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“Thank you,” I whisper, the stillness of this vast emptiness surrounding us. It’s weird to think that we’re alone out here, that his words are literally only mine to hear.
“You know what I’ve always hated about winter?” I now say, afraid to acknowledge everything that has passed between us in the last few days.
“What’s that?”
“That I’ve never been able to make the perfect snow angel. No matter how hard I tried, I could never stand up without leaving a handprint in it or next to it.”
“Or worse, a boot print in it,” Alex adds, like he understands what I’m talking about.
He grew up in Boston and while the snow there isn’t like here, I’m sure he got enough to make plenty of snow angels, imperfect ones at that.
“The snow’s too deep here,” Alex now says, standing up and holding a hand out to me. “Go make one on the porch.” He points to an area that has been undisturbed but has somehow been blocked from having the wind pile snow on it. “I’ll pull you up when you finish.”
He’s right, it’s the perfect depth and I walk over, gently falling back into it, letting the snow cradle my body. I move my arms up and down, my legs side to side, sinking them down into the snow.
“You ready?” Alex calls, waiting a few steps away from where I’m at.
“Yes,” I call back, my smile is so wide my cheeks begin to ache.
He leans over, stretching to reach me, both hands extended out in front of him as I reach up to grab them. Lifting my body off the snow, I fall forward into his arms.
“There you go,” Alex says, as I lean back against him. He wraps his arms around my waist, his chin resting on my head as we both look at my snow angel. “Perfect.”
“Perfect,” I echo back, trying not to cry as I realize that Alex is it for me. While it’s only a stupid snow angel, it tells me he’ll do anything for me.
“We shouldn’t stay out here too much longer. You go in and warm up by the fire. I’ll grab some more wood.”
“I’ll help you. You shouldn’t have to collect wood all on your own.”
We both trudge around to the side of the house where Alex found the stash of firewood buried under the snow. Using our hands, we dig out several more pieces, both of us stopping for a second as we take in the wood we have exposed.
It feels like neither one of us wants to ask the question. It’s the same question we asked when we found the food. How long do we think this will last?
“We have at least two weeks’ worth,” Alex says as if he can read my mind. “Probably more if we can get it dried out, but if not, we have an axe and tons of trees.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?”
“I don’t know. You had a look on your face. I can tell when you’re worried and you were worried just now.”
He knew me before we found ourselves out here, but I didn’t want to admit it. Despite my past and my fears, I let him in a long time ago and even though I thought he didn’t care; he took everything in and kept it close to him. He knows me better than I know myself.
He makes it easy to love him when he’s like this. But love should be unconditional, and I should love him even when he’s hard to love. That’s what’s missing. He was never loved when he was hard to love.
“Did you know that almost all of the pine tree is edible?” Alex suddenly says, his arms loaded down with firewood.
“What?”
“Yeah, we can make tea from pinecones or pine needles. And I think I saw some witches’ butter mushrooms when I was digging out the firewood.”
“Okay, what the hell are you talking about? Do you think you’re like Bear Grylls now that you’re wearing some mountain man’s underwear?”
“No, I’m serious. I was a Boy Scout for a long time. We learned foraging.”
“Alex, I’m certain this is the dorkiest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Yeah, well, you won’t be saying that when we’re drinking pine needle tea.”
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