“I can’t believe this,” Liz muttered angrily, slamming the door shut. “Even wasting all that money would’ve better.”

“Would it?”

She narrowed her eyes at me.

I sighed. No, this was not how this ski trip was supposed to go. It was supposed to be our big last-winter-break-of-high-school trip, the one me, Aric, Liz, and Tyler had saved up for for five years, ever since seventh grade when we all agreed to go as best friends.

What we had not intended on was Aric and Liz starting to date last year. And then breaking up. After Aric cheated on Liz.

With me.

…Yeah.

In fairness, I had no idea he was dating Liz at the time. They had kept their relationship a secret, and when he kissed me passionately that one night under the flashing colored lights, I thought he was perfectly, beautifully single.

Not so much.

But this ski trip had cost us the better part of a thousand dollars, and none of us wanted to let all those years of saving go to waste. So here we were.

“It’s freezing in here,” Liz said sharply, as if it were my fault the heating was broken. “I’m going to call the front desk with a complaint.”

I cleared my throat. “Or you could just, you know, walk down and let them know…”

She cut me off by glaring daggers at me. I stopped talking to let her dial.

I had apologized over and over, insisting I had no idea Aric was her boyfriend, that I never would’ve kissed him had I known, that I loved Liz and never wanted to hurt her, that I would only talk to her from now on if she really wanted me to. But to no avail.

I was starting to believe she was going remain my mortal enemy forever.

That was part of the reason I’d agreed to this trip. Maybe, somehow, a week in the deserted mountains could fix our broken friendship.

But so far it wasn’t looking too great.

“No answer,” Liz growled. She slammed the phone down. “How long until our dinner reservations?”

I glanced up. “Eight hours.”

“Wonderful,” she said, muttering a few choice words under her breath.

A horrible silence drifted into the room. I picked at my jacket collar, then gave up and started drumming on the handle of my suitcase.

Liz gritted her teeth. God, I had known her for as long as I could remember, and never in our lives had we had a fight this bad.

Well, fine. If she wasn’t forgiving me, I wasn’t making any more efforts to apologize to her. Miserable ski trip it or not.

“I’m going downstairs,” Liz announced finally. “I’m not sleeping in a thirty degree room.” She crossed the room, pushed past me, and yanked the doorknob.

It didn’t open.

She yanked it again, more forcefully this time, and still it didn’t open. She twisted it, left and right and then left again, and then pulled.

Nothing.

“Frick this!” she cried, stomping her foot.

I moved past her. “Jesus, Liz, it’s obviously a PUSH door—“

But I pushed, and nothing happened. I jiggled it, left and right and pushed, right and left and pushed, over and over… and still nothing.

“Nice job, genius,” she snapped.

Ignoring her, I pulled open our green plaid curtain and peered out the window. From what I could see, one of the icicles had broken from the wooden overhang above our door and jammed itself into the lock.

“I doubt that’s melting anytime soon,” I muttered.

Liz looked over my shoulder and made a sound somewhere between a growl and a snarl. Then she went to the door and began to bang on it repeatedly with her fist. “HEY! HEY! SOMEBODY!!”

I blew out a breath. “Wow. This is the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen. You know we have cell phones, right?”

I extracted mine from my pocket and began to dial Tyler, whose room was on the other side of the lodge. But then a big red window popped up.

NO SERVICE.

From the red glare reflecting off of Liz’s face and the panicky way she was also staring at her phone screen, I knew she had the same issue.

Great.

“Well. We’ve got eight freaking hours until they come get us,” Liz spat, her fingernails digging white moons into her palms. “Eight. Freaking. Hours.”

Eight hours.

Well.

This was going to be fun.