffs, fogging the air between us. A laugh still clung to her mouth, turning the corners up, but her eyes went straight to my leg.
“Holy shit,” she breathed, the words spilling out on one exhale. “Your leg. Does it hurt?”
The question staggered me more than the ride.
My body did another quick systems check. Residual limb? Achy, yeah. Not screaming. Prosthetic? Secure. No hot spike of pain, no warning flare, just the usual background buzz of nerves that didn’t know when to quit.
Shockingly okay.
Snow clung to the cuff of my jeans. My ass was numb. My heart was trying out for a rock band.
I snorted, still half laughing because I didn’t know what else to do with the adrenaline. “No,” I said, breath puffing white. “But you about gave me a heart attack. Christ, woman.”
Clara’s shoulders sagged with relief, then shimmied with leftover energy. She whooped into the sky—real and wild, head tipping back, the sound rolling out of her like it had been pressurized.
“I told you it would be fine,” she said, giddy, eyes sparkling. “Look at you. Sledding. Like a functioning human.”