Girl from Nowhere

by Tiffany Rosenhan

  An unfamiliar excitement ripples across my chest.

  Abruptly, Aksel rolls off me. Sliding his hands from my back to my wrists, he lifts me to my feet.

  “Keep moving,” he warns. “We have to keep our heart rates up.”

  Bending down, he brushes the snow off my numb, quivering legs. “Who wears shorts running in twenty-degree weather?”

  “It wasn’t this cold when I left,” I answer through chattering teeth.

  He rubs my arms and shoulders as I burrow against his warm chest.

  “There’s this tool called a weather app,” Aksel remarks in a raspy voice. “You should check it before you go out running.”

  I half shiver, half laugh. “Weather prediction is only fifty-seven percent accurate at this elevation.”

  “Eagle Pass motto: Be prepared.”

  “Hepworth motto: Preparation is one percent physical, ninety-nine percent mental.”

  “Fredricksen motto: There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.”

  “You stole that from the Danes,” I say.

  He grins. “But they stole it from the Germans.”

  We are standing on a sheet of snow and ice. Around us everything is being pounded by the blizzard. Aksel’s eyes follow mine in the direction of the ravine. “You didn’t think we’d make it, Sophia?”

  Something about the way he says my name catches me off guard. I feel a flutter in my chest, right below my throat.

  I shiver. “Who said we’ve made it?”

  It’s the first time I hear Aksel laugh. It is deep and sultry, and before I know it, I’m laughing too, although there is a blizzard whirling around us and now we have no protection; we might as well be on an iceberg adrift in the Arctic.

  A low humming in the distance causes our laughter to taper off.

  Aksel snaps his head left.

  I reach into my sock, retrieve the avalanche flare gun, and fire it into the air.

  “You go,” I say. “I’ll wait.”

  Aksel looks at me, a surprised expression on his face. Then he untethers the snowshoes, throws them down, and clicks in. Above us, a glowing orange ember rises in the sky and explodes in a blast of light.

  Barreling through the heavy snowfall, Aksel leaps down the drift and glides across the snow, disappearing into whiteness.

  After several long minutes, I contemplate the odds that Aksel has left me here to icicle. Then he emerges with his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright. “You look surprised to see me.”

  “I thought perhaps you’d left me.”

  His eyebrows lift in astonishment. “Here?”

  I shrug. “I am partially responsible for destroying your car.”

  Aksel smiles broadly, motioning at the massive avalanche. “A little snow can’t hurt a Defender.”

  Behind Aksel’s back, two fluorescent pearls of light round the bend of the canyon, illuminating the sparkling snow and casting a light on Aksel’s silhouette.

  Somewhere between relief and euphoria, I step toward the snowplow and sink into the drift.

  “Hey, easy,” Aksel says. Reaching one hand behind my back, Aksel hooks the other beneath my knees and draws me into his arms.

  “I can walk!” I protest, half-hearted.

  “Really?” He points at the loose powder and single pair of snowshoes, “How?”

  “I don’t know … I … okay, fine,” I relent, clasping my arms around his neck.

  He secures his strong arms around my waist. Whispering into my ear, his lips send tremors across my skin. “You’re sure you’ll let me lift you?”

  “Yes,” I murmur, slightly dizzy.

  Gallantly carrying me across the snow doesn’t slow Aksel down. I am cognizant of every part of Aksel’s body touching mine: his forearms looped beneath my bare legs, his warm, broad chest against the side of my hip.

  I’m frozen, yet blood seems to pulse through every vein of my body in hammering thuds, as if my body is on fire.

  Inside the plow truck, I warm my hands at the vent. The hot air thaws my limbs; although my toes sting, pain is good. No frostbite.

  The driver begins plowing uphill. “Smart to get under Eagle Peak,” he compliments Aksel. “You’re lucky to have walked away so easily from an avalanche that big.”

  Aksel catches my eye—Easily?

  “I would have reached you sooner had I not towed another driver out first.” The driver grunts over the rustic country music. “I had to convince him to let me. He seemed more upset I’d found him than pleased I’d offered to help.”

  “Who?” Aksel asks the driver casually. With the heater blaring, I’m finally warm.

  “Some tourist driving with no chains,” he scoffs. “I told him he couldn’t access the ski resort from Eagle Pass, that most of it was private land. He didn’t seem to care …”

  Aksel glances furtively in my direction. In the cramped cab, our bodies are pressed close together. Aksel’s thigh is against mine and his arm draped across the back of my seat; therefore, I feel his body tense, ever so slightly.

  “Sure you don’t want me to drop you off now?” the plow driver eventually asks Aksel; we’ve reached a wide turnaround in the road. “It will be hours otherwise.”

  “Sophia first,” Aksel answers, pointing at my bare thighs. “She’s frozen.”

  The driver eyes me reprovingly. “You’re not from around here either, are you?”

  “No, sir.” I smile.

  Two Waterford Police cars are parked in my driveway.

  “Here.” Aksel offers his hand as I hop down from the truck.

  Walking up to my house alongside Aksel, I am certain of only one thing—despite everything that’s happened between us, I trust Aksel Fredricksen.

  On the porch, we stand in strained, intimate silence. It’s as though I finally know him, and he knows me, and yet we both know absolutely nothing about each other.

  After tonight, will everything return to how it was? Or have we become friends?

  His eyes surprise me—Remorse? Confusion? What is going on inside that impenetrable head of his?

  It feels as though we are at a precipice. Tonight will either matter, or it won’t. So why does it feel like the decision is up to neither of us?

  Unsure what to say, I lower my lashes and bite my lip, trying to assemble my scrambled thoughts.

  “You should know, Sophia …” Aksel’s voice is earnest and imploring, and when he says my name I flush from my face to my chest.

  He looks frustrated—like he wants to say something he shouldn’t. His deep voice clings to my skin. “If things were different; if we’d met a year ago, or even six months ago, and I—”

  The door opens. A bright light floods down on us.

  I am swarmed. My mother reaches me first. “Sophia!” Hugging me, she ushers me into the house. “We’ve been so worried about—”

  “Who are you?” my father demands, staring directly at Aksel like a hound.

  Aksel doesn’t flinch. In fact, he doesn’t seem scared or intimidated. His calm, controlled demeanor reappears instantly.

  “Aksel Fredricksen,” he answers, shaking my father’s hand.

  “Dad,” I say, attempting to defuse any escalation, and watching Aksel out of the corner of my eye. “I went for a run up Eagle Pass near Charlotte’s house, but it started to blizzard …”

  While I talk, Aksel ducks out. I am surprised how disappointed his departure makes me feel; it’s like I fell asleep in the Seychelles and woke up in Yakutsk.

  My mother brushes damp hair off my face. “We’re relieved you’re home safely.”

  I point at the officers. Police? We never call police. But the officers seem unconcerned—as if this happens often.

  “We assumed you were with your friends, waiting out the blizzard on Main Street,” my mother explains—speaking the way we do in front of strangers. “Then an hour ago, Charlotte’s mother called, saying you hadn’t been seen since school, so she called the police.”

  As my fa
ther walks the officers out, my mother asks, “You must be hungry, sweetheart. Can I make you soupe à l’oignon? Chocolat chaud?”

  I shake my head. I need to be alone, to unclog my head. “No, thanks.”

  My mother wraps her cardigan around my shoulders and touches a hand to my cheek. “Do you need help getting out of your wet things? Or I could draw you a hot bath?”

  Her gentleness unnerves me. The point of choosing Waterford was so they wouldn’t have to worry. So I would be safe.

  “Mom,” I begin, “I’m so sorry—”

  “Sophia, stop.” Her voice is haunted, as if she’s known what I planned to say and has been dreading it. “Please, don’t apologize,” she whispers.

  “But I should have at least left a note and—”

  “I don’t care. You’re home. You’re safe. That’s what matters.”

  I know what she isn’t saying, won’t say. We don’t talk about it.

  I wiggle my aching toes. “Actually, a bath sounds perfect.”

  After undressing and tossing my chilled clothes into the hamper, I duck into the bathroom and turn on the faucet in the porcelain claw-foot tub. I place Aksel’s sweater on top of the heat vent to dry.

  Naked, I stand in front of my floor-length bathroom mirror and stare at my body. I look the same as I did this morning. My blond hair is long, sun-streaked, and tangled; my clear eyes are wide-set and blue; my face pink and flushed, with a spattering of freckles across the bridge of my nose; my limbs lean and toned.

  But tonight, I feel different. Better. Stronger. Alive.

  Shivering, I sit on the edge of the tub and wait for it to fill.

  My father says functioning in bitter cold is an essential survival skill.

  I’ve always been good at it. Aksel is better.

  Aksel. His name sends little tingles across my clavicle and down my body.

  Folding my arms over my chest, I slip into the porcelain tub, gasping at the heat, which burns my cold skin.

  Looking across the bathroom at Aksel’s sweater, I can’t stop hearing his words in my head. What did he mean “if things were different”? Did he mean if I were different? If I weren’t so afraid? If I didn’t have so many things to hide?

  I don’t know why Aksel was in Berlin, or what it means for me in Waterford.

  I only know I am conflicted in a way I have never experienced. After everything that happened tonight, after everything Aksel told me, I am more drawn to him than ever.

  Staring at his sweater, I feel a hesitant excitement in my chest. Maybe I’m not ready to leave Waterford after all.

  CHAPTER 19

  Charlotte corners me outside class. “It’s time you get a phone—”

  “I’ll ask my father again but—”

  “You better spill!” she demands as the bell rings.

  Throughout the morning, I try to stop watching every doorway out of the corner of my eye, wondering when Aksel will appear.

  In English, there are a dozen ways to say “nervous”—anxious, apprehensive, excited. Anticipating seeing Aksel again, I feel each one.

  How will I act? How should I act? Has anything changed between us? Or was it all an interim facade, a primitive survivalist response that temporarily bonded us?

  However, Aksel is not at school.

  I double-check my clothes: skinny denim jeans, sneakers, a Ralph Lauren sweater, and a scarf. I probably should have brushed my hair, but other than that I don’t look that different. So why is everyone staring?

  I sit down in the cafeteria beside Emma and unscrew the lid of my thermos.

  “Come on,” Emma groans. “Share.”

  I slide over the thermos of tomato bisque. “Sure.”

  “You were buried in an avalanche with Aksel Fredricksen!” Charlotte hisses, slipping into a nonexistent spot between me and Emma. She’d been taking a test during French; we haven’t spoken until now. “How did that happen?” she demands.

  I stare at her. “It was an accident!”

  “I knew it!” Charlotte exclaims. “Something’s been going on between—”

  “Has not!”

  “So, you were accidentally in Aksel’s car, accidentally parked on the side of the road, and an avalanche accidentally landed on top of you?” Charlotte makes quotation marks with her fingers when she says the word “accidentally.”

  “Charlotte, avalanches don’t accidentally”—I imitate her quotation marks—“happen.”

  “Actually,” Emma interjects, “accidentally is exactly how avalanches happen.”

  Charlotte grins at me. “So you were intentionally in Aksel’s car, parked—”

  “How do you even know all this?” I ask her.

  “Lydia told me,” she answers dismissively.

  “How does Lydia know?”

  “Liam.”

  “How does Liam know?”

  “Henry.”

  “And Henry knows because—”

  “Aksel used Henry’s truck to dig out his Defender this morning. Sounds like it was buried pretty deep. How did you survive? Did you have to cuddle naked—”

  “Charlotte!” Emma scolds her, laughing.

  “Look,” I say, “I only ran up Eagle Pass because you said it was picturesque—”

  “You spontaneously ran up the road where I told you only Aksel lives?” Charlotte asks victoriously.

  Blushing, I hear my father’s voice in my head—Nothing is a coincidence.

  I tear off a piece of roll. “Why does it even matter? I didn’t plan it.”

  “Right. You always run up dangerous, narrow canyons in blizzards?”

  “No, I map out the most likely avalanche route and run there.”

  “Sophia, you spent the night with Aksel in his car.”

  “We weren’t in the back seat!” I protest, flustered.

  “It’s not that, Sophia,” Charlotte says dramatically, looking around the cafeteria. There seem to be two hundred sets of eyes on our table. “It’s Aksel.”

  The bell rings. We gather our trash, put it into the bin, and leave the cafeteria together.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t grow up here,” Emma explains. “He spent winters here ski racing, and his family vacationed here often, but he attended some prep school back east. He was always super-focused and driven—”

  “Athletic. Hot. Mysterious,” adds Charlotte. “That’s never changed.”

  “We wondered why he didn’t move out here sooner … but after he transferred to Waterford permanently, well, besides Henry and a few others, he’s mostly cut everyone off. It’s just, well … he’s been different … ever since …”

  … Different … the emphatic way she says it causes the hairs on my arms to stand on end.

  We’ve reached Krenshaw’s class. The tardy bell rings.

  “Since what?” I ask.

  Charlotte switches her physics book from her left arm to her right.

  Emma smooths her forefinger over her thumb. “It was all over the news. It was tragic … Henry’s parents knew them best because he and Aksel raced together. But even my mom sobbed for days …”

  “What happened?” I persist impatiently.

  Charlotte purses her lips. In spite of the rowdy hall, it is eerily somber in the pocket of air between us. “His parents died, Sophia, two years ago in a plane crash.”

  “Are you staying?” Mason asks me several days later, on the way to gym.

  I freeze in place. “Staying?”

  “In town?” he says slowly. “It’s a holiday?” He crinkles his forehead. “Sophia, you know about Thanksgiving, don’t you?”

  I break out laughing. “I am American, Mason!”

  “Nah, you’re Parisian.” He grins.

  “That’s not a nationality!” I respond as he darts into the locker room.

  Throughout the week, my feelings about Aksel have only intensified—intrigue and trust now precede suspicion.

  I don’t know if my instincts about Aksel are correct,
or what he was like before, or why he moved here after his parents’ plane crash. I know so little about him; the avalanche remains a complicated tangle of emotions.

  And Berlin has thrown a wrench in the turmoil.

  However, Berlin is a coincidence, so it shouldn’t necessarily affect—

  “Ms. Hepworth?”

  Blinking, I look around the Art History classroom. The shades are drawn over the windows. The room is dark. “Yes, ma’am?” I say to Mrs. Bernhardt.

  “Can you please tell us about this?”

  I squint at the building on the screen. The image is out of focus, but I would recognize it anywhere.

  Immediately, my throat constricts. I have no time to prevent it. Hot moist air. The adhan echoing in my ears. Running through the souk. Dirty hair. Dirty uniform.

  I clutch the desk. I have to block it out.

  “Sophia?”

  My nails dig into my palms.

  I have to do this, or I have to run.

  Mrs. Bernhardt gives me an encouraging nod.

  “Hagia Sophia,” I exhale.

  I wipe my hands on my jeans. “It was a Byzantine Christian church before it became an Ottoman mosque. You can see the gleaming minarets from both sides of the Bosphorus; it’s cavernous inside … stunning … every tile is hand-glazed …”

  I’m trying so hard to block it out, I am dizzy. A thin layer of sweat coats my skin.

  Emma is braiding her hair, prepping for swim practice after school. She stops with the three sections pulled apart, dangling beneath her ear, watching me keenly.

  Mrs. Bernhardt’s eyebrows rise. “You’ve been there, Sophia?”

  Clenching my hands, I nod.

  Emma’s large eyes are like saucers, glued to me. Who has cold sweats in Art History?

  “Can you tell us more?” Mrs. Bernhardt asks me.

  I unfist my hands. “We lived in Sultanahmet, nearby. Hagia Sophia means ‘Holy Wisdom’ in Greek, because it was also a Greek Orthodox cathedral.”

  “Like your name, Sophia.” Mrs. Bernhardt beams. “It must have been a special place for you to visit.”

  My cheeks burn. I pinch the edge of my seat between my fingertips. It is everything I can do to stay seated and not bolt.

  I nod.

  To my relief, she begins asking Abigail Montgomery about Gothic gargoyles.