Snowed in for Christmas

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Jett

BEN RETREATS THE MOMENT he finishes his breakfast. He asks if he can help with dishes, but I wave him away, a choice I instantly regret. Free of obligation, he heads upstairs. The shower hisses on, and that’s it. He’s lost to me.

He would tell me he needs to study, I’m sure, but a lie that flimsy won’t fool me. He held my hand throughout breakfast, but his shoulders stayed bunched up around his ears. He looked down at his plate more than he ever looked at me. His fear seasoned the meal more than anything I put in those eggs.

The end is coming, and he’s bracing for it.

He isn’t the type to enjoy the moment. He isn’t the type to live in the now while he still can. He’s worrying, I know he’s worrying, and that anxiety is going to drive him away from me before our circumstances get a chance to wedge themselves between us and drive us apart.

I almost break the cup I’m attempting to wash. I set it aside and turn off the water, giving up on doing anything productive today. Overhead, the water from Ben’s shower patters into the basin, tapping like rain. I slump into an armchair in the living room and listen to it, my mind conjuring images of Ben naked under the hot water when I close my eyes.

I let myself nap with those images playing in my mind. I woke myself up early to fix him that breakfast after getting up to pee in the middle of the night and realizing the running water was back and the bathroom light worked. When I wake for the second time today, my neck aches from sleeping in a chair. The drumming of the shower has ceased. The light slashes in through the back door and windows, a harsh glare that glints off the snow. That glinting sunlight once looked like my salvation. Now, I root for the softening snow to hold on a little longer. Just one more day, one more hour, one more minute. I’ll take anything it’ll give me, but already the grass pokes through the snow in pockets of portentous green.

I haul myself out of the chair and throw on my hoodies and shoes. Fuck it, I’m bound to get soaked again going out there, but the shower works now. I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m not going far this time. I’m not trying to escape. There’s simply something I have to do while I have time.

Snow crumbles away from the back door when I slide it open, dissolving into a pile of slush. When I step outside, my foot goes straight through the paltry pile of snow, sinking down to the squishy, soaked grass. The mud clings to me more than the snow as I trudge across the yard. I scan the trees hanging over the huge space. I need one that’s the right size and shape, but I end up making a circuit of the entire yard before I find it. It’s not great, but I think it’ll do the job.

When I return, I leave my shoes on the mat in the back so they can dry in the sun, but my socks are soaked through. I peel them off and drop them aside. No risk of hypothermia this time. The snow that Ben saved me from is barely more than a puddle. I never anticipated that when it melted away, it would dissolve my memories along with it. Once our parents are here, I can’t reminiscence. I can’t think back on Scrabble beside the fire or that night in my bed. I know I’ll get lost in the reverie and it’ll show all over my face. Our parents will realize something happened if I’m anything but the loser partyboy they see me as. I probably can’t even be kind to Ben once our parents arrive. They expect us to be enemies. In their minds, it’s a miracle we didn’t kill each other during our captivity.

Ironically, it might actually kill me convincing them of the opposite.

I know I’ll have to do it, and I’m already dreading it. My mom knows all about my proclivities. She’d catch on the second I wasn’t at Ben’s throat. But I’m not ready to be that guy again. Trapped here in the snow, I let the persona fall. Ben saw sides of me no one has ever seen, not even my mother. I’m not ready to throw the walls back up and pretend I’m that other guy.

I pad barefoot into the kitchen, the bottom half of my jeans wet with snow. There, I dig around until I find the largest container in the entire house. It might be a pitcher for juice, I’m not sure, but it’s the right size and shape. When I fill it with water and put the little branch I stole from the backyard inside, it does the job. I find a hand towel with Christmas trees on it and tuck it around the base of the vase like a tree blanket. Sitting there on the kitchen island, it doesn’t look half bad. The vibes are distinctly “Charlie Brown,” but for something I cobbled together out of whatever I could find in the backyard, it could be way worse.

There’s one final piece. I go searching for the walking stick I left by the doorway, the one I’ve been picking at ever since I got stuck in the snow. I pull out my knife before I even reach it. There’s a few final touches and it’ll be perfect…

BEN DOESN’T COME DOWNSTAIRS for the rest of the day. I clean up my wet socks. I shave. I take my first shower in days, lingering under the hot water until I prune. I even clean up the bedroom I’ve been using, uselessly making the bed. Then I sit in the living room poking at a fire we don’t need anymore, my heart bouncing around my chest like a ping pong ball.

Finally, a footstep creaks on the top stair.

My head pops up immediately, but Ben doesn’t look at me as he descends. He goes straight for the kitchen, probably starving after skipping lunch in order to hide from me. I jump up from where I sit on the living room floor, trailing after him into the kitchen.

“Hungry?” I say.

He keeps his back to me as he roots around in the refrigerator.

“Yes,” he says. “Are you?”

“Not really.”

I should be, but my stomach is so knotted up with anxiety that nothing else will fit. Ben hasn’t even glanced at the kitchen island and the haphazard display I built there. I should have known. It’s total shit. A guy this smart and competent isn’t going to be impressed by a stick in a tea pitcher. I guess I kinda hoped the thought behind it might count for something, but he still hasn’t noticed. In fact, he hasn’t looked away from the refrigerator.

I dare to creep up behind him. He’s wearing fresh jeans and a light hoodie over a T-shirt. Even with all that fabric, he flinches when I set a hand softly on the small of his back.

“Ben, will you talk to me?”

His shoulders stiffen, but he shuts the refrigerator and finally looks at me. What I find in his face nearly sends me reeling away from him. His gaze wavers. His brows draw close together. His mouth pulls into something between a grimace and a scream.

“What, Jett?” he says, his voice a rasp.

“Hey,” I say, taking his hands. “Hey, relax. Relax, okay? It’s not over yet.”

“What are we doing?” Ben says. “It’s only a matter of time. I talked to my dad and he said they’d be here tomorrow. It’s over. We’re idiots.”

“We aren’t idiots. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

“Not when it comes to this.”

His words punch me in the chest, nearly knocking the wind out of me. I could crumble to the floor, but I lock my knees and stay upright, mostly because it seems like he needs me to. Ben is fragile as a spiderweb caught between my fingers. One strong breath and he’ll drift away. All that time he spent locking himself away pretending he could save himself with his books, and he’s even worse off than me.

“Can I show you something?” I say.

He nods, and I tow him toward the kitchen island. His eyebrows raise when he finally notices the display on the table.

“What is that?” he says.

I wave at the branch I stuck in a pitcher, the kitchen towel wrapped around it, the small package bundled up in newspaper sitting at the base.

“A Christmas tree,” I say.

A startled laugh bursts out of him.

“Christmas isn’t until tomorrow,” he says.

“I know, but you said our parents will be here tomorrow, and I won’t have an opportunity to give you your present when that happens.”

He doesn’t ask why. It’s as obvious to him as it is to me. We don’t need to speak to know we’ll have to slip into our old roles. We’ll have to be rivals, not lovers, polar opposites constantly at each other’s throats. That Jett can’t give Ben a Christmas present. It would be way too obvious. So I have to do it now, before the snow dissolves, before this moment preserved in ice melts away.

“At least open it,” I say.

Ben is shaking his head. “How did you manage to get me a gift? We’ve been stuck here the whole time. It’s impossible.”

I wink at him. “You’re forgetting about my secret talent.”

Ben only looks more confused, but he takes the package under the “tree,” weighing it in his hand. It won’t feel like much, but hopefully that won’t matter when he sees what it is.

Gingerly, he unwraps the newspaper. I couldn’t find tape, so it truly is just a bundle of newspaper wadded around the object. Thank God whoever owns this place still gets physical newspapers. Not only did they help us build the fire that kept us warm, but I got to use it for this, too.

Ben’s eyebrows shoot higher when he frees the object from the newspaper. He sets the paper aside and holds up a tiny wooden carving of a bird.

“It’s like your tattoo,” he says.

I can’t help but beam. “Yeah. I couldn’t see it, of course, but I used to doodle that bird all over everything. I had to do it from memory, though. I hope it’s not too shit.”

Ben strokes his thumb along the rough carving of the bird. It isn’t finished, and I would have tried way harder if I knew from the start that I was whittling it for him, yet he stares at it in fascination, hardly seeming to breathe.

“I, um, I started making it that day you found me outside in the snow,” I say to fill the silence. “I had that walking stick with me, and when I realized I was in a tough spot, I started whittling. It’s something I’ve always done, especially when I’m anxious or something. But I decided to finish it yesterday and it only seemed right that you should have it. Maybe it’ll help you remember…”

Me.

Maybe it’ll help him remember this me, the real me, even when I have to go back to being that other guy so the world doesn’t realize what we’ve done.

Ben finally looks up at me, still cradling the bird so gently in his hand, as though it’s a real bird and he’s scared to hurt it.

“I didn’t get you anything,” he says.

It’s my turn to laugh in surprise. “I know, dummy. I didn’t think you got me anything.”

“Then why?”

“Because I want you to have it. I want you to … to remember this.”

He stares at me for a long, long moment, barely seeming to blink. Then he sets the bird on the island and steps into my space.