Demanding Ransom (27 page)

 
Ran shifts his weight and the whole chair
swings back and forth with his sudden movement. I instantly feel like I’m on
some rickety ride at the state fair that creaks and groans like it’s one screw
from coming completely unhinged.

“Say you
forgive me,” he says again. “Please, Maggie.”

I try to
marshal the quiver in my voice and once I’m convinced he won’t detect it, I say,
“I forgive you, Ran.”

The
surrounding air hits my skin in small beads of moisture and it’s hard to see
past my hand. I’m not sure how much longer we have until we reach the top, but
pretty soon I probably won’t even be able to see his face through the veil of
white around us.

“I’m the
reason for your accident,” he says in an unnervingly monotone voice.

“What?”
The thickness of the air already made it hard to breathe, but his words feel
just as heavy on my chest, like a binding corset. “What?” I say again.

“The
night of your accident. I’m to blame for it, Maggie.”

“Ran, I
don’t know how that’s possible.” I try not to pull away from him, but I can’t
help but draw back in question. This makes absolutely no sense.

“I’ve
wanted to tell you,” he starts, and I recall the cryptic times he’d mentioned
something about feeling guilty or something weird of that nature, but it never
developed from there.

“I was
hit by a drunk driver.”

He nods
and looks in the distance like he’s recalling that night. But all that is in
front of him is a bleached stretch of cascading snow. “I know.”

“So how
does that make it your fault?”

“Because
I sorta wished for it.” His voice is still so clear, so steady, like there’s no
emotion held in it whatsoever. Or maybe it’s been drained of the emotion it
once embodied, having thought it over and over again, to the point where it is
just a recitation rather than a testimony.

“I
seriously doubt you wished for me to get plowed into by a drunk driver.” I pull
down on the unintentional lift in my voice, hoping not to come across
accusatory, because that’s not how I feel, even if my voice indicates
otherwise. When will this lift ever get to the top?

“I
wanted to rescue you, Maggie.” Ran yanks his beanie off his head and wrings it
angrily through his fingers. “It’s a sick game Trav and I play when it’s slow.
You know—we point out girls that we’d like to get in the back of our
ambulance.” I look down at his lap and am pretty sure that his hat will never
be its original shape again.

“And I
was one of those girls?” I reiterate.

“Yes.”
The twisting continues. “We were stopped at the light just to the right when I
caught a glimpse of you through your windshield. God, you were so cute tapping
your fingers on your steering wheel nervously. I pointed you out and Trav
agreed and I told him I claimed you first and that’s when it happened.” Ran
drags his gloved hand down the length of his face. “It was out of nowhere,
Maggie. He just barreled into the intersection from the lane next to us.” Ran’s
eyes are vacant; his stare is void of any discernable emotion. “Your car
flipped and rolled twice. I thought you were dead. There was so much blood.”

We’ve
made it to the top of the hill and Ran slinks off the lift like he’s on
autopilot. Thankfully, I don’t slip or fall, but glide with him to the side
where he drops down and sits directly in the snow with his arms tightened
around his knees and his board dug into the powder. I mimic his movements and
position myself the same way, right beside him.

“There
were three other cars involved, but all I could think about was you. I’ve seen
a lot—believe me—but I threw up twice on the way to get to you,
Maggie. I just had this horrible feeling that you were dead and that somehow,
by making a sick joke over wanting you, I’d sealed your fate.” Ran hasn’t
looked at me for the past few minutes. He still doesn’t. “When I saw you
there—hanging from your seatbelt, drenched in blood, but still
breathing—you have no idea what that did to me.”

“You
didn’t rescue me, Ran.” I tug my fingers out of my glove and stretch my hand
over to him, looking for a bare patch of skin so he can feel my reassuring
touch on him. There’s a small space on his neck above his jacket collar and I
brush my fingers along the skin there. “You
are
rescuing me. The night of the accident was just the beginning.”

Ran
whips his head my direction. He rips off his goggles in one reckless motion.
“You don’t blame me?”

“You
can’t be serious.” The snow falls steadily around us, landing in small flakes
that dust Ran’s eyelashes. He blinks rapidly to shake them off. “You honestly
think that you played a part in the accident?”

“No,”
Ran continues, rotating his head back and forth. “Obviously I
know
I didn’t. But how it all happened,
it just seemed too significant to be coincidental, you know?”

I pull
myself closer to him awkwardly, cutting the sharp edge of the board in a
horizontal path in the snow as I slide nearer. “That’s because it wasn’t a
coincidence, Ran.” I unclip the bindings from my shoes and leave the board
where it lays and drag myself to Ran. I grasp either side of his face and draw
it up to mine, forcing him to look at me, forcing him to listen to me. There’s
a clarity that’s slipping back into his eyes, casting away the shadow of haze
that inhabited them moments ago. “I don’t believe for a second that our meeting
was a coincidence. But I also don’t believe you’re at all to blame for how it
happened. I just don’t think we can wish for something and have it come true
like that—bad
or
good.”

His
half-empty eyes sluggishly lift to mine, like he’s coming out of some stupor or
daze. I grip on tighter to his face to shake him out of it completely.

“Maggie.
How is it that everything about you is exactly what I’ve been searching for?”
Ran brings his frozen lips to mine.

“Because
I’m perfect,” I mock, pulling out of our quick kiss.

“Pretty
damn near.”

“Oh, and
I forgive you,” I add, slinking out of his grip to fit my boots in the bindings
again.

“I
thought you just said it wasn’t my fault.” Ran wipes his eyes with the back of
his glove and secures his goggles back onto his face.

“It’s
not,” I confirm. “But I forgive you for being a hypocrite.”

Ran
cocks his head to the side the way puppies do when they’re trying to decipher
what you’re saying. “How so?”

“You
keep telling me that I need to let go of my guilt.” I push up on my knees to
lift out of the embankment of snow and steady myself with my arms balanced out
on either side. “Yet you’ve obviously been carrying that around for a while. So
is that one of those, ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ things?”

“I think
you should always do as I say,
and
do
as I do.” Ran tosses me an impossibly coy grin that I don’t even know how he’s
able to produce because my lips are currently frozen and my tongue is so numb
that it feels like a block of ice trapped in my mouth. “And right now, I say we
head down this hill, go back to the ‘chalet,’ and search for that hot tub you
promised me.”

“I
didn’t promise you anything, Ran.”

“Who’s
the hypocrite now?”

I teeter
on my board and recover my footing. “That wouldn’t make me a hypocrite, that
would make me a liar.”

Ran
skates closer and brings his mouth near my ear. “Anything else you’re lying to
me about?”

I tuck
my neck further into my jacket, because his breath should warm where it hits,
but it just draws up chills that I can’t afford to have right now. I’ve never
been so cold in my life. “I sorta just lied about not believing we get our
wishes. Because I really hope I’m about to get mine.”

“And
what would that be?” Ran pulls at the Velcro on his gloves to tighten the
strap.

“To
finally,
really
kiss you,” I say
confidently, which surprises me. “No more of this teasing me with little pecks
here and there. It’s starting to feel more like I’m your sister or something
rather than your girlfriend.” Did I seriously just say that? What has gotten
into me? I’m not Ran’s girlfriend. We’d never defined anything. Why on earth
does it feel like suddenly I’ve smashed my censor button to smithereens?

“I
definitely
don’t view you as a sister.”
Ran fits his beanie back onto his head. “Let’s see about finding that hot tub
so we can make that wish of yours come true,” he smirks, pointing the toe side
of his board toward the fall line and slipping out of sight into the white
depth of the snow-drenched mountainside, leaving
me
to chase after
him
this time.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

Mikey: In the hospital for more tests. Had a
killer headache for the past two days.

Me: That sucks, Mikey.

Mikey: Yeah. How’s Mom? Giving you a headache
yet?

Me: Not so bad. Haven’t seen her much.

Mikey: She passed out drunk like always?

Me: Probably.

Mikey: You coming home tmrw?

Me: Yeah. Afternoon.

Mikey: Stop by and see me. I’ll want company.

Me: K. Love u.

Mikey: You too, Sis.

“Knock-knock,”
Ran says through the door without actually knocking at all. I power off my
phone because there’s just a sliver of battery left, and I think we should have
a working cell phone on hand for the trip down the hill tomorrow. The
conditions have gotten worse—almost whiteout—and Dad’s always getting
on me about having a fully-charged phone while driving. Unfortunately, the cord
that would charge the stupid thing is still plugged into my bedroom wall at
home, doing me absolutely no good here.

“Yeah?”
I answer Ran’s knock.

“Can I
come in?” He opens the door and doesn’t wait for the response. I don’t bother
getting up from my perch on the bed, because even though I hate to admit it,
this is the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in. I’d honestly be content to
never leave it for the rest of the weekend.

“I found
something.” The way Ran’s eyes light up makes him look about ten years younger,
like he’s full of youth-like anticipation. The grin that spreads across his
face just adds to his playful aura.

“Let me guess.”
I roll my eyes and almost think I hear my bikini tapping on the inside of the
dresser drawer.

“Tub
time, Maggie!” Ran bounces on his feet. “Go get your suit on…or not.”

I groan.
“You seriously found one? I was hoping the closest one would be 50 miles.”

“Nope.”
He smiles a toothy grin. “More like 50 feet. It’s outside, built into their
downstairs deck. This place has everything.”

“Yeah,”
I grumble, rolling off the bed. “Sure does.”

“Meet me
in five, okay?”

I nod
and Ran all but races out of the room. I can hear him on the other side of the
wall opening and slamming drawers in an excited flurry. He’s built this whole
thing up so much he’s going to be severely disappointed. I haven’t even tried
on the swimsuit, but I’m not nearly as blessed as Cora in the curves
department, and I highly doubt the triangle top is going to do anything but
accentuate the fact that I don’t have enough to fill it out. This is
mortifying.

I drag
myself to the dresser—literally drag—because every muscle in my
body cries out for me to collapse back onto the bed. I wish Ran had mentioned
just how sore I would be from snowboarding. At the time it didn’t feel like I
was overexerting myself, but muscles I didn’t even know I had are now telling
me a much different story.

Hesitantly,
I slide open the top drawer and dig for the bikini, which takes quite a while
to find since I’ve buried it so far under the other folds of clothing. I hook a
finger around the top and lift it out and it stares back at me, taunting me
with its hot pink strips of fabric. There is no way this thing is going to even
remotely flatter me. What am I doing?

I slip
out of my clothes and try to adjust the suit into place so it covers
everything—and I honestly don’t have much to cover—but it’s so tiny
that what I
do
have is still just
barely under wraps. My ridiculous reflection in the full-length mirror nailed
to the back of the door induces a groan that Ran probably hears through the
thin walls. I’m nothing but a pasty, scrawny stick figure that looks like she
has pink highlighter scribbled across her. This is not going to work.

I tug a
t-shirt out of the open drawer and yank it over my head. Ran said he wanted me
to wear this suit. I’m wearing it; I’m doing as he says. But I’m also wearing
something over it. That’s not quite breaking the rules if you ask me.

Ran’s
already at the spa when I make my way to the downstairs rec room. His back is
to me and he’s lifting the cover off the tub, thick coils of steam snaking
around him. He’s seriously hot. I’m gawking again, I’m sure, but his back is to
me so I steal another glimpse at him as he crosses his arms at the waist and
lifts his shirt off. I hadn’t seen his back before, which is probably good
because if I’d seen it along with his incredible chest and stomach earlier, I
would have fainted and hit the ground, which would have added to my long list
of embarrassments.