“Remember that tree house, back in the woods?”
“How could I not? That place was more like home than my own house.”
He nods. “Same. …Of course, you took it to another level—made me hang a tarp for the roof, and everything.”
“Yeah, but who lugged the throw rug back there? And then the little folding table and chairs?”
“Right. You wanted to make it all girly.” He laughs, teasing, and I scoff at him.
“Not ‘girly.’ Comfortable. Cozy. Besides, you’re hardly anti-girl…” I clamp my lips together and look away. Talking about girls with Luke Owens while trapped in an itty-bitty cabin? I can’t stand—can’t stand—his girlfriend, ex- or not, and there’s no way I want to drag her in here with us.
Luke’s still looking at me when I glance his way. “I know,” I tell him. “I said something wrong. Again.”
The crease forms between his eyebrows. “No. Didn’t you hear me?”
“Guess not. What’d I miss?”
He flicks a bit of bark from the firewood off his knee. “Never mind.”
“You can’t say that. Honestly, what?”
“It was nothing. I said ‘not with you.’ I mean, I’ve never been anti-you, or whatever, not even when you hated me.”
I look down and he leans in a bit, trying to catch my eye. “…Which, maybe, you still do?”
I lift a shoulder, drop it with a sigh. “Jury’s still out. Make me some more rice and beans in the morning, and we’ll see how I feel.”
He feigns a mortal blow to the chest. Then he throws a used sock at me and I’m sufficiently disgusted to put a genuine smile back on his face.
Eight
“Show-Me” Status
Such weirdness, the going to bed with Luke thing—well, not with Luke, but about a foot away from him. He’s chosen the bed closer to the door and parallel to the kitchen area, so I take the one against the far wall. Since the beds are set up at right angles to one another, our heads meet, or at least our pillows do. I suppose our feet could be where the beds come together, but it didn’t occur to me to set up the bedding that way, and Luke never said a word about it, either.
We get tired only a few hours after the last hint of light fades from the windows, which puts our bedtime at roughly eight p.m. Early, but life has been a little hard lately. We could use the sleep.
I’ve made the beds with some cotton sheets and wool blankets Luke found stored in a cedar chest during his final explore of the cellar, and when I fluff up Luke’s pillow, a small haze rises, made of dust or old fibers. I cough and wave it away, but Luke only shrugs and starts unbuttoning his jeans.
I stare, vaguely aware that my mouth is gaping, and he stops, one hand on his zipper. “Wanna help?”
I cough again—this time, to cover a weird, embarrassed laugh—and turn away. “Good night, Luke.”
“’Night, Layls.”
He hasn’t called me that since we were kids.
I climb into bed, keeping my clothes on, and pull the covers up to my neck. The stove has this place feeling pretty toasty, but some serious winter is happening just outside these walls.
“Hey, Layla?”
I tip my head back on the pillow so I can see him. He’s in his bed, up on his elbows, looking over at me.
“Hmm?” I ask.
“Can you wake me up a few times, so I don’t die from the whole concussion thing?”
“Um, I’m kinda busy, so…”
He reaches over and musses my hair. “Thanks, kid.”
“Kid? You’re still only ten months older, even if you are super-sized now.”
He laughs. “’Night, Layls,” he says again.
The room grows quiet, aside from the snapping and popping of the fire, and his breathing deepens while I watch the stove’s light flicker through the cabin. Then, I get up and push both chairs against the door, wedging one underneath the handle, putting our backpacks on them for extra weight. It’s still locked with the bolt and chain, but wild animals are strong, and seeing the chairs there makes me feel safer.
I lie down once more, realize my feet are getting cold, and crawl onto the floor to collect the pair of socks Luke discarded earlier. I’m already wearing some, but they aren’t that thick, and his are big enough to pull on overtop of mine. I try not to think about how he wore them all day long.
“You’re wearing my socks?” His voice comes through the quiet.
“Sorry, do you need them? My feet were cold.”
“No, you keep ’em.”
“Thanks, Luke.”
“No problem. …So, if you’re wearing my dirty socks, that must mean you don’t hate me with every single fiber of your being.”
“Could be, but if a few fibers are still partial, it’s only because you were a cool little kid.”
“Works for me,” he says, and rolls over, turning to face the wall. The blanket goes with him, and I glimpse a flash of his boxers, before he covers himself again. “Eyes off the goods,” he says, without even looking back.
I sigh, specifically for effect, and climb into bed wearing his stinky old socks.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Luke. Luke,” I whisper. It’s still nighttime and he isn’t stirring, so I reach above my head. My fingertips locate his bare shoulder; he must’ve taken off his t-shirt at some point, which is good. It means he woke up long enough to strip away more clothing. I try not to think about the rest of what it means: he’s now bare-chested, covered only in layers of muscles. That’s not as good—for me. It’s fine for him.
I may hold some serious grudges against this guy, but I’ve never been able to ignore how handsome he is. Even when we were kids, I acknowledged that fact only to stuff it back down again, certain Lucas would have been horrified to know I realized he was cute.
“Luke,” I say again, stretching up to pat him on that same, bare shoulder.
His fingers clamp around my wrist. Fortunately, it’s not on my injured arm.
“Luke?”
He loosens his grip, but doesn’t let go. He turns his head on the pillow so he can see me.
“Layla?”
“Bingo. Listen, you have to wake up, okay?”
“Uh huh.”
“You do, for real. …So, why don’t you go stoke the fire or something? Make yourself useful.”
He laughs, gives my wrist a gentle squeeze, and releases me. “‘Make yourself useful.’” He scoffs and lies there, stretching his arms and legs, yawning.
“Uh, Luke?”
“Hmm?”
“I wasn’t kidding about that fire. It’s getting chilly in here.” I nudge his shoulder with my fingertips. “Go on.”
He groans and sits up. It’s pretty dark, since the fire has dimmed, but when he goes over to stand by the stove in his boxers, I see him clearly. See the arc and shadow of muscle, the warm glow of light against smooth skin.
A sigh of some kind slips from me—something unexpected and soft, but heavy with significance.
“I heard that,” Luke says, and I roll over, my cheeks blazing hot.
I don’t make another sound until the next time I have to wake him. Then, when he stands and stretches, I look away.
♦ ♦ ♦
The next morning, I nudge Luke awake on my way to feed the fire.
My eyes are barely open, but he’s made it look easy enough and there are plenty of leftover embers still glowing inside the stove. I add some fresh logs and make the mistake of blowing on them to bring them into flame. I get a face full of tiny, stinging ashes in return for my efforts.
“Ow.” My breath snakes in through my teeth. “Ow, ow, ow.”
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“I’m stupid. I blew into the fire, and—ow—my eye is seriously smarting right now.”
“Smarting, huh? Let me see.” Luke has come over in his boxers, but I don’t even notice. Hardly, anyway. He takes my face in his hands, trying to pry open my left eye, but it only wants to stay closed and g
ush tears.
I push at his fingers. “No, it hurts too much. Just let it be.” I clap a hand over my eye, stumble back to my bed and collapse onto it, fully prepared to sulk my way through the pain.
Luke does something with the fire—there’s a rustling and a bumping of wood, then he clangs some pots and pans, before coming to check on me. I’m lying on my stomach, my face turned away from him, and he nudges my side with his butt, until I make room for him to sit.
“Can I look?”
“No. It still hurts too much.”
“I’m sure it does.”
He rubs my back for a minute or two. It’s really weird at first, but it distracts me from the stinging in my eye. Just as I finally start to relax, something changes—something in the energy of the room, something in the feel of his touch—and I tense. Luke stands, without a word, and goes to sit on his bed.
I turn toward him, peeking with my good eye in time to see him throw the covers over his lap and rest his head against the wall, eyes closed. “Does your head hurt?” I ask.
He sighs. “I’m fine.”
I turn back to my pillow, the pain in my eye reclaiming my attention.
“Nice ass, by the way, Layla,” he says, “but you should probably cover it up now.”
“What?” My voice rises into a squeak. I reach back and feel the silky fabric of my underwear. Where are my pants? I rip the covers over me.
“OhmyGodohmyGod,” I say. How could I have walked through the room with no pants on? “You! You’re making me wake you up over and over again. I’m so tired I can’t even think!”
“You’re right. I should just croak and make things easier on both of us.”
I groan, ignoring his comment. “I’m used to sleeping by myself…and it was all those socks I was wearing. I must’ve been too hot.”
“Okay. Whatever makes you feel better. Blame it on the socks.”
“Will you please be quiet…”
“I know how it really is. I show you mine, you show me yours… We’ve been there before.”
“What do you mean?” Half-rising, I turn to squint at him through my uncovered eye.
“Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly the ‘show me’ thing, but close enough. Don’t tell me you don’t remember. What were we, thirteen or something? Not little kids anymore…”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The time we went skinny dipping in the Wilkins’ pool? They were out of town, and I think I dared you, but you definitely didn’t refuse, so…”
“Skinny dipping? Sorry. Wrong. Not this girl. …Oh wait. Oh no. I forgot all about that. But it was nighttime, so there was no showing anything.”
“Wasn’t there? I remember the moon being pretty bright…”
“Wait, you’re serious? You looked?”
“Well, I tried not to, but I couldn’t help it. I only peeked, anyway. Didn’t you?”
“No.” I shoot him a single-eyed glare, but he grins, unrepentant. “I barely remember anything about it,” I say, tipping up my chin, hoping he’s bluffing.
“Too bad.” He holds my half-gaze, enjoying this way too much. “Because I remember it, Layls. Pretty well.”
“I hate you.” I flop back on the bed, roll away from him, and remember too late to keep my bottom half covered. “Damn it.” I snatch the blankets over me again and hear Luke chuckling under his breath.
A few minutes pass, before I have to ask. “Do you really remember, like you said?”
His answer is quiet, but there’s a smile in his voice. “I do kind of remember—the whole night, I mean. But then again, maybe I wanted to.”
Nine
Special, Someone
“W
e have to keep track of the days,” I tell Luke as I hang my coat and gloves on a nail by the door. “Maybe we can cut notches into a piece of wood, or something.”
It’s our second day in the cabin, and we’ve recently returned from our first survey mission, complete with more phone checks—no signal and only a quarter battery left. Our hope in searching around outdoors is to locate some sign of humanity, but all we’ve seen so far are trees and snow, coupled with more trees and more snow.
Luke volunteered to be the main surveyor today, but once I saw how it hurt him to try to see into the distance, I took over the role, holding a hand over my injured eye as I headed out in straight-ish paths while Luke planted himself and his concussion-addled brain outside the cabin. The nearby land undulates in small peaks and valleys, which equated to my losing sight of the cabin beyond the rises, so Luke had to guide me back by voice. I’d return, switch to a different angle, and set out again. My paths were spokes, with Luke as the hub.
Never mind that my will was good, my frost-nipped toes were not. They started hurting after only a few trips, not to mention that it began sleeting, so we called our efforts finished for the day with a plan to resume them tomorrow.
It would be crazy to leave this cabin, this place of relative safety, to embark on an out-and-out search for other humans, so for now, we’ll stay put and wait to be found.
Keeping track of the calendar seems like one thing to do while we pass the time. Another has been the focus of my recent thoughts: bathing. I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s a way to melt snow and lug it to the trough-style bathtub, without everything cooling off by the time it’s filled. Seems like a lot of work, but being super, squeaky clean might be worth the effort.
“Hot tubs are gross, I guess, but I could definitely go for a soak right now,” I say, thinking aloud.
“What are you talking about, Marshall?” Luke is crouched in front of the flourishing mound of firewood, which he’s begun supplementing with fallen branches from the woods; he’s currently separating the pile into stacks of bigger logs and smaller kindling pieces.
“Just something about hot tubs…never mind.”
He looks up, gives me a crooked kind of smile. “You know, a bath would be warmer with two people in it.”
“Stop.”
“Just an observation.”
“Quit it, really. Listen, we’re in a weird situation, but this—flirting or joking or whatever we’re doing—is only making it weirder. We’re not strangers, trying to get together or something. We’re you and me.”
Luke stares, his mouth slightly gaping. “You’re right,” he says, simply. “Sorry. Besides, I was kind of asking what you said when you first came in.”
“Oh. I said we need to keep track of the days. We left on the twenty-sixth, got in the accident that same day, stayed in the little shack place the first night…”
“Shack? Right, you mentioned that.”
“Don’t you remember it at all?”
The concentration lines—nearly as familiar now as they were in our shared childhood—gather between Luke’s eyebrows. “It’s kind of hazy…except…did you let me put my head in your lap?”
“That’s what you remember?” I glance away, embarrassed. “Fine. Yes, I did.”
“And you were touching my hair or something… Yeah, that was nice. I could nap like that forever.”
“Luke, I said enough with the teasing.”
He reaches for another log to sort. “Who’s teasing?”
I watch him, waiting for his features to tell me he’s kidding, but his calm face offers no insight. “Anyway, you interrupted my counting. So, we spent the night of the twenty-sixth in the shack, which would make yesterday the twenty-seventh, and today the twenty-eighth. New Year’s Eve is in three more days. Do you think they’ll find us by then?”
“Guess that depends on where—and if—they’re looking. Remember, we’re not due back home until January second.”
This time, Luke glances at me after his comment, and my concern must be evident, because he changes the subject. “So. New Year’s Eve. Would’ve been pretty crazy spending it at that ski lodge. Did you plan on going to the little shindig they were throwing?”
I shift my eyes away from him. Without que
stion, he would’ve been the unofficial guest of honor, but me? “I probably would’ve hung out in my room.”
“Ah. Hanging with someone special, I guess?”
I snort, then I’m embarrassed that I snorted. “Just me.”
“Right, because your someone special would’ve been at home. Got it.” He nods. Maybe he’s teasing again, but his eyes have narrowed a bit. There’s something serious about that.
“Nope. Not at home, either. And if you’re hinting about Evan, I’m pretty sure we broke up just before Christmas.”
“Oh, hey, sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Luke’s eyebrows tip up in surprise, but when they descend again, his mouth tightens. “Honestly? I’m not sorry you broke up, but I do regret what happened in the locker room. I shouldn’t have hit him so hard.” He looks away, frowning.
“Not sorry about hitting him in general, though.”
His head turns, his eyes lock with mine. “Can’t say that I am. He needed to learn a lesson, Layla.”
“And you had to be the one to teach him.”
Both our faces are hard, all lines and planes.
“Why you, Luke?”
“Because, maybe you decided not to like me once we hit high school, but I never stopped caring about you.”
I stare at him, unable to comprehend his full meaning, and not sure I want to believe the parts I do understand. For years, while I was keeping my distance, he was doing the same. He could have reached out if he wanted to, but he didn’t, so the choice was mutual. It had to have been.
♦ ♦ ♦
The battery to our only working phone will soon enter the red zone. We’re preparing to let go of the hope it has represented, because it’s apparently going to leave without having offered even a glimmer of a connection. To distract ourselves from this inevitability, we’re keeping as busy as possible, which is no easy feat in this place. Once we’ve covered the basics—food, water, firewood—there’s little left to do but wait around for someone to find us.
We drink some water and snack on a few peanuts, Luke feeds the fire and does a whole bunch of push-ups, and I snicker at him in between tracing doodles and smiley faces in the grit on the windows. After he catches his breath, he comes over to admire my drawings; claiming one of the faces looks just like his, he gives it a mohawk to make it stand out. Then, I scrub the windows with a mix of melted snow water and some vinegar I found, switching out images of grinning, disembodied heads for a less foggy view of the outside world. After staring out the windows together for a while, we turn to assessing each other’s injuries, purely for entertainment purposes.
Picturing You Page 7