Page 93 of Shifting Gears

Then Dani visibly freezes.

Slowly her head turns, squinting into the coming darkness. In the moonlight, Nora can see her face. Her cheeks are pink and ruddy under the bill of her usual blue hat, covered now by a florescent orange toque. She’s frowning as if she doesn’t believe what she hears, but when she realizes who’s standing there, her eyes go comically wide.

With jerky, surprised movements, Dani pulls herself to her feet with the help of an icy branch, and Nora has but a brief moment of relief that she’s finally been recognized before Dani disappears with a loud, joltingcrack.

Under the compounding weight of snow and ice and Dani, just as Nora predicted it would, the tree house platform has finally broken.

“Dani!”

Nora struggles through the knee-deep snow toward the pile of ice and wood on the ground where Dani’s boots are sticking out. Dani is moving, thankfully, and she’s looking at Nora through powder and planks as if she’s seen a ghost.

“Nora—what—how—” Dani sputters, taking Nora’s offered hand and hauling herself to her feet. Wooden beams and long-rusted nails scatter across the snow. “What are you doing here?”

Nora, dizzy with the closeness she’s been craving for months, can’t conjure any of the speeches she rehearsed on the drive. She agonized over the words, trying to figure out a way to ask Dani if she’s still welcome here without making her feel pressured. But in the face of Dani’s confusion, Nora says the first words that come to mind.

“I never should have left.”

For a few long moments, they both stand motionless, drinking each other in. Dani looks almost as drunk on the moment as Nora is—her eyes dart around Nora’s face like she’s reconciling it with her memories. The rim of her hat is coated in ice. There are delicate snowflakes caught in her long eyelashes.

Nora reaches a hand up to cup Dani’s cold cheek. Dani leans into it, her eyes still never leaving Nora’s face, and suddenly saying what’s on her mind in the most honest terms seems like the most important thing Nora has ever done.

“I missed you so much,” Nora whispers.

Dani exhales all her breath in a shaky, brokenwhoosh, and the next thing Nora knows, she’s being hugged so hard that it squeezes the air from her lungs. Dani whispers quietly into her hair.

“You came back.”

“Yeah,” Nora chokes out, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yeah. I did.”

The wind kicks up around them, sending swirls of light snow scattering across the field, but Nora doesn’t let go. Dani still smells the same, feels the same under her bulky sweater. Being held by her again is a balm, even when Nora’s tears are freezing on her cheeks.

“Dani?” Nora whispers when a particularly icy blast of wind cuts through the thin fabric of her peacoat.

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t really dress for the weather.”

Dani jolts, springing out of the embrace like it’s an emergency situation. “Oh, shoot! Sorry!” She fumbles in her pocket for a moment, producing her key ring and trudging a path through the snow for Nora to follow toward the truck.

As much as the distance is necessary to get warm, Nora misses the solid pressure of Dani’s arms immediately. After months of deficiency she’s soaking up Dani’s presence, and the further away Dani gets, the more it feels like Nora is a plant sitting in the dark.

Nora climbs in gratefully when Dani hauls the passenger door open, and a few seconds later Dani is in the driver’s seat and sweet, blissful heated air is coming out of the vents. She holds her hands there, letting them defrost slowly, all the while terribly aware of the fact that Dani is staring at her from across the bench seat. In the interior light, Dani’s hair is a little darker than Nora remembers.

Mortimer the rubber duck is still sitting on truck’s dash, looking down at Nora with obvious disapproval.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” Dani says quietly. The middle seat between them seems like a barrier now, and neither of them makes a move yet to close the distance. “I’ve thought about it so many times. Dreamed.” Dani’s voice breaks on thelast few words. “Now I keep wondering when I’m going to wake up.”

The vulnerability in Dani’s voice cracks through Nora’s self-doubt. Dani sounds so timid, so deeply unlike herself, and it’s Nora’s fault. Suddenly the distance between them seems like too much again—she needs to touch Dani, to feel the solid realness of her.

Dani shifts the seat back as soon as Nora starts moving, leaving a familiar space for Nora to climb into her lap. She straddles Dani’s thighs, pressing herself into the space between Dani’s body and the steering wheel and ignoring the cold dampness permeating from her knees down. She lets Dani pull her into a hug until they’re chest to chest.

“I need you closer,” Dani whispers. She says it like a secret, like voicing it will make Nora disappear again in a puff of smoke.

Dani’s hands end up under Nora’s shirt and Nora unbuttons it to give her better access, but with the barrier of sweater and overalls, Nora can’t get under Dani’s clothes. There’s a mutual desperation to it that grows even as Dani presses her cold face against Nora’s revealed skin. It still isn’t close enough. She wants to be intertwined. She wants all barriers to be shed until all that’s left is them.

“I’m right here,” Nora says, cupping Dani’s still-reddened cheek. “I’m here.”

She says it to Dani’s face, and she says it into Dani’s mouth as she’s pulled into the searing kiss she’s been thinking about since the day she left. It’s much like their first—hard, messy, frantic—but tinged with a deep emotion that Nora wouldn’t previously let herself admit to. She murmurs the words again into Dani’s hair as their four hands fumble with the button of Nora’s jeans, whines them into a broad shoulder as Dani’s cold, perfect fingers press into the blazing heat beneath: I’m here, I’m here,I’m here.

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