Snow in Love (11 page)

I was breathing hard, and so enjoying myself that I wasn’t even thinking. I bent low to craft together another missile, and while I did, I looked out for him. I had gone too far into the forest. It was so thick with trees and blowing wind, I could hardly see anything.

I took a step or two forward. Nothing. I thought he must be hiding behind a tree, waiting for me to come closer, but I wasn’t going to fall for that one.

So I turned around. “ARGGHHHHH!”

I screamed in scared delight, just as he pelted me right in the chest. He had been standing directly behind me, quiet as a mouse, waiting to nail me.

“Got ya!” he shouted, and then collapsed onto the floor of the woods with me. I was laughing so hard from being scared, I couldn’t catch my breath. “You didn’t hear me at all?” He was laughing and smiling, clearly pleased with himself.

“You should be a spy! You’re stealthy like a cat!”

He was leaning against the base of the birch tree, the one that had been my temporary shelter. I started to laugh again, and laid back into the snow to catch my breath, and stare up into the sky.

“Hey! Look!” I pointed upward. “Northern lights.”

“Oh! Cool!” He laid down right beside me, and we stared up into the sky. The lights were streaking across in lines of green, red, orange, and blue.

“They haven’t been visible from the Hill,” I said quietly.

“Why are you whispering?” He laughed.

I laughed too. “I didn’t want to disturb the lights.”

We turned to look at each other. “You’re such a weird girl.”

“Ssshhh. Look at the lights.” And then we did. We laid back in the snow, and despite the cold and the wind and the wet, we stared at the northern lights dancing in the sky. I hadn’t seen them since the beginning of school, and I didn’t want anything to disrupt the show.

After a while of watching the streaks of starlit gases fill the sky, Jake whispered, “Do you remember the first summer we met?”

I smiled to myself. “Yeah. I do.”

He was talking about that first time we watched the lights together. We’d met the week before, in ski class. The first night I ate dinner at his house, we sat on the deck of his family’s cabin and watched the northern lights. He had never seen them before and at first was a little scared. When I got home that night, I knew that I had fallen in love for the first time.

I turned to look at him again, and found that he wasn’t looking at the lights, he was looking at me. He reached for me and pulled himself closer, and then he held my hand, right under the northern lights and the pine trees and probably the snowy owls.

He held up our hands. “Okay?”

“That’s okay,” I whispered. We stayed like that, and then something started buzzing around in my head, an internal, Whitman alarm bell.

“Holy crow!” I said, pushing him from me. “What time is it?”

He sat up and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “No service. I don’t know.”

“Oh no.” I didn’t have to check. I knew that it was way late, and that we’d never make it to my father’s meeting point by six o’clock.

I reached into my pocket. Of course, I knew my cell phone wouldn’t work. But I kept a small pocket watch, something my father told me to always have on me. He took great pride in raising me and Brian so that we knew how to survive, and the pocket watch, along with a compass, and always having granola bars, was part of that education.

I finally found the watch at the bottom of my pack.

“Oh no,” I said, terrified.

“What?” Jake asked.

“It’s five forty-five. My father is going to kill me. And you.”

I

Not only were Jake and I late, but we were lost. It took us about a half hour to relocate the path. It turned out that in the midst of snow and wind, snowy paths were easily blown away.

Jake, while we were searching, was calm and collected but definitely not understanding the problem. And the problem was, in a word, Dad. He couldn’t just take off whenever he wanted. He’d probably get snowbound, and who knows how long we’d have to stay up here.

And though ninety percent of me was worried about losing my life, the other ten percent was basking in the glow of the fact that Jake held my hand while we ran down the path. Well, nine and a half percent. The other half percent kept thinking about Will, about how he had asked for one hour of my time so that he could take me to the animal sanctuary. About how ditching him was probably the meanest thing I’d ever done to anybody. If I’d have kept my promise, I probably wouldn’t be lost like this.

I shook my head to dismiss that half percent. I squeezed Jake’s hand and reminded myself that I was thrilled. We’d gotten lost, but found each other here in the snowy woods! This would be a comforting thought in my final moments as my father was literally taking my life.

Then, as Jake and I were beneath a large tree, frantically turning in circles, trying to find the right way out, I heard a voice.

“Whitman?! Whitman?! Jessie?!”

I released Jake’s hand and went running. “Will! Will!” By this time, there was no light except starlight, and Will’s suit was dark so it was hard to make him out. He was no dummy, though. He carried a flashlight and was waving it back and forth.

“I see you!” I shouted, and went running toward the little light.

When he made me out, he ran. When we reached each other, he put his arms around me and buried his face in my neck. “You found me!” I half shouted, half murmured into his hair.

“Sure thing. Were you trying to get to the Nature Loop?”

I took a huge step backward, to where Jake had come up behind me. “Jake and I tried to find it.” Even in the dark, I could see Will take the two of us in. He searched my face and I found myself averting his gaze at first. But then I met his eyes and smiled, to let him know that my get-Jake-back plan was working. He smiled back, but it wasn’t as full as it could’ve been. It didn’t reach his eyes. I wondered if he’d been kissing Evie while Jake and I had been having a stupid snowball fight.

“Your dad’s here,” he said finally.

I tilted my head back to look at the stars. “I’ll miss you, northern lights,” I said aloud.

“You ain’t kidding. Your dad’s one scary dude.” Will reached for my pack. “Come on, I can get us back.” He lifted my pack onto his back, catching my eye as he did so. While his back was turned, Jake grabbed my gloved hand and squeezed it.

When we reached the lodge, my father was still searching for me. It was another hour before he came back, and when he saw me sitting in the lodge, sipping hot chocolate as if nothing had happened, he lifted me off the ground in a giant bear hug. Then he slammed me down like an insect under a shoe and gritted his teeth.

“Your mother is going to kill us,” he said.

Jake tried to keep out of his sight, which I thought was smart thinking on his part.

We were stranded at Grizzly Mountain for the night. My father, after calling my mother and instructing her to call Evie’s, Jake’s, and Will’s parents, booked two rooms in the local motel near the airstrip, one for me and Evie and one for Will and Jake. He warned that we’d have a forty-five-minute warning before we had to dash to the airport, so we were supposed to get as much sleep as we could. He slept at the airport hangar.

I was exhausted and dirty and starving. Evie stretched my wet clothes across the heating unit in our hotel room while I took a shower.

“They should be dry soon. Your socks are already done.” Evie threw the rolled-up spool of socks at me as I exited the bathroom, and I caught them one-handed.

She sat on the double bed farthest from where I stood, the one near the windows. Her legs were stretched out in front of her and she was rubbing lotion into her toes. “I know, I know. I’m about to shower. But they’re so sore.”

“Blisters?” I asked, sitting on the bed. I wanted to keep the small talk going. I didn’t know if she was angry at me, or what. I had gotten lost on a mountain with her boyfriend.

“Yeah. I didn’t feel them until I took off the ski boots.”

“That means you had a good day on the slopes,” I responded.

She pulled the long blond hair from her face and wrapped it into a ball, which she tied into a bun without using a ponytail holder.

“We were worried.”

“I’m really sorry. I got us lost.”

Her head tilted. I thought she was going to say something, but instead she stood and walked into the bathroom.

While she was in the shower, I put on my half wet clothes and wandered down to the motel lobby. There was a little restaurant that made burgers and things, and my father had given me money with strict orders to buy everyone dinner. I let Evie know to meet me there.

The boys weren’t there yet, which was good because I needed time to think. I wished that Abby and Erin were with me. I needed their advice. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I mean, I did know, I wanted Jake and I wanted to not want Will. But I hadn’t bargained on the Evie factor, and that factor was this: I didn’t want her to feel as sad as I had felt when Jake broke up with me for her. And judging by how Jake had held my hand all afternoon, that’s precisely what was in store for her.

Erin would say that you shouldn’t want a boyfriend who was capable of holding hands with another girl. And Abby would say that I should follow my heart. My mother would tell me to forget boys and concentrate on getting into a good college.

None of this advice helped me feel better for doing what girls like Sabrina did, stealing another girl’s boyfriend.

I ordered a Coke and stirred the straw around and around the ice, while my mind furiously worked through my options.

And then all three of them showed up at once. Jake had changed into a pair of jeans and his cheeks were rosy from the day spent outside. He smiled when he saw me, even though Evie was walking with him and whispering in his ear. I gulped down the rest of my Coke to drown the miserable feelings I had about myself.

Will walked past the two of them, with a purpose. He got to the booth I had chosen and slid in beside me.

“You okay?” he asked, and dropped his head on my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” I shook him off.

“We’re boyfriend and girlfriend, remember?” Will said, drawing my face to meet his eye.

“Right. Right,” I said, the feeling that I was a terrible person deepening.

“I’m a good boyfriend,” Will said before turning to the others, who were sliding into the booth.

We ordered four burgers, and Will told us how he transformed Evie from an ugly non-skiing duckling into a beautiful, racing-down-the-intermediate-hills swan. Evie glowed with pride. Jake didn’t say much and spent most of the meal looking right at me. Evie had to prompt him to pay attention. I found myself getting a little bit mad at him. How dare he stare at me right in front of his new girlfriend? Didn’t he care about her feelings at all?

After we were done with the burgers, the waitress brought us all ice-cream sundaes. Jake got up to go to the bathroom, and Evie followed.

“Looks like your master plan is working,” Will said, popping a cherry into his mouth.

“Yeah,” I grumbled into my lap.

Will sighed and rolled the cherry stem beneath his palm, back and forth, back and forth.

I thought of cool things to say. Sabrina would probably be loud and flirty and fearless, being in the driver’s seat of her love triangle. I was sitting in the backseat of mine. In fact, I felt at the moment that I was stuffed in the trunk of my own love triangle, unable to breathe.

“Are you just not going to talk? What, are you done with me now?” He was tying the cherry stem into knots.

I crossed my arms and tried not to look at him.

Will tilted his head and dropped a hand onto my knee. My face started to flush.

“You have to stop,” I said, half to my lap and half to him. “It’s not funny.”

Will removed his hand and nodded twice. “Sure thing, Whitman. I get it.” Then mercifully, Evie arrived back at our table. I was never so happy to see a girlfriend of Jake’s who wasn’t me in my whole life.

T

My father barely spoke to me while we were in the plane, but I did notice that he kept a close eye on the proximity of both boys to me. He made me sit next to him in the cockpit and barked out orders to the three of them whenever they started to relax. By the time we landed and drove back to Willow Hill, I could tell that Evie, Jake, and especially Will were terrified. I’d never seen Will so polite to an adult before, saying sir and please and thank you after every comment.

I sat in the passenger seat of my dad’s truck and when we pulled into the resort’s parking lot, the three of them leaped out of the back. Will pulled Evie’s bag out of the cab for her, and she waved at me with a wistful expression on her face before turning for her cabin. She probably thought she’d never see me again, because she probably thought that my father was going to murder me. She was probably right.

Jake sauntered after her and when he caught up to her, they turned together to walk home. Will, who I could see in the passenger-side mirror, leaned against the front window of the resort entrance. His bags were on the ground, and until Cam and Jay surprised him by jumping on his back simultaneously, he stared at the truck.

All of these things were forgotten the minute my dad turned onto the main road.

I decided to head the angry father routine off at the pass. “How angry are you?”

My father kept his eyes on the road. “I don’t know yet. Wait until we get home. Your mother will have something to say.”

“Daddy, you don’t know how mad you are?”

“Nope. Not until your mother tells me.”

I shook my head. “Well, I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, pumpkin.” He patted my head. “I was just worried about takeoff. I knew you weren’t up to no good.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“But if I’m wrong, then you have to forget this conversation. Deal?”

“Deal.”

My father is six foot five, but I have never once felt the kind of fear of him that I do of my mother, who isn’t much taller than five feet. When we pulled into our driveway, she was standing on the front stoop with her arms crossed over her chest. My brother, Brian, was leaning out the second-story window. Tiffany was with him. She was trying to hold his legs so that he could lean farther out the window to hear the punishment.

We got out of the truck, and my father walked forward. “Hey, honey,” he said to my mother, sweeping her up for a kiss on the cheek. He always lifted her up to his level, sometimes just to have a conversation. As I moved toward the door, knowing that I’d have to pass her to get inside, I could hear him say, “Go easy. She feels bad enough.”

When I stood in front of my mother, my father conveniently walked inside the house, though he lingered by the screen door. He pumped his fist at me, a signal that I should be strong.

Before I could say anything, Brian let out a squeal that sounded like a cat in the middle of a nighttime fight. “Eeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyowwwwwwww! You’re scratching me!”

Without even taking her eyes from me, she shouted, “Brian Bartholomew Whitman, if you fall out of that window I am going to kill you!”

“I’m not doing anything!” he countered, before saying in a strangled, quieter voice to Tiffany, “Bring me in! Bring me in!”

I shot him a death glare but recognized my opportunity and attempted to go around my mother.

Her arm shot out and reeled me in. She looked up at me, her hands gripping my arms.

“Mom, I just lost track of time. I’m really sorry.”

She pursed her lips and assessed me. If she were reading my mind, I hoped that she’d have the good sense to skip to the ending. “Go wash up. We’re having a family lunch.”

As far as punishments went, family lunches were manageable. Even if they included Brian.

My mother kept her temper in check, and other than telling me that I couldn’t go to Anchorage that night to go shopping with Erin and Abby, there didn’t seem to be much of a punishment in sight. So I spent most of the day playing video games with Brian and Tiffany.

“You have to shoot that guy or he’s going to—I told you. Now you’re dead. I told you,” Brian said to Tiffany, who was on her knees on our love seat, her hair flying around in all sorts of directions, her cheeks red, and her face screwed up in a ball of concentration.

“That’s not how I do it!”

“That’s why you’re dead.”

“You’re the one who’s dead!” And she let fly a karate chop with her left leg that nearly took my brother’s head off.

This, as I had ascertained from my day with them, was how they communicated. They fought and then lashed out and then quieted down and then fought some more. The two of them seemed to be blissfully enjoying themselves. I sank down into the couch cushions. “Let me play. It’s my turn.”

“Jessie, you can play after Tiffany’s dead.”

“She just died!”

“Jessie, I’ll tell you when,” Brian stated matter-of-factly.

My brother was chivalrous, and it burned me up to be witnessing how easy it was for these two to get along. When did it get so complicated? I guessed that sometime between sixth grade and junior year, the whole balance of the world became topsy-turvy on its axis. I wished for the simpler days when karate-chopping a boy in the head let him know that he was yours forever.

“Okay. Your turn.” Tiffany threw her controller at me. It landed on my lap. I handed it back to her.

“You can go.”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“Take it!” Brian commanded. “Before she changes her mind.”

“Give me
your
turn,” I spat.

He pulled the controller to his chest and turned his body, as if he were protecting it from me. “No way.”

Tiffany kicked him again. “You have to share!”

“Hey!” I reached out to keep her from landing another foot on my brother’s arm. But the two of them pushed me away and started laughing.

I couldn’t take the tween-love show anymore, so I wandered into the kitchen. I stared out the back doors, at the snow. The deer with her baby was grazing again. When they ambled out of our yard, I let myself out onto the back porch.

I sat on one of our deck chairs, pulling up my knees for warmth. I wondered where Will was, and then reminded myself that I should be thinking about Jake, about what he was thinking about our time on the mountain. After five minutes of this chilly self-reflection, I felt a buzzing on my hip.

It was my cell phone, with a text.

WHERE R U
?

From Jake. My fingers flew across the keyboard.

GROUNDED
4
NIGHT
.

Two seconds later:

2
BAD
.
LOOK TO UR LEFT
.

I did. And Jake was hiding in the trees in my backyard, wearing the same thin coat he’d worn that time I saw him on his porch, the time when he ran from me.

He smiled and then punched something into his cell phone.

SAFE TO SIT
?

I looked up, grinned, and nodded.

He walked over to me, pulled a chair close, and sat.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he responded.

“You in any trouble?” I asked.

“Nah. Your mom didn’t tell anybody anything, just that the visibility was too bad for your dad to fly.”

“Oh,” I said, looking into my house involuntarily for my parents. They’d covered for us. “That was cool.”

“Yep.”

I refastened my arms around my legs.

Jake’s foot tapped the floor.

I took a deep breath. I was not going to say anything. I repeated this in my head. I was not going to say anything.

He looked to me, then back into my house, and then at me. “Can we go in? I’m freezing.”

“I’m not saying anything first,” I responded.

He looked taken aback, and then when he regained his composure, he said, “Okay.”

I raised my eyebrows at him.

He didn’t say anything either. He slid my chair toward him. Then he reached out, held my hand, leaned in, and kissed me. It would’ve been an amazing moment, except for the screeching sound we heard coming from just behind us at the door.

“Jake Reid! I’m telling my sister!” Tiffany shouted while my brother held his sides to contain his laughter and pointed at us.