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Owen carves hell into the hill. I pretend I’m not breathless as I work to keep up with him, but I am breathless and seriously out of shape. The oncologist didn’t lie. For the most part, my pain has been managed. But I’ve paid the price in my physical fitness. The steroids have caused significant weight gain. So much that Faye asked me to see the doctor.

I know she can sense that something is wrong. I’ve decided I’ll tell her after Christmas—after we bring in the new year. It’s selfish, but I want these last moments to just love my family as a man—not a patient on the brink of death.

I don’t want to watch them mourn me in the moments where I work to collect the little memories, I pray my soul will carry with me into the beyond—whatever is beyond this.

We race to the bottom, cold air burning our faces and singeing our lungs with frosty kisses.

At the bottom, I gasp in cold bursts of breath. “What do you say we take five? Grab something hot?”

“You sure are getting old,” Owen teases. Usually, his comment would have me laughing, muttering something about kids being kids. But this time his poking hits me in the soft center of my dying heart.

He doesn’t know it, but I’ll never truly get old.

I know people fear it. They fear the creaky bones, aches and pains. They fear they gray hair and wrinkles and all that comes with age. But it’s a whole hell of a lot scarier to know you won’t ever age. That you’ll forever be suspended in time, a lost life half-lived, frozen in the memory of those who do change with time.

I work to reply as I would have before…

I cock a grin. “I’m like fine wine.”

He snorts. “More like aged cheese.”

I clap him on the back of his helmet, and he barks a laugh I catalogue into that bank of collectable memories to carry me into the beyond.

I love this kid. Fuck, I love him…

“Respect your elders.”

“Sir, yes Sir.”

I bite back my smirk and we enter the chalet together. I order fries and Owen gets a poutine. We both get soda and something hot before we find a table.

I ask, “You feel like telling me what’s going on at school?”

Owen rests his elbows on the table. “Colton got a girlfriend.”

“Ah.” I nod. “Is this girl someone you like?”

“Yeah. I mean, not like that, but she’s cool. I guess.”

I nod again, shoveling a couple fries into my mouth. “What’s the problem, then?”

“I’ve asked him the last two weekends if he wants to hang out, but he’s always with her.” I don’t miss the hurt in Owen’s voice. His hurt hurts me.

Being a parent is a hell of a ride.

“And at school?”

“He’s always with her.” He shrugs. “It’s cool. Whatever.”

“You don’t feel that way.”

He sighs. “No. I don’t.”

“He’s your best friend. Have you tried to talk to him?”

Owen shakes his head. “I don’t want to be that friend.”

“What friend is that?”