Give it some time, I remind myself as I cross my front lawn on shaky legs. Be patient. If I make a big deal about getting the letter back, he’s going to realize that the letter is a Big Deal.
“I could have driven,” I say as I open the door and hoist myself up into the passenger’s seat. His truck is one of those giant monstrosities with enormous tires that’s killing the planet. It belongs to his father’s landscaping company, but it’s basically Fitz’s to use as he pleases. The only vehicle access I have is Mom’s old sedan, but because she’s on a plane to New York, she agreed to let me drive to the cabin.
“No way.” He checks his mirrors and pulls away from the curb. “On the off chance the storm hits early, I want you safe in a four-wheel drive with snow tires.” He glances at me and frowns. “What happened to your head?”
I rub at the small lump on my forehead. “Slipped and fell. I’m fine. And thanks again for letting me come up a few days early and crash your family’s Christmas. Are you sure your parents don’t mind?”
“Mom’s hyped. She lives for hosting big holiday celebrations. But I feel bad that your mom had to leave last minute like that.”
So the thing is—I lied. Fitz knows how badly I want to travel, and he wouldn’t understand why I chose not to go to New York. I told him an abbreviated version of the truth—that Mom won a ticket at work (not a lie!) and was using it to visit her sick friend (also not a lie!).
“What about your dad?”
“He’s …” I hesitate, wondering if I can get away with another evasion. The fact is, my dad’s uninformed about this last-minute turn of events. “He’s busy,” I say, feeling decent about the probable truth of my response. Most adults I know love to talk about how busy they are.
Fitz frowns in sympathy and my stomach squirms. I hate pseudo-lying to him, despite the fact that I lie by omission every day of my life.
“So, did you bring that letter I wrote?” I aim for casual and fall spectacularly short, just on this side of eager.
“No. Was I supposed to?”
“No. But I need it back. Where is it?”
Fitz looks at me sideways, his face hesitant. “On the counter? Maybe?”
“You lost it?”
“No! It’s definitely in the cabin. I’m just not sure where.” He shrugs, the corners of his mouth turning up in a sheepish smile.
I take a deep breath as liquid dread oozes through my belly.
Don’t panic.
Easier said than done.
Because what if the letter is sitting on the counter, and a glass of water spills, soaking the envelope, and Mrs. Wilding tears it open to allow the letter to air dry, but as she sees the ink slowly spreading she takes a picture of it to preserve it forever, and while snapping the picture sees an incriminating word or sentence or paragraph and reads it, then tells the whole family, and by the time I get there, everyone will know my secret.
What. If.
This is my worst nightmare, and I felt it coming in my bones. I opened my eyes this morning with a feeling of unease looming at the edge of my mind, whispering that I’ve done something wrong, or am about to do something wrong, or have done everything wrong my entire life. It happens more often than I’d like to admit, and the worst part is the unpredictability. I’ll go to sleep feeling perfectly fine, only to wake up feeling like I’ve been sucker-punched in the stomach.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say, because how can I explain it to him when I don’t have the words to understand it myself?
His hand twitches, his face uncharacteristically serious. “It’s been a while, but do you wanna do the thing?”
I grimace at the window in lieu of responding. My reflection is terrible.
“Describe five things you can see right now.”
Eyes still trained on the passing highway, I answer in a dull voice. “Cars, road, sky, overpass, cactus.”
“Four things you can touch.”
My gaze flicks to him. I press my hands against my thighs, focusing my concentration on the feel of my soft leggings. “Cotton-Lycra.” I place my hand on the cool window. “Glass.” I hold it in front of the vent. “Heat.” My eyes flick to Fitz again. He lifts his right hand from the steering wheel and holds it palm up over the center console. He used to hold my hands during this part, giving me something solid and warm to focus on while everything in my brain feels chaotic and out of control.
I pretend not to notice his gesture and I run my fingers through my straight brown hair, naming it as my fourth thing.
“Three things you can hear.” He doesn’t skip a beat, just casually returns his hand to the steering wheel.
“Your voice.” I cringe before I can stop myself. “Tires on the road.” I strain to hear the radio, which is turned down low. “ ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’ ”
“This song is atrocious. He basically drugs this girl,” he says as he reaches to turn up the volume.
“Say, what’s in this drink?” the woman croons.
“Get out! Get out now!” we both shout at the radio. I lean back in my seat, grinning.
“Do you want to keep going?” Fitz asks.
“I’m okay.” The looming dread has loosened its grip on my chest, and anyway, he’s about to ask me to name two things I can smell, and I’ll be forced to admit that I’m slowly inhaling his smoky-sweet scent.
The desert landscape gives way to mountain terrain as we drive, cacti dropping from view only to be replaced by tall pine trees. I lean my head against the window as Fitz and I talk about Christmas music and baseball season and his family and mine. Uncharacteristically, Molly’s name isn’t mentioned even once. If I were a better person, I’d tell him her teary-eyed confession, the one hinting that she regrets dumping him.
But I’m not. So I don’t.
* * *
I close my eyes outside Flagstaff, trying to picture the landscape blanketed in a thick layer of snow. Instead, sheer force of habit pulls me into a two-year-old memory. I had spent all Christmas break lying sick in bed with strep throat. Due to a combination of strong bacteria and weak antibiotics, my strep morphed into scarlet fever.
“Knock, knock.” Fitz rapped his knuckles on my door frame. “I hear you’ve gone and gotten yourself some dramatic illness.”
Fitz! My heart sighed in relief. “Just call me Beth March,” I said, not caring that the words tore at my throat. For the first time in days, I was unbothered by the fire in my throat or my throbbing headache or the fact that I couldn’t seem to get warm. Fitz had always had that effect on me. He could turn my bad mood into a good one simply by allowing me to exist in his orbit.
He flopped himself across the foot of my bed. “I’m sorry, I will not stand by and let you convince yourself that you’re a tragic literary heroine.”
“Beth wasn’t the heroine. She was the sister.”
“You’re not dying.”
“I never said I was.”
“But you thought it.” His eyes glinted with mischief, and I couldn’t deny it.
“Did it snow?” I asked, impatient to hear about his week at the cabin.
“Tons.”