Page 57 of Snowed In with Three Mountain Men

“What did you mean, I’m not keeping you up?” I mumble, once I’ve managed to steady my breathing again.

“I don’t sleep well,” he replies, matter-of-fact. “I’m usually up and about during the night, for one reason or another.”

“Why?”

He pauses for a moment. It’s clear he didn’t entirely expect that question.

“Bad dreams, I guess.”

I can tell from the way he says it that it’s an understatement.

I sit up, turning to face him. “About…about what happened?”

His eyes glaze for a moment, but then he nods. “Yeah. About what happened.”

The two of us fall silent for a moment. We both know the weight of everything we carry, the heaviness of it—the pain of knowing that there’s so much you’ll never be able to escape from, no matter how hard you try.

“Same with me,” I confess. “I…I keep dreaming about him. About James. About what he did to me. And every time, it feels…”

“It feels as though you’re right back there,” he finishes up for me, lifting his gaze to meet mine. “Right? Feels as though you’re right back where you started. Like it’s the realest thing in the world, and you’re never going to be able to get out.”

I sigh, and then nod. “Yeah. Exactly like that.”

He slides his hand over mine. “I hate that you have to deal with that shit. It’s not fair.”

“Jesus, you lost your whole unit,” I remind him. “And your father. I don’t think I have anything to complain about?—”

“You know that’s not how it works,” he shoots back, as though he’s almost annoyed that I would try to downplay it like that. “The shit you’ve been through is the shit you’ve been through. Doesn’t matter what it is, matters how fucked-up your brain is at dealing with it.”

I pause for a moment—but then nod.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I agree. “I just wish I was a little more…I don’t know. I wish I was strong enough to put it all behind me.”

“You are,” he replies. “You left him. You got out.”

“So did you.”

“Not because I wanted to. Because I had to.”

“Is there that much of a difference?” I wonder aloud.

“Yeah, you were smart enough to get out when you realized it wasn’t what you wanted,” he replies, shaking his head. “I wasn’t. I would have kept doing it. I would have?—”

He stops himself in his tracks. I can tell he’s getting agitated. I reach out for his hand and wind my fingers around it, holding on to him tight.

“Hey, you can’t blame yourself,” I murmur. “You did what you thought you had to do, right? What you thought was right. You can’t hold that against yourself. I won’t let you.”

He manages a small smile, though I can tell he’s not exactly feeling it. I brush my fingers along his arm, trying to bring him back into the moment.

“How did you…how did you stop it from taking over your life?” I ask him, finally. “This…these memories. The bad dreams. All of it.”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t,” he replies simply. “I came out here. I ran from it, from everything that reminded me of that time. All the triggers that pushed my buttons.”

“And was it enough?”

He glances up at me. “No.”

That word hangs heavy in the air between us. I hate hearing him speak like this, clearly struggling so badly with the weight of everything he has endured. If I could just reach into his mind and lift it from his shoulders, I would, though I know that’s not how this works. Or else he would have done it for me.

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