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“I mean it.” He tilted my head back and pushed himself up onto one elbow to lean over me, wide awake now. “I’m not okay without you near. I realized that when you were gone all day. It messed with my head. It made me angry, upset, and when you came back, I was so fucking excited to see you again. But you were mad at me,” he sighed, pressing his lips into a thin line.

I placed both hands on his cheeks, not wanting him to get upset again. “I’m sorry, but now I know. It won’t happen again, okay?”

“Promise me.”

I smiled at him, unsure if he even realized that he meant the world to me. “I promise, Fennec. I promise I will love and cherish you forever, the same way you love and cherish me. And no matter how far away I’ll be, I will always come back to you.”

He had my heart, but if I were to talk about how much he meant to me for one more second, I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes dry.

Instead, I pulled him to me and kissed him, his lips melting into mine as he moved his hand to my leg to pull it over his hips.

“My sweet girl,” he whispered, making me smile.

His.

Always and forever his.

32

We had to stay at camp and eat what Mama gave us to survive the snowstorm that had come over us.

It wouldn’t stop snowing for four days straight, and every day I could see Papa’s annoyance whenever I handed him a bowl with rice or pasta.

“This isn’t what I’m supposed to eat,” is what he’d say, and I couldn’t help but laugh at his facial expressions whenever he took a bite.

He was making it seem worse than it actually was, and I didn’t mind eating pasta and rice for a few days before we’d go back to our only-meat diet.

“Want some more?” I asked Papa after getting up from the table and filling my bowl with the dinner I made.

“I’m full, thanks. I’ll shovel the snow and then go to sleep. It will most likely stop snowing in the morning, so we can finally go hunt.”

I nodded, adding two crackers to the bowl for Fennec.

He hadn’t come down from the treehouse much lately.

Only to pee and refill his water bottle.

His mood hadn’t changed after the day Papa and I found the foxtails, and the sadness in Fennec’s eyes hadn’t vanished, only worsened.

I was worried about him, but Papa said to let him heal and not urge him to talk to us.

It would only make things worse, and that’s the opposite of what I wanted.

“Gonna give that to Fennec?” he asked, nodding toward the bowl in my hands.

“Yes. Maybe he’s awake now. He hasn’t eaten anything since this morning.”

Papa got up as well and brought his bowl over to the bin to then wash it. “Tell him the storm is over and that we’ll go hunt tomorrow. That might take his mind off whatever’s messing with his head.”

I nodded. “I’ll tell him. Let me know when you go to sleep, okay?”

“I will.”

Walking over to the tree, I climbed up the ladder and set the bowl on the wooden plank in front of the entrance so it was easier for me to pull myself up, and when I was inside, I picked the bowl up again and looked at Fennec.

He was lying there with the covers tightly wrapped around his body and his hair covering half of his face, making it hard for me to see if he was actually asleep or not.

I set the bowl down next to me and moved over to brush his hair out of his face, revealing a frown that I must’ve caused in that very moment.

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