by Debra Doxer
“Since when does he come in here?” Jonah asked. “Let me guess. Since you started working.”
“I think he went to church first like everyone else,” I replied, peering behind Jonah to see if he was alone. It seemed he was.
He stood there looking at me, and the hard expression he wore for Drew was gone. Parker’s claims about Heather gnawed at me, even though I tried to block them out. Jonah deserved the benefit of the doubt, considering the source of the information, and so I smiled at him, wondering how he’d greet me. A few days ago, we’d said good-bye with a hug. How would we say hello?
By staring at each other awkwardly, apparently. Jonah looked as though he wanted to do something, give me a peck on the cheek or another hug maybe, but he noticed the way my arms were wrapped around my middle. I only realized how I was standing when he did, knowing my protective stance didn’t exactly invite him in. I hadn’t even done it purposely. It was a reflex.
“Want a table?” I asked, breaking eye contact while my stomach twisted into knots.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
When I glanced at him again, his face had fallen. He looked disappointed, and my heart sank because I’d made him feel that way.
I led him to the booth in the corner where we’d sat with Theo. As I walked, I sensed his gaze on my back. I figured he must have spoken to Ethan by now, which made me wonder if he’d gotten a play-by-play of the lunch conversation about him and Heather. If so, he might expect me to ask about her. Despite how curious I was, I wouldn’t be the one to bring her up.
“Can you take a break soon?” he asked as he pulled off his coat and tossed it into the booth.
“No. I don’t get a break until later.” The truth was, I didn’t take my break. What would I do? Sit on the back steps like Carol and stare at the woods behind the diner? I actually wouldn’t mind taking a break today, but Carol had disappeared again. Something she seemed to make a habit of.
Jonah sat down and looked me over. I had on a black sweater and gray pants today. “Nice. More formal than what you usually wear, but not nearly as tight. I approve.”
I laughed, relaxing at his teasing. “That’s a relief, because I was seriously worried what you would think when I got dressed this morning.”
His eyes lit with humor. “Are you admitting you think about me, Seaborne?”
“Probably as much as you think about me.” That was a nice ambiguous answer, except his reaction wasn’t ambiguous. His eyes sparked and one side of his mouth hitched up.
I licked my dry lips. How much did he think about me? If it was as much as I thought about him, he’d hardly have time to think about anything else.
Turning that possibility over in my head, I managed to sound casual when I asked, “So, did you get to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?”
Jonah grinned. “Yeah, it was great. They had a new Beatles exhibit my dad went nuts over.”
His enthusiasm was obvious, and something loosened inside me. Standing in front of Jonah, it was hard to remember all the reasons why I shouldn’t fall for him. When he smiled like that, I couldn’t think of a single one. I realized I didn’t want to give in to my fears. The way I felt when he pulled me into his arms, before Parker had planted a seed of doubt in my head, I wanted that feeling back.
He was watching me now, trying to read me. I swallowed thickly, pushing my hair behind my ears, growing annoyed that I couldn’t take my break and spend some time with him.
When I scanned the room and didn’t see Carol, I decided to take Jonah’s order myself. “So you’d like a cheeseburger, I assume?”
He gave me a nod. “You remember what I like on it?”
I remembered. I recalled just about everything he’d done and said since I met him.
“Thanks, sweetie,” Carol announced from behind me as she hurried into the diner. “I needed a cigarette.”
I frowned, but she didn’t notice or pretended not to, and I couldn’t stay annoyed because I was too happy to see her.
“I can take my break now.” I grinned down at Jonah. “I’ll put your order in first and be right back.”
In the kitchen, I found Sam and gave him Jonah’s order, one cheeseburger medium rare with bacon and mushrooms. He’d ordered it that way both times we’d been here.
“Hey, Candy,” Stephen called to me from the small office next to the kitchen. “Could you get a bag of french fries out of the freezer?” Wiping his hands on his apron, he stuck his head out of the office to make sure I’d heard him.
“Sure,” I replied with a sigh. Now it would be at least five more minutes before I could join Jonah. I walked back out of the kitchen and ran right into Carol.
“Church just let out, Candy. I need you in front.”
My shoulders slumped. There went my break. “I’m getting something for Stephen first,” I answered, hearing the bite in my voice. Carol hadn’t had to miss her break. In fact, she’d spent most of the day on it.
I turned down the hallway and decided to pass on getting my gloves before going into the freezer since I was in a rush and was warm, almost hot even, from being in the kitchen.
Walking quickly into the storage room, I went to the metal door, pulled on the handle, and stood back as frosty white air poured out. Pushing the door wide until I heard it click, I walked inside, flipped on the light, and went directly to the shelf where the bags of fries were stored.
Bending down, I grabbed the heavy awkward bundle, its cold surface already sticking to the skin on my hands, and just as I turned, I saw the door swing closed.
Dropping the bag, I lunged across the distance, pushing my shoulder into the hard resistance of the door. “No, no, no,” I muttered as I gripped the frosty door handle and pulled on it. When nothing happened, I jiggled it frantically, leaning all my weight into the door, but the handle was useless. The door wouldn’t budge.
Panic settled in my stomach as I watched my fingers on the door handle turn white.
“Hey!” I pounded my fist against the metal. “I’m locked in here. Hello!” I hit it again and again. When I got no response, I began kicking the door, hearing the impact echo inside the freezer.
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening,” I said, shaking my head as if I could make the words true if I kept repeating them.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone. My fingers were already stark white from below my middle knuckle out to the tips, and when I tapped on the screen, nothing happened. My cold touch wasn’t registering. I tried the tip of my nose instead, which I’d done before when standing outside in the cold. The screen lit up, and I cried out in relief. Using my nose again, I aimed for my father’s number and the call began, but as I watched, it ended with a No Service message appearing.
Grunting with frustration, I tried once more, but the call wouldn’t go through. Apparently there was no cell service in a freezer.
Then the phone slipped from my hand. I watched with horror as it hit the floor, the screen cracking into a network of jagged lines that snaked across its surface.
Leaving it there since I’d probably just drop it again, I went back to the door and pounded against it, calling out for help. Even as my hands and feet grew numb, I denied that I was locked in here. This was a nightmare. This was my nightmare, and it couldn’t be real. Any minute I’d wake up warm in my bed. But as I stood there, I knew I wasn’t waking up.
I scanned the small space, looking for a wall phone or a door release, thinking that these things had to have some kind of safety mechanism. I couldn’t be the only person to ever get locked in a freezer. But I saw nothing, and pushing aside the frozen containers with my bare hands to search the walls wasn’t helping my situation.
I wondered how long it would be before Stephen noticed I hadn’t returned with the fries. Surely Jonah would wonder where I’d disappeared to since I told him I’d be right back.
With no other options, I went back to punishing the door. In between kicking it and pounding on it, I jumped up
and down in place, knowing how important it was to keep moving and to keep my blood flowing as much as possible.
Thinking back, I knew I had the door secured open when I came in here. I was sure I’d heard the click because I was too paranoid not to be hyperaware of it, but somehow it had closed anyway.
Pacing back and forth as my teeth chattered together, I wondered how much time had passed. Five minutes, ten, maybe more. If I tried to pick up my phone, I might be able to read the time, but what difference would it make? I was stuck in here until someone found me, however long that took.
My tongue was losing sensation now and my legs were following. No matter how much I jumped in place, the numbness was spreading. It was becoming difficult to balance on limbs that felt as though they had disappeared from beneath me.
Giving in to the need to sit down would be a mistake. I knew that, but I thought it might be okay to rest for a minute. Then I could get up and move again. Sliding my back down the door, I curled in on myself, wrapping my arms around my legs and clenching my jaw against the bone-jarring shivers racking my body. It felt as though my blood was turning to ice inside my veins.
One more minute, I kept telling myself. I’d get back up in a minute, but that meant unfolding my arms and legs from my body. Truthfully, I didn’t know if I could do that. My muscles ached from the shivering I couldn’t control, and my arms were dead weight. One more minute, I repeated. Then I had to try to stand. I couldn’t give up, but I needed one more minute. That minute stretched into another, and then another after that.
More time passed. It seemed like hours, but I knew it was probably only minutes. My eyes were beginning to close drowsily when the door disappeared from behind me. I was falling backward, but something stopped me. Then I heard voices, loud and harsh. When I peeled my eyes open, the walls moved, causing a wave of dizziness.
My name was called loudly beside my ear, and I worked hard to turn toward it. A moment later, there was Jonah’s face hovering above me, his eyes dark and frantic.
I felt him sit down, and I realized he was holding me in his arms. He must have carried me out and now we were on the couch in the break room. Jonah had me on his lap, rubbing his hands up and down my arms.
“I’ll plug in the space heater,” I heard someone say. “She’ll be okay. She wasn’t in there that long.”
Jonah’s jaw flexed as he glared at someone over my head. “Get her coat too,” he barked at whoever it was.
“You’re white as a ghost, Candy,” Jonah whispered, his voice strained with worry.
I was dazed and scared, unable to talk because my teeth were still chattering so violently.
“Uncurl your fingers,” he said softly, touching a hand to my trembling fists that I held tightly against my chest.
Slowly he peeled back my fingers and stretched them out. Then he cupped them both in his own hands and brought them to his mouth where he blew hot air on them. When they stayed white, he pulled up his shirt and pressed my hands flat against the warm skin of his stomach.
“I knew you wanted to feel me up,” he joked, but there was no sign of a smile on his face, and I was still shivering too hard to react.
“Sam is looking for her father’s number on her phone. He found it in the freezer,” Carol said as she plugged in a space heater and gave my coat to Jonah, who laid it over me.
“For goodness’ sake,” Carol muttered. “She was in there for twenty minutes tops. This is a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
Jonah’s eyes snapped with anger. “Get out.”
Carol reared back in surprise before scowling at him and walking out of the room.
He looked down at me. “I should take you to the hospital.”
I managed to shake my head. “Just call my father,” I whispered, and my voice vibrated along with my shaking. My father would know what to do.
“What if you have hypothermia?”
I shook my head harder. I hated hospitals. There was no way I was going to one.
Jonah frowned, but he didn’t move or reach for his phone. “Can you tell me what happened? What were you doing in there?”
Swallowing against the dryness in my throat, I tried to sit up. “I was getting something for Stephen.”
Jonah’s brow creased. “He sent you in there?”
“He didn’t know about my hands.”
“But he should have—” He cut off and looked up at the doorway. I followed his gaze to see Sam there.
“Her father’s on his way,” Sam said.
“What the hell happened?” Jonah asked him, and I could feel his voice rumbling in his chest. My fingers were starting to tingle, pins and needles pricking at my skin.
Sam sighed, pushing his wispy white hair off his forehead. “The door’s broken. When it’s closed you can’t open it from the inside. Carol should have told her that.”
“She did.” I looked at Sam standing there. “She told me to push on the door until it clicked, and then it would stay open. But it didn’t work.”
“I’m sorry, Candy.” Sam hung his head, shaking it slowly. “We should have fixed that door a long time ago.”
My hands were coming back to life slowly and painfully, and I could feel some of the heat coming off Jonah’s skin along with the rhythmic motion of his chest as he breathed. I rested my head on his shoulder, burrowing my body into his, seeking more of his warmth.
His arms tightened around me, keeping me close. We stayed that way for a while, Jonah making me feel safe and protected as my tremors eased and my limbs began tingling, feeling like thousands of needles were piercing my skin.
I heard my father’s voice before I saw him. He was asking for me, and a moment later he appeared in the doorway, fury burning in his eyes, a force to be reckoned with.
“Who’s in charge here?” he demanded, turning to Sam and Stephen who had both entered the room after him.
“We are. It was an accident,” Sam said.
“An accident,” my father repeated, his angry gaze locating me on Jonah’s lap.
Pulling my hands from beneath Jonah’s shirt, I slid off his legs onto the couch. He helped me, making sure my coat stayed draped over me.
My father took a deep breath and his demeanor changed, visibly deflating. Bending down in front of me, he asked, “Are you okay?”
I nodded, but then, despite my best efforts, the dam broke and the tears I’d been holding in spilled over, slipping down my cheeks.
“Christ,” he whispered, resting a hand on my knee.
“I wanted to take her to the hospital,” Jonah said. “But she asked me not to.”
My father didn’t respond as he reached up and wiped away my tears with his thumbs. Then he stood and looked at Sam. “I want to see this freezer. I’ll be back in a minute,” he told me as they walked away, and I heard Sam explaining to him about the broken door.
Once they left, Jonah turned to me, looking miserable. “This is my fault. I’m the one who got you the job here.”
His words shocked me. That hadn’t occurred to me, not even for a second. “No, it’s not.”
His teeth sank into his lip, and I knew he really thought so even though it wasn’t true.
My father was back a few moments later. “You work here too?” my father asked Jonah gruffly.
Jonah glanced at me before he stood. “No. I go to school with your daughter.”
“He was the first one to notice Candy was missing.” Sam offered this information from where he stood out in the hallway.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say something sooner.” Jonah ran a hand through his hair.
My father reached an arm around me to help me stand, and Jonah jumped up, going to my other side. Once I was upright, I was able to put my weight on my feet, which were tingly and aching, much like my hands.
Both Jonah and my father held on to me as we slowly progressed through the dining room. I felt silly, but I had no choice, not knowing if I could trust my legs and feet to support me yet.
&n
bsp; Carol came over and held open the door for us.
“I’ve got her,” my father said to Jonah.
When he didn’t let go, I looked up at him. “Thank you for getting me out of there. I’ll be okay now.”
Reluctantly Jonah released me and stood back, watching with a helpless look on his face as my father picked me up and carried me to the car.
Once we were settled inside, he cranked up the heat and pulled out of the parking lot. Jonah remained by the door with his hands pushed deep into his pockets, his gaze tracking me as we drove away.
“We’ll put you into a warm bath when we get home, and you’ll stay in there as long as you can.”
Pulling my arms from beneath my coat, I stared down at my hands. They were swollen and red as the blood rushed back into my veins, all except for the ends of my fingers, from the middle knuckles out to the tips. Those areas were blackish blue, and I still had no feeling in them. Swallowing back my fear, I curled my fingers into my palms and stared out the window.
I could feel my father watching me. “You shouldn’t have gone in there, Candy. What were you thinking?”
I slid closer to the door, pressing my shoulder into it as I glanced at him. “I thought it would be fine.”
“Well, it wasn’t fine.” He ran a hand over his cheek. “You didn’t tell them, did you?”
Gnawing on my lip, I stared out the window again. “It was my first job. I didn’t want to look like I couldn’t handle it.”
He released a heavy breath, drawing my attention back to him. “I know you can handle a lot,” he said. “In your eighteen years, you’ve handled more than your share. But this time, you should have known better.”
After that, I kept my eyes trained out the window. I wasn’t processing what happened the same way he was. Pulling my coat tighter around me, I kept picturing that unreal moment when the freezer door swung closed. It was as though it was happening in slow motion, and I still couldn’t believe it even as I was standing there with my body turning to ice. I’d never experienced cold like that, a bone-deep chill that still gripped me.
I’d gotten that job to prove how responsible I was, and instead I’d proven the opposite. He was right. I did know better, but I still went into that freezer because I wanted my father’s approval, and I didn’t think quitting, no matter the reason, would earn me that.