“I’m glad you’re here,” she says, softly. “Well, not here, but—”
“I know what you mean. Glad you’re here, too. It would be worse alone.”
They’ll be rescued tomorrow. No question about it. Then they can go to that wedding and put this behind them. Forget, eventually, that they were ever in a plane crash and take the second chance being offered.
For now, they huddle inside the wreckage and pass the time reading the crossword book while he silently endures an incoming migraine, only thankful that this one is mild.
She’s better at this than he is, but he surprises her with a couple of answers that earn him an impressed smile. That same one he liked at the airport, and is grateful he can see again.
They do not talk about the fact that they are the only two people left alive in this part of the Alaskan wilderness. Or about what the hell they’ll do if no one comes to save them.
When they finally fall asleep, bundled up as much as they can be, he’s awoken hours later by her mournful cries as she dreams, calling out for someone named“Iris.”
Chapter 3
“Who’s Iris?”
It’s a quiet question spoken while they’re sharing a bag of chips for breakfast. It stops Nora cold, one hand hovering in mid-air with a chip between her fingers. “How did you—”
“You said her name while you were asleep.”
“Right. Of course I did.” She drops the food back into the bag now that her appetite is gone. Hadn’t considered that she might have a nightmare, but the stress from the crash likely spurred it on. Not that she needs much incentive to let her own mind betray her. “Sorry if I woke you. Sometimes I have dreams.”
“It’s alright.”
He doesn’t seem annoyed, but she’s predisposed to worry that he might be. Finn tried to be patient, but in the end, she drove him out of the bedroom and into the spare once he realized he couldn’tfix herenough to make the nightmares stop.
“I wasn’t sure if I should wake you up or not,” he continues.
“I either wake myself up or I don’t remember it the next day.”
That’s a non-answer and mostly a lie. She remembers almost all of her nightmares. All those awful details, right down to the phone ringing, and the phantom ache of her heart ripping in two as the voice on the other end explained her daughter’s fate.
Nora only ever has two dreams. She knows them like a movie watched on repeat or a book read until the pages are raw and tattered. It’s her very own version of Groundhog Day. A part ofher wants to ask him to jolt her out of that routine next time so she’s not stuck living it out again, but the words catch in her throat and she stays quiet.
It’s not his job to help her manage her demons. They have only just met. She’s used to dealing with these dreams alone. Her main worry is driving him to the other side of the plane with the noise because she fears abandonment even now, in the middle of an arctic tundra with no civilization in sight.
“If I bother you, if it gets worse, just…nudge me. I’ll wake up.”
“It didn’t bother me.” He doesn’t push further or ask again who Iris is. Only gives her a sympathetic look, like he understands when she barely understands herself.
Before she knows what’s happening, her mouth opens and an explanation falls out. “About Iris. She’s—”
“You don’t have to answer. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not much good at this to begin with, and now I’m sticking my nose in your business.”
She’s not sure what “this” is. If he means he’s not good at plane crashes, because who is, or just the unfortunate situation of being stuck with another person with nothing else to do but talk and develop frostbite.
Telling a relative stranger about how her child died isn’t how she prefers to spend her social time. Not something she’d normally share when she’s gotten used to stuffing it down so deep that her therapist still has to drag it out of her. But what does it matter anyway? So what if he knows? They may never even make it out of this pile of rubble.
That therapist she tries to avoid is always telling her she needs to open up more and let herselfmake connections, failing to understand just how terrifying that is. There’s something different about being out here in the wilderness with Theo. Almost as if it’s not real. They’re in their own bubble, so farremoved from anything familiar, that for a moment she can pretend to be the type of person who opens up.
Maybe.
If he does, too.
“Did you think of someone before we crashed?” she asks quietly. “Doesn’t have to be a significant other, I just mean anyone.”
He nods. “I thought of a couple of people. Some still here, some already gone. Not all of them good.”
