Don't Pester The Ski Patrol • L.S.

2

I can't ski, so I go on walks instead.

Admittedly, I'm feeling a bit insular in my cabin. I have a huge cabin all to myself in a secluded section of the resort, so I'm far away from anyone else that might be staying here. There's not really a ton of people around the resort area anyways; they're all on the slopes all day. I don't mind this at all; I enjoy being alone to walk, to read, to call my mother as she's requested once a day.

As a businesswoman, I have tons of respect for my mother. She's always possessed the knack to get things in motion - she doesn't settle and she never stops. As a mother, well, she could use some work. I've constantly told her time and time again that I'm completely burnt out from being on this stupid show, and that it makes my skin crawl knowing I'm going to go down in history as nothing more than a reality TV idiot. Her answer, without fail, is always the same -

"This is the price you pay for being a Deakin-Tomlinson, Louis. Don't take your life for granted."

Well, I didn't ask to be born a Deakin-Tomlinson, and if I could've been born as anything else I would.

Our show, The Tomlinsons, has been on the air since before I existed, and will probably be on the air well after we're all dead. The premise is simple: we are a gorgeous and wealthy Hollywood 'it' family that does nothing but party, fight, and lounge luxuriously in The Hills. Inspiring entertainment, I'm sure. Between my mother's constant husbands and staged fights between my sisters, our ratings have managed to stay high for over a decade. My siblings are very well-fitted for their archetypes, having been dubbed things like 'the smart one' or 'the ambitious one' - meanwhile all I get to be is brazen and disrespectful. I'm sure my mother could find some way for me to make some sort of product line off of that, but I refuse. My sisters can go ahead and sell their stupid creams and overpriced hair gels, but I won't be caught dead with my face on the back of a lipstick carton named Louis' Luscious Lips!

I'm acutely aware of the fact that I sound spoiled and ungrateful, but these days I'm not even grateful for money. While money is plentiful, everything else is dehydrated. I just want nothing more than to be free from the shackles of this awful (and blatantly scripted) shit show, but dear Johannah has me legally binded to the production until I die. So, I'm going into this next season on my own terms. I told her I would come and be in exactly five episodes if I was able to get away by myself for a few months and pretend I could ever be an active member of society.

And, well, we compromised - I'll be in seven episodes, and I have to let her send a pap to the ski resort every now and then to capture me living my luxurious ski boy life. It's better than nothing.

I suppose I'm just glad she even let me go and miss some of the filming for the show. I guess she could tell I needed this; I was far too out of touch back home, to the point where I wasn't even a real person. I partied and drank and snorted and slept around, and I've been that way for years. My body can't take it anymore. I just want to exist at bay, even if only for a single winter.

So far, I've been relishing in my solitude up on the mountain. This is everything I wanted. And if it's lamented by my certain boyish daydreams about ski patroller Harry Styles, well then that's my prerogative.

It's been two days since the avalanche and I've been deviously plotting how to talk to him again, even if it's just for a fleeting second. I should probably just leave him alone for the sake of his daughter and my supposed getaway of deliberate loneliness, but I can't help it. There's something that's attracting me to him like a magnet. I want to hear his voice work again.

I couldn't tell you for the fucking life of me what being in the ski patrol entails, so I have no idea where he could be at any point of the day. This is why I've opted to aimlessly wander around in the mountain snow, hoping and praying I'll see his face again. The first two days had been fruitless. Maybe the third time's a charm.