Lift Me Up

It was the middle of winter in the cold Shasta Mountain of Northern California. And of course, like many athletes, you may know what winter means. And you may know what snow means.

Winter means cold. Cold means snow. And snow means skiing.

So there I was, ski poles in hand, snow goggles sitting on top of my head, and my hair stuffed into a thick wool hat. But of course, out of my luck, the lift took quite a while to get to the bottom of the mountain.

I could hear other people sighing as well, the annoyed looks on their faces as we waited for an hour for the damn chairs to get to us.

But I would later learn that that wouldn't be my only problem.

I smiled and blinked my eyes as the ski lift chairs slowly bit through the thick snow and reached us. I smoothly skied up to one of the platforms and positioned myself so that I wouldn't fall over when it came to scoop me up.

Well, so much for that.

Somebody else had the same idea I guess, so as I waited, another body came and ungracefully knocked me onto my ass. The person looked surprised to see me on the ground but didn't offer to help me up.

The chair was probably ten feet away and still coming as I tried to get up and failed miserably.

The person looked urgently down at me again with the goggles covering their eyes, "Come on, come on! Get up!" they urged.

I tried and tried again, but one end of my right ski had gotten stuck in the snow.

The lift was about two feet away now, so the person lifted me up (pun intended) and oh-so-caringly tossed me onto the chair as they got in too.

I righted myself and glanced at them, "Well, thanks," I grumbled sarcastically.

They took off their goggles and I just noticed that they were male. He grinned down at me as his green eyes twinkled, "No problem, stranger."

Well guess what?

It was going to be a problem.

The lift sluggishly started up the mountain and my chair buddy turned to me, "So do you have a name?"

I immediately wanted to yell, 'Stranger danger!' But I refrained and answered him in the best way I could.

"'Course I do."

I squinted into the thick of snow and rubbed my gloves together, getting warm.

He seemed to be waiting for an answer but I turned to him, "Can I help you?"

He smirked, "Yeah. Do you have a name?" he repeated.

"Yeah."

He sighed, "Well, what is it?"

I snorted, very unladylike and responded, "I'm Cammie."

He grinned again, "Nice to meet you Cammie. I'm Goode. Zach Goode."

I rolled my eyes and he held out a hand.

I stared at it until he dropped it.

This was going to be one long ride.

Zach kept pestering me. Something about coming here often. But I didn't answer him.

He was just so annoying.

Suddenly, the chair jerked and then stopped. It swayed for a while and then went still.

My eyes widened in realization of what had happened.

It was broken.

And we didn't know when it was going to be fixed.

"Sonofabeehive," I muttered, frustrated.

Zach leaned against the back of the chair and stared at me, "So, I guess we'll be up here for a while."

I flipped him off as I started making a plan to get the fuck out of there.

Sadly, I couldn't find a way.

So, I was stranded in the middle of the air, with a guy I didn't know, without any way out or down.

Oh, did I mention that said person had unceremoniously dumped me into the chair?

Yeah, and I'm going to be stuck with him.

Fuck my life.

"So, what's your favorite color?" Zach urged for the fifth time.

"What's yours?" I shot back.

He gave some weird half smile thing, "I asked you first."

And this is the part where I act like a child, "First's the worst, second's the best, third's the golden bird."

He raised his eyebrows, "Excuse me?"

I just sat there in silence acting as stubborn as I could until he finally gave in.

"My favorite color's white." He said.

"White?" I scoffed, "Why white? It's so… boring."

Zach frowned as he studied me, "It's the color of snow, and all the colors of the rainbow put together."

I crossed my arms, "So you're saying that you like all the colors?"

"No."

Kill me now.

So, we sat there in silence until Zach started to rock the chair back and forth.

"Zach,, stop!" I yelled.

He looked at me with a mischievous smile on his face, "Why?" he asked innocently.

I pointed to the sign on the side of the chair, "It says 'No rocking'."

He chuckled, "As if a sign is gonna keep me from doing what I want. Like hell it will." He rolled his eyes as if that were the silliest thing in the world.

So he continued to rock the chair as I glared.

"Rock the boat! Rock the boat, baby!" Zach sung as he continued to sway our chair.

It had been two hours since the life had broken down and I was suddenly going insane.

"Shut the hell up!" I shouted at him.

He grinned like a child, "Let's jump," he said.

I cocked an eyebrow in astonishment, "Let's what?"

He nodded to the snow, "Jump. C'mon, you know it'll be faster than waiting for this damn thing."

He did have a point. So I nodded and took his hand in mine as we raised the safety bar.

And then we jumped.

"Ouch, dammit!" I muttered as I rolled over, clutching a sprained ankle.

"Ouch, Charlie! Owwww! Charlie, that really hurt!" Zach mocked in a very bad English accent.

I smacked him on the head.

"Ouch!" he mumbled.

I grinned like the maniac I was, "Who's hurt now?"

So, after that, we proceeded to ski down the rest of the mountain.

And I gotta admit it.

It was probably one of the greatest moments of my life.

And the most annoying.

But great, nonetheless.

Zach and I reached the bottom a half an hour later and my best friend Bex stood waiting.

She ran over and asked us in her native English accent, "What happened to you? I was worried!"

I laughed, "The stupid lift broke down. I was stuck with this dimwit for almost three hours.

Zach grinned and gave her a wave. She rolled her eyes.

"Well, I'm going to go get changed. I'll wait for you, Cam," she said before walking away.

"Wait!" Zach said and she turned around.

"Can you say the Charlie Bit My Finger thing? 'Cause you're English. Please?"

She raised her eyebrows and walked away again as I looked at him.

"What?" he asked.

"You are such a child." I replied and started in the direction Bex had gone.

He grabbed my arm before I could go.

I turned to face him.

"Coffee. 10:00am tomorrow at the lodge," he said, smirking.

And then I made the best mistake of my life, "Sure thing."

an: kinda cute zammie.

if you want, give me a three element prompt. this one was: lift, weird stranger, coffee.

give me one if you want. i'll see what i can do.

-a review a day keeps the haters away-

;)