by Adele Huxley
“But…”
He brushed the hair from my eyes and looked at me with such love the words were wiped from my tongue. “You have every right to want to protect your family, but we are at no more or no less risk than anyone else in this building, okay?”
I sighed but couldn’t resist his annoyingly calm, logical, gorgeous face. “Fine.” But as he led me towards the top of the stairs, I stopped and waved my finger in his face. “If this does turn out to be about us, you’re never going to hear the end of it.”
“I believe you,” he laughed.
The relative peace we’d attained in the Great Hall before the power outage was replaced with near mayhem. Kids were crying, parents were shouting, every light in the place was on at full power. I saw a few calm souls trying to maintain order, but I knew it was going to be a long night. And then Dani met me at the bottom of the stairs as we came down.
“There you are,” she snarled as she held Jack out at arm’s length. “I’m glad you’re enjoying your time off, but I need a freakin’ break.”
I swear on all that is holy, I deserve a medal for not tearing into her right then and there. The lengths we were going to just to make sure she was safe, happy, feeling cared for… and she comes at me with that attitude? Bryan touched me on the small of my back. I like to think it was a gentle reminder not to kill people in front of our son.
I took him off her hands, bit my tongue, and concocted the longest trail of obscenities I’d ever strung together in one sentence. He and I shared a knowing look before breaking apart.
While appearing to organize and keep things running smoothly, Walt and I circulated around the room, carefully pulling trustworthy people to the side for a quick conversation. Of course, telling someone we’d trapped a strange homeless guy downstairs in the basement wasn’t the easiest topic to just drop into.
“Do you think this has anything to do with…” Sally asked. She was in her mid-sixties, owned a horse stable at the edge of town, and had that no-nonsense attitude you needed when taking care of animals four times your size.
I shook my head slowly and kept my voice low. “We have no proof, but it is strange. But we just wanted people to be aware that a few odd things have been happening. The more eyes we have the better.”
Sally nodded, looking around the lodge as everyone got ready for bed. “Don’t you worry. We take care of our own.” She gave me a comforting pat on the back before returning to her daughter and granddaughter.
Walt and I had these private conversations for nearly an hour, delivering the tense news, probably turning dinner into rocks in their stomachs. The worst part was that I didn’t feel any safety in numbers. Bryan called on the walkie-talkie.
“He’s not talking. I’m coming back upstairs. The guy is obviously homeless and unstable. It’s probably best we keep him locked up.”
Well, when I woke up this morning, I didn’t expect to hear my husband say a sentence like that, I thought.
There was nowhere specific I had to be. I just needed to hand over my babysitting duties to, you know, the mother for a while. I was happy to help, but I had my own life. I wasn’t about to spend the next three days locked in here doing nothing but change diapers and play with blocks. As much as I loved that kid, just… no.
Wandering through the lodge, I naturally drifted towards the rental shop. As I drew closer, I could hear voices, laughter. I turned the corner and saw Miah and Marie only ten feet ahead of me.
“Hey,” I called out. My voice was a lot more cheerful than I’d intended. Miah spun and smiled, Marie practically grimaced.
“Well, hey yourself,” he said as he waited for me to catch up. However, she couldn’t bring herself to even say hello.
Marie pushed herself up and over the counter, plucking a helmet off the wall and shoving it down on her head. Her wild head of curly hair puffed out the bottom. “You’d think being adopted I wouldn’t suffer from Jew-fro,” she complained.
“Maybe your adopted parents are actually your real parents and they don’t want you to know for some reason,” I offered. I ran my fingers along the long rows of ski boots, the scratched plastic cool to the touch.
Miah laughed when Marie froze in her tracks. “Well, that would suck. Right now I can play the Jew card, the lesbian card, the ethnic card,” she said as she counted each one off on her fingers. “The adopted card, the refugee from a war-torn country card…”
“You aren’t a lesbian and you aren’t from a war-torn country. You’ve seen more dick than a high school locker room and were born in Columbia,” Miah laughed.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t play the cards,” Marie winked. “Most people don’t even know where it is on a map. And everyone thinks I’m a dyke, so I might as well play it up.”
“Wait, you’re really adopted? I was just joking around.”
Marie nodded. “My parents kidnapped me, practically tore me from my birth mother’s arms,” she said solemnly.
“Or, they spent thousands of dollars in plane tickets, legal fees, and hotel rooms just to get you from an orphanage,” Miah corrected with a laugh. He pulled a snowboard from the rack and examined the bindings.
“That’s another way to look at it,” she countered.
“Where are your parents then? I mean, aren’t they coming up here?” I tried to ask Miah casually. Instead, Marie answered for him.
“You want to know why he’s staying at my house,” she grinned.
I opened my mouth to speak but just then, a couple of Marie’s friends called out from the front of the room. “Where are you guys?”
Marie held my gaze a moment longer before responding. The heat rose up my neck like a stinging sweat, but I refused to let her see she was getting to me. We had a weird dynamic. She was funny, but she obviously had a weird thing about Miah and me. Childish or not, it made me want him. The more she tried to ruffle my feathers, the more I wanted to pluck hers.
“We’re back here,” she finally called out.
They found us in the back corner of the rental area. I recognized a few from earlier and a couple from just around town. I smiled tightly and prayed none of them had gone to the Festival of Lights. As they were laughing and chatting, Miah approached.
“Thanks again for what you did for us today,” he said as he bumped my shoulder.
A wave of nerves washed over me again. It wasn’t like me to go all flighty around a guy. It felt weird. I was acting like all the other girls that I normally made fun of. Fitzy and I hung out and fooled around, sure, but I didn’t actively go chasing him or anything.
“Yeah, really, it was no problem.” We wandered further away, putting a little distance between us and the other group. “So… you live with Marie or something?”
Miah chuckled and shook his head. “Is that what she told you? You haven’t figured out that she’s a bit of a storyteller, huh?”
“Well, yeah,” I replied, feeling the heat creep up my chest and neck again.
“Storyteller is being generous. Habitual, near-constant lies. Not quite pathological, but close.”
“Good to know,” I laughed. We strolled around the edge of the room, further and further away from the others.
“My mom went to make sure my grandparents were fine. They live out in the middle of nowhere. I think she said they’re coming up here to the lodge tomorrow morning.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little relieved. “So is it just… is it you and your mom?” I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, watching his reaction.
He leaned against the wall, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked to the ceiling and took a deep breath before replying. “Yeah, it’s just the two of us now. Dad left after Mom was diagnosed with lupus, which was almost ten years ago.”
I looked at my feet and scuffed the floor with my toe. “Geez, I’m sorry. What a prick.”
Miah turned on the wall, leaning his shoulder against it and looked at me. His gaze was soft, thoughtful, and made my stomach twist. “You know, I
used to think that, too. It’s really easy to get caught up in the hate. But here’s the way I see it. We’re all only capable of doing so much, right? Like, you can’t expect everyone to deal with every situation the same way. So I can’t really be mad at him for leaving.”
I considered his point for a moment, then shook my head hard enough so that the hair untucked from behind my ears. “Of course you fucking can. It’s literally in the marriage vows. In sickness and in health, it’s right there.”
“Yeah, but a vow is only a promise to do the best that you can. If you truly loved someone, would you want them to suffer just because of some sentence they spoke without fully understanding? Who am I to judge?”
If I’m honest, I was more than a little surprised. I know I’d just met him, but this guy was a lot deeper than I ever expected. On the surface, he looked kind of like the local dropout. The guy who would always live in town and be there when you came back for your ten-year high school reunion, still working the same job. But he surprised me over and over. I was thinking he might be fun for a fling, but the more I got to know him…
“What about you? Your parents still together?”
Aha. The defining question. The question I hadn’t had to answer very much, given that everyone around me walked on eggshells because of the truth. I bit my lip and looked at him out of the corner of my eye before I slid down the wall onto my ass.
“That bad, huh?” he asked, mimicking my movement to the floor.
This was a make or break moment for me. I could tell him the truth. He would give me the sympathetic look, I would feel guilty for making him feel awkward, and then he would wish he had never asked. I would wish he had never asked. The fun and flirty foundation we had built would crumble with reality. Or, I could lie.
"My dad died," I mumbled, remembering the flippant comment I’d made to Liz earlier on the lift.
Miah reached out and put a hand on my knee. "Shit, I'm sorry. Was it recently or when you were younger? Not that it really matters, I suppose."
I snorted and shook my head. "No, dead is dead. It happened earlier this year. IED."
“Army?”
“Marines.”
We sat in silence for a minute, him not wanting to press the issue, me not knowing how to continue with the story. Did it really matter if he actually died? The man who was my father didn’t exist anymore. I considered that death.
Miah squeezed me around the waist, a little surprising because I didn’t remember him putting his arm around me. All the awkwardness and nerves melted away. I instantly felt guilty lying to him about Dad. But I’d been honest about the feeling of the situation, if not the facts. Surprisingly, the raw emotion felt good. The nuances of the situation, the gray area our family had been thrust into… that chafed like fine sandpaper. Talking about something as final and permanent as death was like a clean cut that had a chance of healing.
A burst of laughter broke out in the small group across the room. Miah tickled my side and cocked his head towards them. “Want to rejoin the fun?”
After grabbing one last moment to stare into his gorgeous eyes, I nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
He helped me to my feet and the instant we stood, we were hit with the skunkiest weed I’d ever smelled.
“Are you seriously smoking in here?” Miah asked Marie incredulously as we joined up with the others.
“What? It’s legal,” she replied as she held a big hit in her lungs.
“Not inside,” I goaded.
“Yeah? And who the fuck invited you?” she snapped. Their friends audibly gasped and I was left speechless. She stared me down for a few tense heartbeats before her serious demeanor shattered. “I’m just messing with you. Want a hit?”
“No, I’m good,” I replied slowly.
I could tell I wasn’t the only one a little taken aback by her behavior. When I looked to Miah for some type of reaction, he rolled his eyes. “Mind if I?”
“Of course,” I choked out, surprised he’d even ask.
After the pipe was passed around a few times, the mood began to stabilize. Everyone forgot about her outburst, all of them laughing and joking again. Drew recounted her power outage horror story and even I forgot Marie’s bizarre comment.
“Honestly, it was like someone was waiting for the exact worst time to pull the plug,” she said with a sad laugh. “I’d literally just finished soaping up my hair, so, of course, my eyes were squeezed shut, right? So I sudsed and I sudsed, and then I rinsed…” she froze, her face a perfect mime.
“And I thought I’d gone blind.” We giggled. “I’m serious! I was the only one in there, it’s not like it made any noise or anything when it went off. I was seriously freaking out!”
“Aw, babe,” her boyfriend Trig comforted with a hand to her back. “That makes you sound kind of dumb.”
She rocked forward onto her knees and slapped his chest with a laugh. “It was horrible! It wasn’t until I fumbled all through the dark to get dressed that I realized I was seeing flashlights under the bathroom door.”
I turned to say something to Miah when he immediately straightened, tucking the pipe behind his back on reflex. I followed his gaze to see Liz storming in with a scowl. It was amazing how someone so pretty could make such ugly faces. She honed in on me like a heat-seeking missile.
Because of his position, Trig didn’t see Liz coming. “I bet you could still find my cock if you were blind,” he joked. He spun around when Liz cleared her throat behind him.
“Lovely,” she sneered before turning to me. “I’ve been trying to call you.”
“Must’ve forgotten my phone,” I shrugged. Even her presence here sent my temper from 1 to 100. The only reason I didn’t completely fly off the handle was because if I did, I’d end up looking more childish than she’d already made me appear.
“That’s too bad. If you did, I wouldn’t have had to come all the way over here to find you,” she countered. “It’s time for bed.”
“I haven’t had a bedtime since I was ten,” I scoffed.
“Well, you’ve got one now.”
There was a tense standoff. I wasn’t budging. She wasn’t backing down. Both of us understood the power dynamic at play. With one idle comment, she could completely embarrass me in front of everyone and she knew it. In the end, it was Miah who broke the silence.
“I think that’s actually a good idea. It’s been a long day. Let’s all tuck in for the night,” he said, nodding to the rest of the group. They grumbled in response, but allowed Miah to guide them towards the door. It was probably the least embarrassing way to end the situation and I had to thank him for that.
I remained rooted in place, my arms crossed, shooting daggers at Liz. The group mumbled their good nights as they walked away, leaving us to face each other like a couple of gunslingers about to have a shootout. I peripherally saw Miah turn to look back at the last second, but didn’t dare break the stare down.
“You said you weren’t going to drink anymore,” she started quietly.
“I haven’t.”
She shifted on her feet. “It smells like a nasty frat house in here. You’re too young for…”
I couldn’t stop the incredulous laugh that came out. “Really? This is what you want to talk about?”
Liz blinked slowly, unfazed and unconcerned. “You’re almost seventeen. Not only is it illegal for you to drink and smoke, it’s stupid. Your brain is still developing.”
I smirked as she handed me the dagger I needed to slip between her ribs. Sometimes it was too easy. I couldn’t stop myself from going for the bait. “Is that what happened to you then? Stunted development?” Her expression changed as she realized the pit she’d walked into, but I kept stabbing. “I don’t think you exactly have a high place of moral superiority to stand on here.”
Despite what it might sound like to an outsider, I held back from time to time. For instance, I thought, but didn’t say, At least I’m not whoring myself out like you did.
We conti
nued to stare at each other for a few more heartbeats before she turned and walked away without a word. My stubbornness kept me in that freezing rental room for at least twenty more minutes before I was forced to return to the Great Hall and go to bed. I loathed doing it, feeling as though by going to sleep after she’d demanded me to, I’d lost the argument.
And a little voice in the back of my mind wondered why we were arguing at all.
Despite his curmudgeonly ways, Walt took it upon himself to read to the children before we all turned in for bed. With the lights dimmed, the fires burning brightly, the decorations glowing all around the room, a good portion of the town settled in to listen to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
I rested my head on Bryan’s shoulder as we listened to the story, trying to ignore the howling wind picking up outside. We’d kept the floodlights on around the building so we could keep an eye on the snow. The wind was already drifting it up the side of the building, obscuring a few feet at the bottom of the windows.
As Walt was getting into his second story, Chris tapped Bryan on the shoulder from behind. Somehow, he was even more fidgety than before. I wasn’t about to leave Jack with Dani again, so with him in Bryan’s arms, we followed Chris to the corner of the room.
“I was just listening to the weather radio,” Chris said, looking back and forth between us nervously. “You’re not going to believe the storm totals.”
“Well, I could wait a day and check out the window…” Bryan said with a smirk.
“No, you have no idea. They were saying, get this, tonight we’re supposed to get more than what we’ve gotten already.”
Bryan and I looked at each other in confusion. “But we’ve already gotten five feet,” I said slowly. “You must’ve heard it wrong.”
Chris shook his head adamantly. “They repeated it over and over again. The storm is stalled, and something about moisture from somewhere means that we’re going to get at least four feet of snow tonight.”
I gazed out the windows, the mountain completely obscured by the blowing wind and snow. I tried to imagine what eight or nine feet would look like piled up against the building. It was a total I just couldn’t wrap my head around. “But the storm is supposed to continue until the day after tomorrow, right?”