Page 13 of Lost in You

“Can’t wait.” My tone is heavy with sarcasm and a smile plays on his lips.

He starts walking forward again and I drag my feet into motion. Would I really have just stayed back there and died if he’d let me? Am I really that weak?

“I had my first official girlfriend in fourth grade,” Lincoln yells from in front of me. “Macy Rivera. And that was when I started travel hockey. I wanted to be a goalie but my coaches rotated all of us on all the positions.”

I imagine a little Lincoln with his dark hair and confident smile. Was he a born leader, or did he grow into the role? I don’t have the strength it would take to ask him.

As he tells me all about his first year of travel hockey, I focus on breathing and walking. Deep breaths, in and out, while keeping pace with him. It doesn’t feel like I can do this, but I’m doing it anyway. Instead of thinking about the cold and our dismal survival odds, I think about breathing and stepping in the footprints he leaves in the snow.

Just. Keep. Going.

It’s almost fully dark now. We’re stopping about every hour to eat snow so we don’t dehydrate. We’ve made it through school recaps up to sixth grade, and my dark sense of humor is encouraging me to at least live until I can tell Lincoln about winning the school science fair in eighth grade with the hypoallergenic lotion I invented.

Will I tell him I nearly died in ninth grade? I normally don’t talk about it, but I’m entirely out of fucks to give at this point. Lincoln was twenty feet away when I peed in the snow behind a pine tree an hour ago. We’ve known each other for less than forty-eight hours and he’s already seen me at my worst.

I can hardly feel my feet and my ankle is throbbing with pain. I just want to rest for a few seconds.

The second I stop walking, he somehow knows and turns around.

“No stopping,” he barks. “No quitting.”

“My ankle.” I’m so weak the words are barely audible.

My body sways, the effort to keep myself upright almost too much. If I fall right now, there’s no way I could get back up.

Lincoln growls at me, getting in my face. “Don’t be a pussy.”

“You don’t know.” Emotion wells in my throat.

“Am I carrying you?” he snaps. “It’s either walk or be carried.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I’m the asshole who’s keeping you alive.”

“Fuck you!” I snarl back at him. “I’m the one walking on a busted ankle. I’m the one whose feet are probably frostbitten.”

“Cry me a fucking river. Just walk while you do it.”

I ball my hands at my sides, still icy even though I have gloves on, and scream “Fuck you” as loud as I can. The effort hurts my chest and my back, but there’s a tiny bit of a spark in me now.

Lincoln walks back a few steps, still facing me. “Catch me and you can have a free kick to my balls.”

“With a broken ankle? Thanks, asshole.” Glowering, I advance toward him. He turns and keeps walking.

Catching him isn’t an option. It’s all I can do to breathe and move. I had a moment of weakness back there, but I’m myself again. I’m not giving up. If I don’t make it, I’ll fall face-first into the snow while walking.

I close my eyes for a brief second, silently asking my mom and Dalton to send me the strength I need to get back to them.

CHAPTER SIX

Lincoln

Where the fuck is the rescue party? I’m trudging through snow that’s higher than my knees, icy wind whipping my blankets around. When I glance over my shoulder to make sure Trinity’s still there, she raises a gloved hand in the air, probably flipping me off.

I have to keep her moving and pissing her off is the most effective way of doing that. Do I really think she’s a pussy? No, but calling her one lit a fire under her ass.

Realistically, we’re probably only covering about a mile an hour in this snow. I think we’ve been walking for around fifteen hours, traveling north of the crash site because that’s the direction the plane was flying. I hoped we’d eventually reach civilization, but so far, we’ve seen nothing but snow and trees.

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