I distribute another round of melted snow, which fails to rouse any enthusiasm from the boys. Aayu barely has the energy to sit up, and Liam has a cough now, too. Tim’s toes and fingers have gone a disconcerting purple. No one feels like drinking anything.
Colin rubs Tim’s hands and feet while I change the other boys’ clothes. Everything is damp—clothes, blankets, hats, gloves. I don’t know if it’s because they all have fevers or because we failed to dry things out this morning. What seemed practical two days ago now feels like an exercise in futility.
People die because they panic. My father’s words—repeated on every ski trip, every white-water rafting excursion, every adrenaline-infused expedition he ever took us on—rattle around in my brain. Take it easy, he’d say. Relax. He never panicked, even when his own kids were in danger. But he’s not here, and I’m not my father.
“I’ll go out.” Colin pulls on his hat, the one with the enlarged hole for his face. “The boys need to eat.”
“Colin, you can’t.”
He sinks to his knees beside me. He’s laboring to breathe—shallow, raspy breaths that sound like a rusted engine. His mind wants to keep going, but his body can’t oblige. It’s excruciating to watch.
“Maybe you’re right,” he finally says.
Hearing him admit this is worse than the damning thump we heard right before impact, worse than the angry roar of the bear. He’s giving up. He knows.
“Listen to me.” His hands cup my face, warming me everywhere. “You aren’t going to die.”
“We aren’t going to die.” I grasp his wrists so his hands stay on my face. Everything around us falls away. There is only him, just like we were on the plane. Arms wrapped around our knees, heads turned toward each other. Only you.
“Avery—”
“Don’t say it. Not now.” I whisper against his lips, “Not ever.”
“I won’t,” he says, his voice breaking as he removes my gloves. He fumbles with them—the left, then the right, and then his own, until it’s just us, skin touching skin, my hands in his. He’s warm, so warm. He rests his forehead against mine, and for a rare, stolen moment, it feels like we’re breathing for each other.
•
Some time later, the gray walls in my dream turn black, then red, and suddenly there is nothing in front of me but a wild, consuming flame licking the plastic curves of the cabin. All the passengers are eerily silent, their ankles and wrists and necks strapped into seats. I go to them, one after the other, yanking on seat belts that have no buckle. The fire moves in from everywhere, consuming them as I struggle to set them free. Water rushes in, mingling with the flames. Their skin peels off in thin strips, revealing charred bone underneath. They don’t say anything to me, but their chests rise and fall with the exertion of staying alive. Their breaths are hot on my face. They’re dying, and I can’t save them. . . .
I can’t save them.
I snap awake to the sound of new horrors banging on the walls: hail, snow, wind. The assault whips the trees into a frenzy and transforms the lake into a frothing sea. Waves thrash the shore, and it feels almost personal—the lake’s rapid metamorphosis from docile companion into a vengeful monster. The bear that caused us so much grief is probably asleep in a warm den, sheltered from the elements it knows so well, while we freeze in a hulk of metal.
While the wind pounds the walls, I gather up every scrap of clothing and wrap the boys up like mummies. This includes ties, shawls, pashminas, stockings . . . everything. I make little slits for their eyes, noses, and mouths, careful to cover every inch of skin. The boys are too dazed to protest—even Aayu, who always cries when the sun goes down. Tim is no longer conscious, but his chest rises and falls with each breath, and that is all I can hope for.
“I’m cold,” Liam says, and I hug him and tell him everything’s fine, we beat the other storms and we’ll beat this one, too. Colin sings to Aayu, rasping the words because it’s all he can manage. The lyrics don’t make sense: oceans and kings and butterscotch candies, not that it matters. He never stops singing, even though he must feel those boys dying in his arms, succumbing to the circumstances that betrayed them.
His voice is husky with fever, his face windburned, but he’s still Colin—strong, kind, and fiercely loyal. He finds my gaze and smiles that soft, lovely smile, and even though it summons every shred of hope left in my body, I can see the truth there, too: This is the end.
I squeeze his hand and see our fingers intertwined, the way they were on the plane, the way they should have been months ago. Did he know what would happen when we met? Did he think, in some strange, tragic way, that the world would bring us together again?
He stops singing to catch his breath, to kiss the tiny sliver of skin between the boys’ eyelids. My acceptance turns once more to sorrow, then to rage: I hate that these boys will never be men. I hate that Colin will never be a father.
“Colin.”
He looks up, no longer hiding the longing in his eyes, now tinged with regret. I see Colin Shea standing outside that locker room on my first day of practice, rescuing me from paralyzing insecurity. I see his kind smile, his inquisitive blue eyes; I see someone who understood me.
“Do you remember the day we met?” I ask him.
He smiles—a soft, lovely smile that reminds me of that first afternoon. “Of course,” he says. “Best day of my life.”
I discard my gloves, using my bare hands to trace the steep curves of his features, the thick stubble on his chin. It’s the first time I’ve ever touched him this way. Intimate, exploring. His breath catches, his left hand finding mine as he holds my gaze in a moment of pure, aching recognition. The thrum of his heart fills the silence, fills me everywhere.
“I’m glad it was you,” I whisper.
I kiss him softly at first, a whisper of gratitude, of loss. But it doesn’t feel like good-bye. It feels like a first kiss, electric and wanting and tragically overdue. Every ounce of me roars to life again—lips, fingers, toes. The numbness in my veins turns to fire, more intense than anything I’ve ever felt, anything I ever thought I was capable of feeling. I breathe him in. He tastes like peppermint—How does he do that?—but his lips are warm and wet, and he responds with a hunger that matches my own. There is no shyness, no holding back. He draws me into him, and I no longer feel hopeless anymore, or angry. I feel loved.
When he pulls away, the storm continues to rage all around us, but the world is different now.
I fall asleep on his shoulder, dreaming of clear waters and blue skies, Brookline streets and chocolate-covered doughnuts, baseball games and gondolas. Bug. People I’ve known my whole life; strangers who pass me by.
Tim, Liam, Aayu.
Colin.