Page 11 of Lost in You

She scoffs. “We might find a cave where we can get dry. Out of the wind.”

Or we might find nothing but miles of snow. I don’t say it because we both know it already. The thought of rescuers telling Dalton they found our frozen bodies in the middle of nowhere makes my chest ache.

“We’ll try,” I say cautiously. “But if it’s nothing but snow and wind, we might have to come back here.”

Even though it’s too dark for our eyes to meet, I can feel her looking at me across the fire. “If anything happens to me, tell my m--”

I cut her off. “No. There’s nothing to tell anyone because you’re going to be fine. This will end up being your best story at parties someday.”

“I hope so.” There’s a sad smile in her voice.

“Look, I know I haven’t been all that encouraging, but we have to stay positive. Help is on the way. We just need to be smart and stay hydrated and warm while we wait.”

“Right.”

“The survival kit has a pad of paper and pencil. I’m going to leave a note at the plane.”

Her voice is stronger as she says, “I’ll come with you.”

I wrap an arm around her to support her as she walks, only limping a little. Her boots are fucking ridiculous—probably some designer shit.

Can’t say I’m surprised. Dalton told me she works in the cosmetics industry. I’ll do whatever I have to do to get us both through this and then I’ll have a good party story, too. The time I survived a plane crash with Wilderness Barbie.

CHAPTER FIVE

Trinity

This was a bad idea. We’re just going to freeze to death faster out here in the open, where the wind blows snow directly into our faces.

I’ve thought about how awful it would be to die by drowning or fire. Ironically, I’ve also considered how horrible going down in a plane crash would be, knowing you were plunging to your death for however long it took to hit the ground. Even with my propensity for worrying about things that probably won’t happen, I’ve never wondered what it would be like to freeze to death.

Until now.

We set out from the wooded area many hours ago and we haven’t seen any sign of shelter. Sometimes we pass through groupings of trees where we get a break from the wind, but mostly we’ve just been walking through snow. It’s about a foot deep in some places and up to my knees in others, thanks to drifting.

“Whose turn is it?” Lincoln turns around and looks at me. “Am I up?”

“Yeah, it’s you. Fourth grade.”

He told me when we set out from the forest that we needed to keep our minds occupied every minute because it would help us keep moving forward. We talked about our jobs and homes and I told him everything there is to know about my cat, Karma. Then I thought of this little exercise, where we each tell the other person everything we can remember about every year we went to school. We’ve already been through kindergarten (when I peed my pants and had to miss the class holiday party to go home and change clothes), first grade (when Lincoln broke his arm falling out of a tree), second grade (fairly uneventful for both of us), and third grade (Lincoln kissed his first girl and I won the spelling bee).

Everything hurts. It’s not just my ankle but my entire body. And cold isn’t enough of a word for what it’s like to be out here. It’s a bone-deep pain that almost burns. The only way I’m able to keep putting one foot in front of the other is that I know I’ll die if I stop.

“I had Mr. McGill for a teacher,” Lincoln says, yelling so I can hear him over the wind. “He brought his golden retriever to school with him every day; her name was Cookie.”

I want to stop walking. Scream. Cry. Quit. I’m exhausted. My chest hurts when I breathe. It’s only thoughts of my mom and Dalton that keep me moving forward. My mom loves her two children with her whole heart, and it would devastate her to lose one of us, especially like this.

And Dalton will never forgive himself if we die. He put us on that plane, and even though the crash is in no way his fault, I know him and he won’t feel that way. He’ll spend the rest of his life eaten up by guilt over it.

“Tell me about Cookie,” I yell at Lincoln’s back.

I’m trying to step where he steps, even though my feet are soaked and half-numb. It takes less energy to step in an existing footprint than it does to make my own. Lincoln has a big stride, though.

“Cookie was the best girl. She played ball with us at recess. She usually chilled in a dog bed next to Mr. McGill’s desk, but sometimes she’d walk up and down the rows of desks and we’d all pet her.”

“Did you work on your kissing technique in fourth grade?”

“Yeah, but not with Cookie.”

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