Free Do-Over by Niki Burnham

base of the stairs, totally oblivious to the fact that I’m up here. She’s laughing about something Dad said, but they’re not all touchy-feely with each other or anything.
    They’re talking like normal people do. Normal friends.
    And then I tell myself that it shouldn’t matter if they’re normal friends or normal whatever-else.
    Feeling like a voyeur, I back away from the staircase and go into the room. I kick off my shoes, take the ponytail elastic out of my hair and fling it toward my suitcase, thenwander to the window to wait for Dad.
    It’s snowing again. Just a light snow, so I can barely make out the flakes against the lights of the restaurants, ski shops, and other guesthouses scattered along the street. I crack the window and lean out. It’s so beautiful and romantic—with the smell of smoke from guesthouse fireplaces mixing in with the odors of restaurant kitchens and the fresh snow—that it seems fake. Like what my senses are taking in can’t possibly be my reality.
    It feels a million miles away from Virginia—from Mom, from my girlfriends, from John and everyone else—but I have to wonder: Is Georg right? Do I dislike Europe so much that staying here is unthinkable?
    I hear Dad in the hallway telling The Fraulein good night, then the sound of his key in the door lock.
    “Hey, sweetie,” Dad says.
    “Hey, Dad.” I don’t bother turning around. I’m fixated on the snowflakes and the way the metal signs hanging over the shop doors swing in the breeze if you watch them long enough.
    He comes to stand beside me, leaning hiselbows on the windowsill so the backs of his arms are grazing right up against mine. I can feel his triceps through the thin fabric of his shirt and decide he spends way too much time in the gym in the mornings.
    I wonder if The Fraulein has noticed his arms. Probably. Guess she can’t miss ‘em.
    “I expected Georg to be in here,” he says. “Or for you to be over in his room.”
    Me too. “I think he wanted to get some sleep. You know, since we have to be up so early tomorrow.”
    “Smart guy.” Dad stretches out a hand to catch snowflakes as they flitter down from the sky. They’re so small, they melt the instant they hit his open palm.
    “I’m not sure I can sleep yet,” I admit.
    “Me either.”
    I look sideways at him. The goofy grin on his face has me responding with one of my own. He asks if I want to watch a movie, assuming we can find something in English. When I tell him sure, we reach out at the same time to close the window and bump into each other, like Moe and Larry in the middle of a Three Stooges skit. I step back and let him shut it, since I’m bound to missgetting the latch tightened the right way. When he turns around and tosses the remote to me, giving me the choice of what to watch, I know there’s an unspoken peace treaty between us. Like no matter what happens with The Fraulein, or with Georg, the two of us will always be solid.
    And wouldn’t you know, one of his favorite flicks is on TV. So of course that’s what I choose.
    “You didn’t go to sleep right away, did you?” Georg asks as the chairlift comes around behind us.
    I can’t answer him right away because I’m yawning. Worse, I tangle my poles in front of me at the very moment the chair sweeps under us, so I barely manage to sit without tripping forward over them and face-planting in front of the attendant.
    “You all set?”
    I can hear the laughter in his voice as he waits for me to straighten out my gear so he can bring down the safety bar.
    “Your Highness?” I put a saccharine-fake flirtiness in my voice. “I kindly beg you to shut up.”
    He cracks up, since I don’t think I’ve ever called him Your Highness. Probably because I’m not even one hundred percent sure he is a highness. (Maybe he has some other title? I’m going to have to ask Dad sometime.)
    “Okay, so you didn’t go to bed right away.” He swings his skis beneath him as he talks, letting them