Tell Me

by Strom, Abigail

  He was sitting on one of their sleeping bags, still rolled up, and she sat down on the other one as she looked through the sack.

  “Oatmeal. Applesauce. Ramen noodles. This is kind of uninspiring.”

  “So help me, if you complain about the menu choices—”

  She smiled. “This one looks like some kind of pasta. That might be okay. Wait, no . . . this is the one.” She pulled out a bag. “Chili!”

  He held out a hand. “Toss it over.”

  The chili reconstituted in the boiling water and bubbled slowly over the blue flames. He gave it ten minutes and served it in two tin cups.

  He handed Jane a spoon. “Bon appétit.”

  It tasted delicious, the way food on the trail always did. Between hunger and exercise and the cold mountain air, anything would have seemed like a feast. But this was a high-end brand of freeze-dried food for backpackers, with enough spice to give it a kick and enough beans and protein to make it filling.

  They both had a second helping.

  “I can’t believe how good that was,” Jane said. She’d finished a few minutes ago, but her hands were wrapped around the still-warm tin cup.

  “Yeah. Food always tastes better outside.”

  He started to clean up.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Just keep me company. Tell me something about Sam I don’t know. Something from your childhood.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tell me about a time you were jealous of her.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Why would you want to hear about that?”

  “Because it’s part of the way you feel about her. Part of growing up with her.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” She thought for a while. “Well. On my thirteenth birthday, we were supposed to have a party. Just the family, because we’d only moved from New York to LA that month. But the party never happened, because Sam had won this big track competition and the state finals were that day. So we went to that, and it was three hours away. We stopped for dinner on the way home instead of having a party at our house. My parents called it a joint celebration, because Sam had won a gold medal and I was turning thirteen.”

  “Man.” The stove and cups and utensils were packed away, and afternoon was turning to evening. “That must have pissed you off but good.”

  Jane wrapped her arms around her waist. “It sounds so petty to talk about it now.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It sounds like you grew up with a really annoying older sister.”

  “She wasn’t annoying. Not exactly.”

  “She won things all the time, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “My older brother was the junior rodeo champion of Colorado three years in a row. He annoyed the hell out of me.”

  She smiled in spite of herself. “Okay, maybe you’re right.”

  It was too cold to sit still much longer. He got to his feet and held out a hand to help Jane up.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” he said, and they started across the plateau. “Tell me the nicest thing Sam ever did for you.”

  Jane didn’t have to think about that one. “She took me to London to meet J. K. Rowling.”

  He stared at her. “She did? I never knew that.”

  “It was her junior year in college, before you guys met. She had to make a charity contribution to get into the event, and she bought the plane tickets and paid for a hotel room.” She paused. “It wasn’t just the money, though. She was supposed to be in this big swim meet the day we left. She was favored to win the hundred-meter butterfly.”

  They walked in silence for another minute or two, and then suddenly Jane stopped.

  “It’s getting darker. I wasn’t sure before, but now I am. It’s definitely getting darker.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s a thing that happens.”

  She looked up at him, and her face was frightened. “It’s too late to go back down now. We’re stuck here.”

  He took her hand and started walking again. “It was too late a while ago, darlin’. But don’t worry. I’ve got you.”

  He wasn’t sure if his words reassured her or not. But as they made a loop around the mountaintop that led them back to their camp, they echoed in his mind.

  I’ve got you.

  It was a phrase he’d used often enough on treks, helping people over obstacles or up steep inclines or across swift-moving rivers. But this felt different somehow.

  Bigger. More important.

  Back at the camp, he unrolled their sleeping bags and laid them out in the tent. It was designed for three people, so there was plenty of room.

  He came back outside and saw Jane standing with her back to him, looking out over the darkening plateau. Before long they wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.

  He came up beside her and the two of them waited, watching, while gray turned to black. Except for the faint glow from his flashlight inside the tent, the darkness was complete.

  He took her hand. “We may as well go to sleep,” he said. “That’ll be the best way to stay warm until morning.”

  He sensed rather than saw the shake of her head. “I’m going to stay out here.”

  His anger from earlier in the day returned. “No, you’re not. The wind’s picking up, and the temperature’s dropping. Come on, Jane. Get inside the tent.”

  “I’m going to stay out here,” she said again.

  He could feel his temper rising. “What the hell for? Some kind of vigil? Some kind of penance, like last December?”

  “No!”

  “Then what, damn it? What are you going to do out here?”

  The light from the tent was very faint, but his eyes had adjusted enough that he could see the outline of her body, her face.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Jane—”

  She took a step back. “Just leave me alone, okay? I’ll be all right. Just let me be.”

  “If you go wandering around in the dark—”

  “I won’t. And anyway, I have that little flashlight you gave me.”

  “It’s still not safe to walk a summit at night. I swear to God, Jane, if you kill yourself up here—”

  “You think I’d let that happen, after what your father did to you? After we both lost Sam?”

  He swallowed. “I’m not saying you’d do it on purpose. But if you get too close to the edge—”

  “I won’t. You have to trust me. Please, Caleb. I won’t wander off, and I won’t get hurt.”

  A kind of rage rose in his heart. Jane wouldn’t come in where it was warm, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  “I could make you,” he said. “I could drag you in that tent and stuff you inside your sleeping bag.”

  “I know you could. But you won’t.”

  They stood there for a moment, staring at each other in the dark. The tension between them crackled like static.

  Finally he sighed. “In my entire life, I’ve never met a woman as stubborn as you—and that includes your sister.” He took off his down jacket and handed it to her. “At least take this.”

  “I’m already wearing a jacket.”

  “So wear two, damn it.”

  She took it from him meekly. “All right.”

  He turned his back on her and went inside the tent. He undressed down to his long underwear and slid inside his sleeping bag, his body heat beginning to warm the space almost immediately.

  He left the flashlight on. Jane had one with her, but he wanted her to be able to find the tent immediately whenever she was ready to come in.

  Then he rolled over on his side, away from the light and toward the wall of the tent, and tried to go to sleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  He must have succeeded, because when he opened his eyes again, he knew time had passed.

  He lifted his wrist to check his watch. It was just after midnight.

  Turning his head, he saw that Jane wasn’t beside him. He slid out of his
sleeping bag, clenched his teeth against the cold, and unzipped the tent flap.

  There were a million stars in the sky.

  Sometime in the night, the fog had lifted. The air was clear and bitter, and by the light of the stars he could see Jane standing a few yards away.

  She’d turned her head at the sound of the tent zipper. She was wearing his jacket, and it was big enough that she’d been able to put it over her pack, too, which made her look like an oddly shaped rock formation.

  She stood so still that she might have been a statue, except for the gleam of starlight in her eyes.

  “It’s so cold,” she said after a moment.

  His boots were just outside the tent. He put them on and went to stand beside Jane, shivering in his long underwear.

  “You know, you’re right,” he said through chattering teeth. “It is a little chilly.”

  “Do you want your jacket back?”

  “No, I’m good. I’ll be going back inside the tent soon, and you’ll be coming with me.”

  She didn’t say anything to that right away. Then: “I thought if I stayed out here, I’d have an epiphany or something. I thought . . . maybe . . . an answer would come.”

  She tilted her head up, looking at the stars, and he followed the direction of her gaze. The Milky Way was clearly visible, and he traced the constellations along its path: Orion, Perseus, Cassiopeia.

  “An answer to what?” he asked after a moment. “What’s the question?”

  “Why Sam died. Where she is now.”

  He looked at the misshapen lump on her back, where she’d been carrying Sam’s ashes for so long.

  “She’s not in there.”

  “I know that,” Jane said. Then her eyes closed. “God, I’m so cold.”

  “Come in where it’s warm.”

  “I don’t have my answers yet.”

  He took her by the hand. “Maybe there aren’t any answers. Not the kind you’re looking for, anyway.”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at the sky. “That sounds so hopeless.”

  He wished he could do what she did so easily—put his thoughts and feelings into words. But at least he could try.

  He squeezed her hand. “Look at the stars.”

  “I have been. They make me feel lonely.”

  “All those lights in the darkness? How can that make you feel lonely?”

  “Because they don’t have anything to say to me. If there aren’t any answers, what is there?”

  His throat tightened. “People who love you.”

  The wind was as cold as a knife, and maybe that was why she trembled. “Caleb—”

  He stepped in close and kissed her.

  The cold was so numbing that there shouldn’t have been any sensation. But the moment his lips touched hers, electricity sizzled through his body. He wrapped his arms around her, finding her shoulders under the layers of down.

  She was shaking. He didn’t know if it was from the cold or from the same thing he was feeling. Then she leaned into him, and heat danced through his body.

  He could die right here on this mountain, and a kiss from Jane would bring him back to life.

  He didn’t say anything after he broke the kiss. He just took her by the hand and led her back to the tent, and this time she came with him.

  He kicked off his shoes before going inside, and she did the same. Then he helped her out of her jacket and lifted the pack from her shoulders.

  “Strip down to your skin,” he said, grabbing their two sleeping bags to zip them together.

  The double-wide sleeping bag was ready by the time Jane had shivered out of her clothes, and she slid inside. After he shed his long underwear, he slid in beside her.

  He pulled her into his arms. Her body was like an icicle, but it warmed quickly against his, and he held her tight as her muscles went from rigid to relaxed.

  “You feel so good,” she murmured against his chest, and he remembered the last time she’d said those words to him.

  His body hardened. After last December, he would have sworn he’d never want anything like he’d wanted Jane that night. But this felt deeper and wilder. Talking to Jane about his parents last night, hiking with her today, had widened the crack in his heart that Jane had first put there so long ago. For years she’d been pushing against it and pushing against it until now, suddenly, it split apart.

  It was like a dam breaking. And what rushed in was Jane, all Jane, his need for her and his desire for her and the hunger that made his bones shake in his body.

  He’d turned off the flashlight, and it was pitch-dark in the tent. But he knew the lines and curves of Jane’s body better than he knew his own, and as his hands molded themselves to her shoulders, her back, her hips, he wanted to go on touching her forever.

  Her breath hitched and turned ragged, and he loved knowing it was because of him. He slid a hand between her thighs and parted them, and when her legs fell open, his fingers found so much heat and wetness that he groaned.

  She pushed herself up into his palm and murmured his name. “Caleb . . .”

  He stroked and delved until she was writhing beneath him. Only when she begged him—please, Caleb, please—did he slide a hand under her thigh to hoist her leg over his hip. Then he pushed inside, slowly, afraid of coming too soon.

  He rested his forehead against hers, his whole body rigid with the determination to last until Jane could come with him. He could tell by the heat and pulse of her body, the way she squirmed and moaned and dug her nails into his back, that she was close. He began to move, rocking against her with each thrust.

  Then there was no more restraint. They were moving together with fevered intensity, hungry and savage, desperate and wild. They came at the same time, their bodies shuddering with release, and when he collapsed against Jane, he murmured her name over and over, his lips vibrating against her skin.

  The cold had been driven away. The warmth they shared felt strong enough to heat the whole world. He rolled onto his side, bringing Jane with him, stroking her hair with one hand as she nestled against his chest.

  They fell asleep heartbeat to heartbeat.

  Jane woke in a blissful cocoon.

  Caleb was all around her. His scent, his skin, his warmth, his strength. Snuggled together inside a double sleeping bag, they couldn’t have been any closer, but suddenly it wasn’t enough.

  She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his bare chest, just below his collar bone. She tangled her legs with his, rubbing against him like a cat, and she felt him harden as he woke with a rush and a surge, sliding his hands into her hair and pulling her up for a kiss.

  Lips and tongue and teeth, hot and wet and carnal. When he slid inside, the friction and fullness almost made her come right then.

  He rolled them over so she was on top. She heard someone moaning and realized it was her, and then she remembered they were by themselves on a mountaintop with no one around for miles, and she let herself cry out.

  She arched her back and squeezed her muscles tight, and Caleb groaned as he came, his body pulsing inside hers.

  In the utter darkness of the tent, it felt like they were alone in the universe, a spark of heat in a cold world. As she slid down Caleb’s body to find a nook for her head, his hand stroked her back and he murmured her name.

  The next time she woke, it was dawn.

  She didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay in the circle of Caleb’s arms for the rest of her life, no matter how long or short that might be.

  But then she remembered that the fog and clouds were gone. She’d watched it happen last night, the stars winking at her as they appeared, one by one, in the velvety darkness.

  And now the sun was coming up. She had to go out and look at the view.

  She slid carefully out of the sleeping bag, doing her best not to wake Caleb. She pulled on her pants and shirt and jacket and unzipped the tent flap to grab her shoes.

  A minute later she was standing outside, the wh
ole world at her feet.

  She hadn’t known it was possible to see so far. The mountains seemed to stretch out forever in every shade of brown and green, beneath a sky so translucent it was like the inside of a robin’s egg. Away to the east, the sun was rising in a glory of colors—coral and rose, tangerine and peach, lilac and violet.

  “Now this is what I call a morning.”

  She turned her head and saw Caleb standing beside her, the scruff of his beard catching the sunlight and his eyes like moss and amber.

  “It looks like God does puffed sleeves,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Meaning?”

  “Well, look at it.” She gestured toward the sunrise. “Talk about unnecessary flourishes. I mean, all those colors are just excessive. What useful purpose do they serve, except to be beautiful?”

  He slid a hand into her hair and combed through it slowly.

  “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Not everything has to be useful.”

  They stood there awhile longer, watching the sun make its slow, majestic way above the horizon. Then Caleb spoke.

  “Are you ready to say goodbye to Sam?”

  She took a deep breath. “Yes.”

  They carried the urn to the place they’d been yesterday. The wind wasn’t as strong, but it was still at their backs, and as they stood there at the edge of the world, Jane imagined Sam’s voice whispering to them.

  Now that’s what I’m talking about.

  Knowing this was what Sam had wanted didn’t make it any easier. Jane put her hand on the lid of the urn, but she couldn’t make herself lift it.

  It’s all right, Jane. You can do it.

  Then Caleb’s hand was covering hers. “Will you let me help?”

  Tears sprang into her eyes as she nodded. They took off the lid together and set it on the ground, and then they tipped the urn and cast the ashes into the air.

  For a moment she saw them, a fine dust scattered on the wind.

  And then they were gone.

  “Goodbye, Sam,” she whispered.

  Stay safe, little sis. I love you.

  Caleb put an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him, his strength like an anchor in a stormy sea. They stood there for a long time.

  Then she straightened up and took a deep breath.