Soul Fire Read Online Free

replied, regretting my words when she looked sharply away. Not everyone feels the way I do, I reminded myself.
    Half an hour later, my three closest friends burst into the room. “Ashla!” It was said in unison as arms flew around me. Yellow roses were pushed into my left hand and a card into my right. I was overwhelmed. “Thanks, you guys.”
    “You never showed for the latte, so we got worried.” Celeste explained, putting the card on the window ledge. She dropped the roses into my glass of drinking water and positioned it next to the card. Then, she plopped onto the bed beside me, her eyes taking in my facial wounds.
    Tara pulled a strand of dark hair away from her pale face. “When you didn’t show at the bottom of the run, I went over to Starbucks thinking maybe I’d somehow missed you, but Celeste and Brenna were still waiting.”
    “And by then we were freaking out,” Brenna added. “We knew you were doing the West Face and maybe . . . you know . . . things didn’t go too well.”
    Celeste concluded, “So we decided we better call the Ski Patrol. I gave them your name and description and they said you had been airlifted to Vancouver.” She eyed me skeptically. “When I heard that, I gave them your parent’s number. Sorry, Ashla. Hope you don’t mind. The SP wouldn’t tell me your condition, and I was so scared for you.”
    I almost shrugged and stopped myself just in time. “Don’t worry. My mom and dad were going to get a call one way or another.”
    Celeste’s cornflower eyes inspected me carefully. She swiped at a runaway lock of golden hair. Dubbed The Golden Goddess, she looked like a true California girl, only she did her surfing on a snowboard. Everything about Celeste had a golden hue: her skin, hair, attitude, even her soul. A pastor’s daughter, she constantly measured what was right and what was wrong. It got interesting when things fell into a gray area. Her long time boyfriend kidded her about that, saying the scales of justice were not intended for her kind of rigorous use. He was studying for a civil engineering degree at the University of Oregon, which meant she didn’t get to see him often, but that didn’t stop other guys from dreaming.
    “Saw your parents,” she added. “They told me you were coming down off Blind Jump and hit another skier.”
    “Pretty much. You know what Blind Jump’s like. You can’t see a thing until seconds before you land. Well, I was airborne and getting ready for touchdown when I saw him standing right where I was going to land. What made it worse was that he actually tried to catch me.”
    Brenna and Tara yanked the privacy curtain around the bed and then positioned themselves at each side of my feet. “Ooh, I could only dream of such a thing,” Brenna said, swooning. She was the softie, the romantic in our group. Her heart was big, even though she was petite. Barely five feet, she almost looked like a child, and this infuriated her. Her closet was full of five-inch heels. Her thick brown sugar locks bounced off her thin shoulders and her velvet brown eyes glowed with warmth. At the moment she was without a boyfriend, but that would change. Guys loved her.
    Tara tilted her head and examined my injuries. “You going to be okay?” She was the grounded one. With long, straight black hair, hazel eyes, and Angelina Jolie lips, she was gorgeous.
    “Don’t I look okay? I mean . . . considering.”
    Their expressions were grim. Celeste cleared her throat, “Head bandage, facial scrapes, nasty purple bulge in your forehead, big black eye, swollen cheek. Could be worse. They could have shaved your head. Oh wait… they did.”
    Brenna suggested, “Maybe lose the head bandage. I’ll bring you my Lululemon.”
    “That bad, huh?”
    Celeste put her arm around my shoulders. “Tell us what you need and we’ll bring it in.”
    Tara changed the subject. “And by the way, you made last night’s news.”
    Oh, no. I groaned. “What did they