The Guy Everybody Wants

Chapter 10

I guess it is probably socially acceptable to scream when you realize you might be about to die, but I really didn't want to lose the only friend who treated me like I was relatively normal, so I held it in. 

Well, mostly. I must have let out a little squeak or something because Jamie turned and looked at me. "I thought you said we were going to be fine?" She had to yell above the roar of the wind, and I still barely heard her. 

"People in the movies are always fine." I yelled back, and then tried to take a look at my surroundings. There was nothing to use as a rope, nothing to use as a slide, and no giant inflatable pads to jump onto like there are when filming movies. Absolutely nothing useful. Great. 

"So, what's the plan?" Jamie asked, and I didn't exactly know. "Maybe we should try to get down?"

"No!" I yelled. "That's a bad idea! If we fall, we're dead, and with this wind, there's an even higher chance we fall. We should probably kick our skiis off so that we don't have that in our way."

Within the next minute, I watched as our skiis fell to the snowy ground below us, and I relished in the freedom of having my legs be about ten times lighter. 

Just then, the rain started and lightning flashed. I counted the seconds. There were three, so we weren't that close to the lightning, which was good. Knowing my luck, we would be struck if it came closer, and I really didn't want to die. Besides, I had promised Jamie's Grandma that I would bring her back home safely. Now, I wasn't even sure if unharmed was an option. 

"They should be sending people out to come get us." Jamie said, and I barely caught her words above the intensity of the storm. "They have to."

"If they don't we can probably sue." I said automatically, so used to the concept that if someone wrongs you, you can sue them. That's where half the money my family had came from. Well, a little less than half. 

"That's what your worried about?" Jamie cried, incredulously. "We could die and you're thinking about money?"

"It's a natural response! All most of my family cares about is the money!" I said.

"Colby." She said, sternly. "We need to get down. This is not important right now."

"I know, I know." I said, and once again began searching for some way to get down. After what felt like a solid ten minutes of looking, I gave up. "There's nothing to use. I can't s-"

The chair rocked mightily, cutting off my sentence as I grabbed it with all my might. Jamie shrieked and her hand tightened on my jacket, the other probably gripping the chair as tight as I was. 

It swung forward, and as it swung,I held on for dear life and looked for the other people on the lift with us, desperately hoping that they were okay, and that maybe they had gotten down somehow. I spotted a flash of color in front of me, and then another as I looked back. No such luck. 

The seat was swinging constantly now, back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum. The entire time, I couldn't help but think 'Wow, what a great movie scene this would make'. I wasn't even afraid anymore, since growing up in Hollywood had desensitized me. 

"Colby?" Jamie asked, her voice high. 

"Hm?" I responded. "What is it?" I looked at her, her hair drenched, shivering, all because I decided it would be a good day to go skiing. This was all my fault. If she got hurt, I didn't know what I would do. 

"Colby!" She yelled, and my attention was pulled to where she was pointing. I looked up, and my breath caught in horror. The part where the arm of the ski lift met the wire was breaking. This much constant pressure and awkward movement must have loosened the bolts or whatever. I wasn't an engineer, that wasn't my calling, but here I was wishing that I was because maybe then I would have been able to fix it instead of just staring in horror. 

"We have to do something." Jamie said, and then continued talking, but her voice was drowned out by the rain, the thunder that rumbled just as she spoke and the sound of my own despair in my head. Nah, just being dramatic to try and make myself less stressed so that I can figure out how to solve this. 

"Do you have any ideas on how to fix this?" I asked Jamie, once again yelling over the rain and wind. 

"Yes! I just said it!" She sounded frustrated, but it's not like it wasn't understandable that I didn't know what she said. It was louder than a elementary school playground out here.

"I didn't hear you! Please repeat!" I decided that speaking in short sentences was probably best so that she could hear me. 

"I said that we could-" A sudden jerk in the swinging of the chair made her stop, and we both looked upwards to see if it had broken anymore, which, of course, it had. 

"We need to secure it. Give me your scarf." She said, and started pulling it off of me.

"That won't do anything!" I yelled back. This isn't strong enough to hold me, let alone this entire chair!" 

"We have to try!" She yelled, her face pink from frustration and from being buffeted by the wind for so long. 

"Fine." I gave in. "But don't get up, alright? Sudden movements might make the cart fall."

Obviously, she didn't hear me because the next thing I knew she was trying to stand up. "Stop!" I yelled, and then she looked at me. "It might break if we move too much!"

"It'll break even if we don't do anything!" She yelled, ferociously. "I'm not dying because of a little rain and wind.Hold my legs."

I knew that if I did it, the cart would most certainly fall, since I weighed more than she did, so I didn't argue and grabbed her legs with both hands, finally relinquishing my death grip on the seat. I could not let her fall. If I did, it would be on my conscience forever, so I held on tightly, possibly cutting off blood flow to her legs, but more likely not since her pants were super thick.

She looped the scarf around the wire and had just started trying it when there was a large screech of grinding metal, and an empty chair fell off in front of us."Hurry up!" I yelled. "You need to sit back down. It'll be safer if you're sitting and we fall."

She finished tying it as quickly as her gloved hands would allow, and she slid back into the seat, shivering and directly up against me. If these weren't such bad circumstances, I would make a comment, but since we could fall, I restrained myself. 

For what felt like hours we sat there, huddled together, watching as chairs fell and no one came. Shivering, we stared towards the lodge in desperate hope, silently wishing for someone, anyone to come and save us. Well, at least I was. I wasn't a mind reader, but I could only guess that she was thinking the same thing.

Finally, after what felt like forever, the rain started letting up, and I saw people coming towards us, hopefully to try and get us down from here. The chair was still swinging, and I looked up, hoping it was still going to hold until they got here.

The moment after I looked up, I watched in horror as the chair connection fully broke and split from the wire, and my stomach moved to my throat as we started to fall, and I grabbed Jamie as tight as I could and started to pray.

Please let her survive this, please let her survive this. Only a moment later, we hit the ground. There was white, and then nothing. 

God, help us.

~~~~~~~

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

well that was fun...

lol

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