I HAVE BEEN on my own for more than a week now. Maybe more than two. I haven’t kept track very well of the number of days, the number of nights. We’re well into summer, and summer out here isn’t long. I remember Dad saying that. Which means I have maybe a week, maybe three at most, before winter comes.

I am not prepared for winter. I almost did not survive these first days, but I know I will not survive the winter the way things are going right now. I have the same feeling now that I had when I woke up on the beach with everything burned down. A certainty that things have to change, and fast, or I will not make it to the next week.

I can fish a little. Not well. I’ve caught a couple of animals, mostly by accident. And I’ve lost some of those to the fox, creeping into my camp whenever Bo is away.

I’ve found a few more supplies—odds and ends scavenged from the cabin, when I could bear to go back there. Not much. It’s not enough to get me through more than a day or two at a time, much less months of winter, of snow and ice.

I have a week, maybe three, to figure out how to survive. I don’t think I can. But I’m sure as hell going to try.