Alice
I used to love Christmas. But like snowfall during winter, things have built over the years and changed until I’m unrecognizable from the woman I used to be. The event was the beginning, and yet, I didn’t become what I am now all at once. It happened slowly. Like the snowfall… changing everything one snowflake at a time, covering something that used to be beautiful and turning it into nothing.
Now, winter comes, and I feel… empty. Alone.
Staring into the fire, I wrap my blanket tighter around my shoulders, trying to ignore the white flakes drifting in front of my many windows. Seeing them will only make this feeling in my belly grow deeper and more painful, but I haven’t yet been able to tear myself from the fire to close the curtains.
That night flashes in my mind and I can see the car accident that took everything from me. It's all with me as if it were yesterday. I can smell the snow. I can taste the blood in my mouth. All at once I remember everything I lost that winter: My fiancé, my health, and my sense of beauty and wonder.
Everything that mattered.
I jump when the fire shifts unexpectedly, and I realize that my teeth are chattering. I hate this feeling, when I’m being sucked into the past, and that night becomes more real to me than the present.
But even recognizing what’s happening, my thoughts keep sliding back to the cold, to the hopelessness. I walked through the snow for endless miles after miles, until I couldn’t walk anymore, and then, I crawled. My leg leaving a trail of blood through the snow behind me.
If it weren’t for them. For their car…
A shiver moves down my spine.
Now, I hate Christmas. I hate the cold, and the snow. All of it.
But I’ve held off going out as long as I can. There’s nothing left to eat in this damned house.
Clenching my chattering teeth together, I rise, jaw locked, I draw the curtains on every damned window in my house, until I can’t see a single flake of white. I crank the heater, and then dress in my winter clothes. In here, my limp isn’t too bad, but out on the icy sidewalk…
I sigh, grab my car keys and purse, and head out into the evening.
Pulling away from my quiet house, I blare my music as I drive down the road. The lights out here are few and far between, just the way I like it. Other cars are rare. Several minutes pass and my hands shake as I turn out onto the main road. Here, there are more cars, people driving past our little town to get to the next big city. Young people out on the road hoping for an adventure.
If only I could tell them that there’s nothing out there except pain.
When I get to the store and turn my car off, I take a deep breath, glad to have made it.
People nod at me as I move through the store, filling my cart with everything I could possibly need. When I actually make the effort to leave my home, I stock up. Chips, chocolate, candy, and enough food to last a couple of weeks is swept into the cart. At the cash-register, an old friend from high school chats with me. There’s no one in line behind me, so she takes the time to gossip about the people I used to hang out with.
Susan is sweet. She still remembers the woman I was, eighteen and engaged to my high school sweetheart, a cheerleader with a heart of gold who would talk to any and everyone.
I feel bad sometimes that she can't accept who I am now. A woman who fought to learn to walk again. A woman with terrible scars, both on my body, and my heart and mind. Someone who rarely leaves her house and would prefer to be left alone.
When another customer finally starts piling groceries on the belt behind me, I smile at her. “It was good to talk to you.”
She smiles back. “Hey, if you want to come by my place for Christmas—“
I shake my head. “That’s okay.”
Her smile wavers, and I see the sadness in her eyes that she so poorly tries to conceal. “Everyone should have someone around this time of year.”
This time of year is no different than any other.
“I’ll visit my parents and Evan.”
Oops. That was the wrong thing to say.
Her smile is gone now. “You can’t spend your Christmas at a graveyard.”
My heart starts to pound, and I push my cart toward the exit. “I appreciate the offer, but like I said, I have plans.”
I feel her eyes on my back as I limp away as quickly as I can manage. Unloading my cart, I fill the trunk and climb back in. Blaring my music again, I head back out on the road.
I’m halfway between my house and town when I see the car pulled over at the side of the road. My pulse fills my ears, and I slow, without stopping. It’d be stupid for a woman alone to stop and check on a broken down car. I’ll call for help… I’ll—
A man gets out of the car and looks at me as my headlights flood him in sharp relief against the twilight. Oh, fuck!
I pass him and pull over a short distance in front of his car. My palms are sweaty as they grip the steering wheel. Something tickles along my spine.
It couldn’t have been a ghost. Maybe this was a nightmare?
Or, there is the very real possibility that I am losing my mind. That there is no one pulled over behind me.
Someone knocks at my window.
“Fuck!”
I look out the window, my heart in my throat.
And it’s him. Of course it’s him. His dark beard is longer. His eyes just as intense. Even now, I remember what it felt like when he plucked me out of the snow. When he shouted to the other men that I was bleeding out. That I was dying.
They argued. I shivered. My mind spinning.
Then, his hands were on me. The pain in my leg grew by a million, burning like a thousand fire ants, and cleared. And then, the pain was better. Not great, but better. My wound felt different, but I couldn’t quite place what had happened.
Our eyes are locked as if he’s remembering that night too. Hands shaking, I turn off my car. For some reason, I hate the idea of this man seeing me now. Ten years older. Heavier. My hair a mess. No makeup on. And my damn leg. Could I hide my limp from him?
This is stupid. He probably doesn’t even remember you. His car broke down. Pull yourself together and help him.
Taking a deep breath, I open my door. The night’s cold bites into me, but I ignore it, climbing out. Shutting the door, my keys in my hand, I look up, up into his face.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he says, his deep voice sliding down my spine like silk.
“Aeron!” Someone shouts near the broken down car.
Looking over, I see man number two. His hair is messy, blond, and covered in snowflakes. His pale skin is rosy from the cold, and his hands are stuffed into the pockets of his jean jacket.
He starts toward us and stops when he sees me.
Something sizzles in the air. Something I don’t understand.
“Alice?”
I shudder. “Yes.”
His voice is familiar too. He’d been there, standing over me that night. He’d asked my name, and then spoke to me over and over again through the fog of my pain.
Someone slams the door of the car. “I can’t get this piece of shit working no matter—“
The third man looks at me and stops short. He is taller and leaner than the other two. His dark eyes are so piercing that even from a distance I feel them rake over me.
“You’re her,” he says, simply.
I nod, unsure what to say.
The first man clears his throat, shifting slightly. “Uh, our car broke down.”
I stare. “You know the only repair shop in town won’t be open until Monday.”
“That’s… not good,” the first man says, but he doesn’t actually seem to care.
My brain snaps. “You guys saved my life. You’re the reason I’m not dead, and I don’t even know your names!”
To my shock, I start to cry. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, freezing in the cold winter night.
Something touches my cheek.
My eyes flash open. The first man is brushing my tears away with the gentlest touch I’ve felt since my fiancé, Evan, died that night years and years ago.
Which only makes me cry harder.
Their headlights die. And then, all three of the men are around me.
“You’re not healed at all, are you?” The first man whispers.
I shake my head. Healed was the last thing I’d call myself. Broken was a far better description.
“Can we help you?”
I lean into his touch, finally gaining some control over my emotions. “You’re the ones with a broken car. I can help you.”
His lips quirk up. “Ethan and Sage will grab our bags, and we’ll all get in your car and out of the cold. Okay?”
I nod. Take deep breaths.
It was the most logical thing to do, even though there was nothing logical about this night. There was nothing logical about the fact that ten years ago, exactly, on this same road, these men saved my life.
The first man… Aeron, opens my car door and helps me climb back in. He sits next to me in the front, and the two other massive men, Ethan and Sage, squeeze into the back. I turn on the car and shiver as the warm air from the heater hits my skin.
“I would take you to the motel, but it's being remodeled,” I tell them lamely. “There aren’t any available rooms. It was all over the newspaper."
Aeron glances at me. “Can we stay with you tonight?”
I swallow. “Sure.”
Any woman in the world would probably think I was insane, picking up three men like this. Until just now, I didn’t even know their names, but this is different. I can’t believe that anyone who did what they did could be evil.
I can’t even imagine what they’d seen that night.
Our car smashed and rolled over on the side of the road. A trail of blood down the road, and me, crawling in the snow.
They didn’t have to stop. Nobody would have blamed them.
They could’ve just let me die.
My hands are shaking as I switch the car into gear and start toward my house. The quiet road stretches out in front of me. The road is a little bumpy, which right now doesn’t matter one bit. But that night, every bump had been like a shock of pain burning through me. My memories pull me back in, and the present fades away like a ghost.
The man that held me in his lap, so gently, had shouted. “Let me do more for her!”
And another voice, the blond man, had shouted back. “If you do more, they’ll know! We saved her life, that’s the most we can do!”
“But her leg—“
“Leave it!”
I clench the steering wheel more tightly, determined not to think about that night anymore as I pull onto the little dirt road leading to my property. I glance at the blond man in the mirror. He watches me, his eyes so pale they’re almost silver.
For some reason, words I never meant to say tumble out of my mouth. “Thanks for not letting me die.”
He stiffens, and something flashes in his eyes.
When I get to my house, I cut the engine and no one speaks.
Closing my eyes, I will myself to calm down. To stay in the present. “There’s groceries in the trunk. Can you all help me carry them in?”
“Of course,” Aeron says.
As I limp up my driveway, carrying a couple bags in each hand, I get the strangest feeling.
I hadn’t told anyone in the hospital, or the police officers, what had happened that night. Because I thought maybe they’d think I was crazy. I even wondered if it really happened.
But now I know. These men… they healed me.
Which means these men aren’t human.
And tonight I’m welcoming them into my home.