The One Without Words

❀ chapter thirty-three | into the dark ❀

At least an hour passed in the cold. My ass felt so numb I feared frostbite setting in. Was that possible? Frostbite only on your ass? I protected the rest of me the best I could—hands under my armpits, back slouched over like a pathetic little snail.

Jack didn't speak again. His anger had sent a rush of heat all over me, but the flames died as quick as they'd started, and that awful silence set in again. Not Jack's usual silence—that I didn't mind—but knowing, feeling how panicked, hopeless, lost he felt inside.

And I couldn't do anything about it. Hell, he didn't know what to do about it. He just shut down, swallowed up by his own stillness in the absence of words.

How long until sunrise again? I didn't dare pull out my phone and waste more battery. The battery itself might die in this weather, and maybe our phones would be useless. How long until our parents called the authorities? Would they send a search party for us? Only Eli knew my whereabouts. Eli and Penelope.

Penelope. Where was she now? Part of me hoped she'd made it back.

Wait. Since when did I care about her?

Maybe I just didn't want to be responsible for someone finding her frozen body on the trail. Maybe if she got out that meant a higher chance of survival for me and Jack.

Okay, I was totally overthinking this. All I needed to do was wait until the morning. In the daylight, we could easily make it back to the trail.

Right?

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"Do you want to know what I just thought of?" I asked Jack, my voice hoarse. I needed water, badly, but didn't want to make myself even colder by chewing on snow. "Remember when you said we needed to take off our clothes because wet clothes give you hypothermia?"

Maybe I was losing it, but despite not seeing him, I felt the way he glared at me in the dark.

I laughed. He didn't. As the minutes went by, his breathing got heavier.

What was worse: silence, or the sound of his increasing panic?

Maybe he couldn't bear the fact he'd talked to me without the influence of alcohol. Although I figured the influence of a near death experience came as a pretty close replacement.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I felt for his wrist in the dark. His skin, cold but still warmer than the frigid air around us. I waited for him to pull away, but... 

He twisted his wrist around and grabbed my hand with his, holding it tight.

"Take a deep breath," I said. "Imagine you're inhaling all the air around us."

He did. A broken inhale, but better than all the tiny breaths he'd been taking before.

"Hold it," I said. "I'll count to five. When I get to five you let it out. One. Two. Three. Four. Five."

He exhaled.

"Good, now do it again."

He repeated it another five times. His breaths slowly steadied. His tight grip on my hand loosened until he let go. 

"They're just thoughts. You're alright."

Silence.

"Do you feel better now?" I asked.

Silence. 

"I promise we'll be okay," I said in my best attempt at sounding comforting. "The trail is so close. If we can't find it we'll go back to the ledge and climb up. We'll find a way."