Winter Longing (23 page)
I could tell by the way he said “great” that he thought it was sexy, and that he wanted me to stop holding him at arm’s length. I wished I could.
When I said nothing in response, he sighed and let go. “See you later.” He started back down the stairs toward the rink and the locker room.
I stood and watched him until he was out of sight. I wondered if my mind and heart would ever stop spinning long enough for me to figure out what I should do. What I wanted.
“Love . . . ’Tis second life, it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.”
—Joseph Addison, Quote-a-Day calendar
CHAPTER 29
It
was really odd how thoughts of Spencer haunted me every day, while I also thought of Jesse more and more often. He hadn’t made any further moves or even mentioned the near kiss. I wondered if my pulling away yet again had extinguished whatever interest had been there. My heart ached at that thought. Not the same kind of ache I felt when I thought of Spencer, but an ache nonetheless.
was really odd how thoughts of Spencer haunted me every day, while I also thought of Jesse more and more often. He hadn’t made any further moves or even mentioned the near kiss. I wondered if my pulling away yet again had extinguished whatever interest had been there. My heart ached at that thought. Not the same kind of ache I felt when I thought of Spencer, but an ache nonetheless.
Even odder was how natural it felt to walk to and from school with Jesse, spend time doing homework at each other’s houses, and join Caleb in attending Lindsay’s basketball games. Sometimes I felt as if Spencer approved of me moving on. Others, it seemed like he was watching with disapproval from just out of sight. I didn’t know which, if either, was true.
November arrived with ever-shortening days and colder temperatures. A few inches of snow blanketed the ground on one of the days when neither Lindsay nor I had to be at Oregano’s after school. Because her mom had the flu, she headed straight home. I had to do some research in the school library after classes were over, so when I left, I bumped into Jesse leaving hockey practice.
“Waiting for me?” He gave me a crooked, teasing grin, the first I’d seen in a while. I felt a spurt of unexpected hope come alive.
“No, sorry. Didn’t renew my groupie membership.” Considering the unspoken tension that had risen between us since Halloween night, joking with him came surprisingly easily.
I headed out the door, and he followed, falling into step beside me as I walked toward the middle of town. As we passed through the main part of Tundra, we spotted Shaggy Murtough out in front of the trading post feeding Boo, his pet caribou. He’d saved Boo when she’d been a baby, after her mother was run over by a truck. Even when he’d tried to return her to the wild, she wouldn’t go.
Jesse nodded in Boo’s direction. “Bet you won’t see something like that when you move to Hollywood.”
“I don’t know if I’m going there.”
“That’s where the movie industry is.” He moved in front of me but kept walking backward. “After all, you’re already an award-winning designer.”
I stuck my tongue out at his teasing tone.
“Careful, that’s going to freeze out here.”
Lacking a witty comeback, I reached down and grabbed a handful of snow. He laughed and ran across Town Park to our street. I worked the snow into a ball as I ran after him. When it was round and solid, I slid to a stop and took aim.
“Ack!” Jesse spun around when the snowball hit him in the back and exploded. “Oh, it’s on!”
I squeaked and ran toward the other side of the street. A snowball caught me on the neck just below my knitted cap. Smaller chunks slid down my neck, making me shiver.
We shrieked and bombarded each other with snowballs all the way down the street to my house. Instead of running up the front steps, I careened around the side of the house to the backyard. As I rounded the corner, Jesse tackled me.
“That’s cold!” I wriggled to get loose but only managed to free one arm.
A wide smile of victory stretched across Jesse’s mouth. I reached over and grabbed a handful of snow, then proceeded to rub it all over his face.
A bit more rolling and slipping brought us face-to-face. We stopped struggling, and our visible breaths puffed out between us.
“I have a question to ask you, and I don’t want you avoiding it again.” He sounded so matter-of-fact, as if there wasn’t a charge sizzling between us.
“Okay.”
“Want to go to the Snow Ball with me?”
Memories flashed of me asking Spencer to the dance, him smiling and saying yes, and me dreaming of dancing in his arms. I pushed them all away. I didn’t want to feel this aching hole inside me anymore.
“Sure.”
“Good.”
I thought he’d release me then, but he continued to stare down at me. When he started to lower his lips toward mine, I panicked and turned my face away. I could convince myself to go to a dance, but this . . . this I wasn’t ready for. Was I?
Jesse let out a long sigh, then lifted to his feet. He offered his hand, though I could tell he was holding in barely restrained frustration. I didn’t mean to be so crazed—so hot and cold—but I couldn’t seem to help it. It was like I’d gone emotionally schizo or something.
Should I have said no? Should I just have cut the ties between us before we got in too deep?
Before we felt too much, and it ended badly?
“Whoso loves, believes the impossible.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Quote-a-Day calendar
CHAPTER 30
The
look of disappointment I’d seen on Jesse’s face nagged at me from the moment he walked away, all through that night, and into the next morning. What was wrong with me? Why was I holding on to Spencer when there was nothing beyond memories to hold on to?
look of disappointment I’d seen on Jesse’s face nagged at me from the moment he walked away, all through that night, and into the next morning. What was wrong with me? Why was I holding on to Spencer when there was nothing beyond memories to hold on to?
Jesse was a good guy. Nice, understanding, funny. Gorgeous. And despite how I treated him sometimes, he seemed to like me at least enough to want a kiss.
Hoping I could make it up to him, I headed to the rink, where he and the rest of the team were slamming bodies with Cold Creek. I didn’t hide the fact I was cheering for him. Let everyone else think what they wanted to.
Almost an entire period went by before he noticed me. I waved and smiled. He offered a crooked smile below his visor, before skating onto the ice for another shift.
That smile made me feel better and increased my anticipation for the end of the game. I still didn’t know exactly what I might be ready for, but I had to admit I kept wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t turned my face away the day before. What would Jesse’s kisses be like? Though I tried to keep my mind from venturing down the track of comparison, I couldn’t stop wondering how they would measure against Spencer’s. They wouldn’t have the pent-up yearning that had fueled the kisses between Spencer and me. But would that make them any less enjoyable?
A new thought scared me. What if his kisses were
better
than Spencer’s?
better
than Spencer’s?
I sighed as I watched Jesse fly down the ice. I doubted his kisses would be a letdown.
As the final seconds of the game ticked off the clock, I headed out to the lobby area across from the locker room. Not so close that I looked obvious, but close enough that Jesse could see me when he came off the ice.
It worked. He wandered out of the line of players in my direction. “Hey, Winter. I saw you cheering. Thanks for being here.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking of taking up cheerleading. Think Patrice will let me on the squad?”
He leaned in closer. “I swear I’ll stop talking to you.”
I tilted my head and pursed my lips, like I was weighing my options.
He made like he was going to tickle me, causing me to squeak and back up into an alcove next to the snack bar, which hid us from most of the people leaving the rink. My breath caught in my lungs when he lifted his hand to my cheek. This time I wasn’t going to pull away. I needed to know, one way or the other.
The buzzing of my phone startled me, breaking the moment. “Sorry,” I said, giving Jesse a please-forgive-me smile as I pulled the phone out of my pocket. But it wasn’t a call. It was a text. Lindsay, most likely. I’d scold her later for her incredibly bad timing.
But when I looked at the display, it wasn’t from Lindsay. My heart missed a beat, and I lifted my hand to my mouth to stifle a gasp.
“What is it?” Jesse asked.
I stepped around him and looked wildly around the lobby.
“Winter? ”
I hurried back into the rink, but almost everyone was gone. None of the remaining faces were Spencer’s.
Maybe instead of a miracle, I was hallucinating. But when I looked back at the phone, the word “PERSUASION” stared back at me, sent from Spencer’s cell number. An answer to the question I’d asked him the night before he died: what to read,
The Tempest
or
Persuasion
?
The Tempest
or
Persuasion
?
Jesse took my arm until I looked up at him. “What’s wrong?”
I swallowed against the dryness invading my throat. “Spencer.” I held up the phone. “It’s a text from Spencer.”
His eyebrows knotted, as if I were talking nonsense. Was I?
No, this had to be a sign. Spencer was out there somewhere, trying to reach me. The only other explanations were that this message had floated around out in the satellite ether for two months, or I was totally crazy.
“Winter.” Jesse shook his head as if it were the latter.
But the message
had
to mean something. Why else would it show up right at the moment when I was about to cast aside Spencer for someone else? Had I allowed Jesse, Lindsay, and my parents to persuade me to do exactly that?
had
to mean something. Why else would it show up right at the moment when I was about to cast aside Spencer for someone else? Had I allowed Jesse, Lindsay, and my parents to persuade me to do exactly that?
I knew it sounded absolutely nuts, but what if there was the slimmest chance Spencer was alive? As I looked up at Jesse, at his eyes so filled with confusion and hurt, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Spencer’s reappearance.
I turned away as guilt slammed into me full force. How could I even think such a thing? I loved Spencer.
Without looking back at Jesse, I ran toward the doors into the cold, snowflake-laden night.
I looked at every face I passed on the way home, down every street, behind every building. By the time I got home, fear that I really
was
losing my mind had begun to grip me. Did I need to tell someone—my parents—just in case? As soon as I had the thought, I knew how it would sound coming out of my mouth. My parents would look at me the way Jesse had. As if I needed professional mental help.
was
losing my mind had begun to grip me. Did I need to tell someone—my parents—just in case? As soon as I had the thought, I knew how it would sound coming out of my mouth. My parents would look at me the way Jesse had. As if I needed professional mental help.
But I couldn’t say nothing. I had to know what this message meant. I took a deep breath and ran downstairs.
I found Dad in his office, looking over patient records.
“Hi, honey,” he said, when he looked up to see me standing in the doorway. “What’s up?”
I had to take another deep breath before I could move forward and speak. “I need your help.”
He set down the file he was holding. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes. No.” I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I pulled out my phone, just to make sure the message was still there. “I got a text message tonight . . . from Spencer.”
It took a couple of seconds for the stunned look on his face to dissolve into one of pity. “Sweetie, that’s not possible.”
I extended the phone to him. “He answered a question I asked him the night before the crash. No one else could have done that.”
Dad took the phone and looked at the display. His forehead wrinkled. “You’re sure this came from Spencer’s number? ”
“Yes.” I sank into the chair across his desk from him. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but . . . what if somehow he’s still alive and trying to ask for help?”
Dad placed the phone atop the file he’d been reading. “I know this has been hard, honey. It’s a loss someone your age shouldn’t have to go through, but you have to accept that there’s no way he could have survived.” He said it with his gentle tone he used to deliver bad news to patients. “No way, sweetie.”
He didn’t delve into the details of the crash scene, but I knew he was thinking about finding the mangled, charred remains of the plane. Deep in my heart, I knew he was right. A hollowness opened up inside me.
“But the message?”
Dad looked at me with kind eyes. I could tell he wanted to get his point across without hurting me. “If he were alive and could send you a message, why wouldn’t he text ‘Help,’ or some clue where he was?”
I stood, paced, tried to slow the insane beating of my heart. “But no one’s found Spencer. How can we be sure?” I knew I sounded desperate, verging on insane.
Dad stood slowly and rounded his desk. I backed up, not wanting comfort. I wanted the truth to not be the truth. I wanted Spencer to be alive. I wanted to talk to him again, to be able to tell him how much he really meant to me.
“The details would only hurt you, but trust me. There were no human footprints leading away from the wreckage.”
Before I could say anything, Dad took the steps necessary to wrap me in his arms. I clung to him and didn’t fight it as the hollowness yawned wider.
“How bright, how clear this light, . . . this love that shines out in a shadowed world.”
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