It had been almost 3 years since Elise had competed in a snowboarding event, let alone boarded at all. She was rusty, plain and simple. Strapping on her favorite board, she felt a sudden rush. She missed her fast paced life she had before and wondered how she wasn't able to balance it around her love for snowboarding.
Elise looked down towards the bottom of the mountain where the lodge was located at. She remembered how it usually looked when it was all decked up for the SSX events, but she had arrived a week prior to the beginning events so they were just beginning to set up.
She got up and balanced herself out on her board and took a deep breath. Then she was off! The wind blew through her hair, which had grown down to her shoulders again, and the snow was smooth and fluffy—perfect conditions. She did some basic skills: A few Indies and Switches. She attempted to do a nose grab, but she attempted it too late and went splat into the mountain side; she had forgotten how much falling down hurt.
The rest of the mountain, she took it rather easy. No use in bruising her body in the first few days that she was going to be there on the mountain. When she finally made it down to the lodge, her mother was standing around, waiting for her and shivering like crazy.
"I don't s-see how-w you us-s-ed to do this-s for a living! It'-s freez-zing out-t-t here!" she chattered, crossing her arms across her chest. Elise rolled her eyes and skidded to a halt.
"Mom, don't lecture me, not when I'm in the zone!" whined Elise as she unbuckled herself from her board. She heard her mother retort with a quick laugh.
"Oh y-y-eah! The Z-Zone! The f-face in s-snow zone!" she laughed. "F-face it d-dear y-you're r-r-usty! N-now let's get-t-t insi-ide bef-f-fore we freez-z-ze to death-h-h!"
Elise sulked behind her mother's back. 27 years old and her mother still controlled her. She looked back at the mountain longingly, wanting to go back up for another go, but she knew she'd have plenty more opportunities to get her groove back.
Inside the lodge, Elise sat at a table drinking some hot cocoa while her mother sat nearby, in front of a nice warm fire with a little toddler bouncing happily on her lap. Elise watched as her mother nibbled on the tiny, pudgy little fingers and spoke to it in gibberish.
She didn't know she was pregnant until she went to a circuit event in Vancouver and took a nasty fall during one of the races. She was rushed to the hospital to make sure nothing was broken, but later found out she was a little over three months pregnant; she had to forfeit the race because of it.
She couldn't terminate the pregnancy because she was too far into the cycle so she had to go through with it. For the rest of the six months of her life she had been stuck on land. No surfing. No boarding. No fun. She hated herself for not realizing sooner, but with the competitions and massive super pipe events, she just wasn't focused on herself; she wanted to win.
At first her mother was ranting and raving about the whole ordeal, but after awhile it seemed to sink in. Yes, she wasn't married, but she didn't think she was ever going to get married anyways due to the lack of intelligent men who could withstand her own intellect and conniving attitude, plus her competitive nature would shatter any man's. Besides, being a single mom wasn't all that bad. She got a good paying job and her mother enjoyed babysitting her grandchild.
Elise's mother walked over to the table and handed her the child. "Here, hold him while I go to the bathroom." Elise wrapped her hands around his little waist and sat him on the table in front of her. She looked at his cute little face and smiled.
"How's my little man doing? Huh? You having fun with grandma?" she asked, tickling his belly with her finger. He put his fingers in his mouth and smiled. "Aww you're gonna be such a heartbreaker when you get older! Yes you are!" she said, kissing him repetitively on his puffy cheeks. He smiled brightly, exposing his two teeth in his entire mouth.
For who his father was, Elise had to admit her son was rather adorable, but she figured it was her own gorgeous genes that balanced out the ugly ones. Although she was rather disappointed not to have a girl with the same gorgeous features as she, Jack wasn't all that bad, even though he resembled his father a lot more than she had hoped.
Finally her mother came back. "So when am I going to meet Jack's father?" she asked, snottily as she sat down across from her daughter. Elise grabbed Jack and placed him on her lap.
"What makes you think he's here, mother?" questioned Elise as she moved her cup of cocoa out of Jack's reach, making him mad.
"Well obviously he's a professional boarder. I mean, what other men did you associate with enough to wrestle in the sheets with dear?" mocked her mother.
"Ha ha, but what makes you think he'd be here?" she retorted. Her mother sat back in her seat and raised her eyebrow.
"Darling, I wasn't born yesterday and I'm not so out of the "know" these days. I do know that a snowboarding event is going to be happening in a few days and it isn't a coincidence that we came up here at around the same time, although I don't see why we did come up here in the first place. I mean, you haven't boarded in well over three years so I highly doubt you're going to go and participate! You're too good to ruin you're rep in the snowboarding world by attempting to race and only plummeting head first into the snow!" she took a sip of her coffee she had come back with.
"I mean, you have to be up here to see him so I'm only curious to see who he might be!" she beamed. Elise shook her head. If only her mother knew.