Emma woke me up in the early hours of the morning to request that I come back to bed with her and, furthermore, to never let her sleep alone again. I believe her exact words were, "if I ever wake up again and you're not next to me, I'll murder you." I obliged and laid with her until the reflection of the morning sun off of the snow woke us up.
once we got out of bed we found two sleds in one of the closets of the cabin and took them outside with our thick winter coats. It shocked me at first to see Emma so back to normal after basically passing out the night before. But, I wasn't going to try and stop her from being herself.
We decided to make a competition out of the sleds we found: race down to the bottom of the hill. Best of seven doesn't have to cook lunch. We set up our sleds on the mountain as Emma counted down from ten to start it off.
"... five, four, three, two-" she ended as she pushed off of the snow and down the hill before she said one.
"Hey, not fair!" I yelled out to her.
"One! Sorry, cancer perk!" she yelled back.
I rolled my eyes and pushed off of the hilltop with all my strength. I was naturally faster than Emma because I weighed more, but she was still in front of me quite a way.
I got out of my sled eventually and began running with it. It proved faster for a small while, but eventually my legs got tired of the unending amount of snow underneath them. I got back into my sled and closed in on her at the halfway mark. I tipped my snow cap at her and inched more and more ahead of her.
Right when I turned around, though, I felt all the wind get knocked out of me as I tumbled off of my sled. I looked up from the snow to see only Emma laughing and pointing at me from hers, still moving to the bottom of the hill.
I laid my head back down in the snow and looked at the bright blue sky above me. I watched my breath swirl out of my mouth in a white cloud.
A smile crossed my face.
I pulled myself back up into a sitting position to see her walking back up the hill, pumping one fist into the air.
"Easiest win I've ever had," she said, a smile shining through her wind-blown hair.
"If I knew that we were playing dirty it would've been no contest at all," I snapped back.
She helped me up and stood close. "I will stop at nothing to win, you should know that." She kissed me on the cheek and continued up the hill.
I clumsily picked up my sled and followed suit.
We got to the top of the hill and she began the counting again, this time starting slower.
"Ten...... nine...... eight..."
"Are you trying to wait for me to fall asleep or what?" I asked jokingly.
"Seven...... six...... five..."
"Ya know, I'll just go if you're going to be this slow."
"Threetwoone," she said in one breath as she threw a handful of snow into my face.
I wiped it off as I blindly ran down the hill after her. I jumped on the sled, not sure where I was headed as I wiped the wet snow out of my eyes. By the time I could see, I was headed in a perfect 45-degree diagonal from where I was supposed to go. Emma 2, Israel 0.
The next time we went, I went up behind her and pushed her hat over her head to secure the win. On the next hill, she pantsed me right when I was about to start running, and I won twice because I pushed her off of her sled. Tie match.
"Okay, for this last one there is no funny business. Only sheer speed," she said.
"I am going to be so happy when I get to sit on the couch as you make me some lunch."
"I believe I speak for all women since the beginning of time when I say that I will never let that happen."
"Alright, well put your money where your mouth is and let's do this thing."
"Okay, you get to count it down," she said.
"Alright. Five, four, three-"
"I have lingerie to show you if you let me win," she whispered into my ear.
My jaw dropped. "Wait what?"
"Your choice! Go!"
The race was neck and neck as we furthered down the slope. I yelled over to her, "Were you being serious?"
"I guess you'll have to lose and see!" she yelled back.
"How do I know whether or not to believe you?"
She turned to me and smiled. It was the same smile she gave me countless times before we did something we shouldn't. I pulled out my feet from under me and stopped my sled in the snow.
Emma 4, Israel 3.
I smiled at the thought of losing. It felt like I was the real winner.
I walked back up to the cabin with her trailing behind me. She caught up and practically jumped on my back.
"You know, if you lied about this I will actually just sleep in the car," I said.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not telling you shit about what's going on during this trip."
We got into the cabin and I started making paninis with some lunch meat and cheese I found in the cooler. She left to go into the room to change out of her now-drenched clothes. I played music on my phone on low while I cooked, humming the lyrics and synchronizing my movements with the beat.
I set the sandwiches in the panini press and leaned against the counter to check social media. I lazily scrolled through pictures of people I didn't care about until I opened up Twitter. I never checked it, but I saw that over the past few months it had accrued some notifications.
I scrolled for only a couple of seconds before Emma's name started coming up. Turns out her retirement from school didn't go unnoticed. There were more than a couple of people wishing her good health and asking about what happened. They mentioned a username in all of their posts that, when clicked on, brought up a picture of Emma in middle school.
Her mouth was clad with enormous braces and her bright pink polo clashed with her lime green khakis. She had only two posts, one accusing a foster care sibling of stealing her brush, and another making an aptly timed post about our troops in Iraq.
I scrolled through her mentions and it was flooded with well-wishes from people she doesn't even know. Jessie Schulte from my fifth period pre-calculus class says her thoughts and prayers are with her, along with a dozen replies and a little over a hundred likes. A couple of people on the swim team remembered family members getting diagnosed in their post, followed by a pledge to stand with her and help with anything she needs. My personal favorite was an empathetic Dillon Reynolds, who recounted the death of his gerbil that was, judging by the length of his paragraph, still a very sore topic for him to discuss.
Those same people who were saying they'd do anything for her now didn't even care to know she existed before. They were completely estranged from her life until it happened to get them a like on Twitter or a new retweet record.
I started to second guess my anger. Yes, these people were probably looking for likes and attention for themselves, but that doesn't make it necessarily a bad thing. Even though their action was selfish, more people are bound to know what is happening and make Emma's life, however much shorter, a little bit better.
Death breeds willingness, I concluded, but it doesn't breed sincerity.
Emma walked out of our room with a new vest that covered more layers of athletic clothing. She swapped out her snow pants for a pair of thick yoga pants and replaced the oversized coat with a backpack.
"Okay, what's the plan?" I asked as I gave her a sandwich.
"We're about a two-mile hike from the top of the mountain. It's supposed to have some amazing views from the top, so we're going."
We finished up our food and I got dressed again for the hike. I followed her out the door to the blinding sun outside. At the height of day, while the sun shines off of every mountain slope in the distance, it's hard not to drop your jaw.
"Damn. This is just beautiful," I said.
"She's a beauty, that Mother Nature," she agreed.
The forest looked like something on the other side of the wardrobe in The Chronicles of Narnia. A gentle blanket of snow covered every tree and bush in a way that made it look untouched for years. It was like Emma and I were the first ones here.
It was made for us.
We walked, ate, and drank in silence, admiring the forest around us. The snow quieted the rest of the forest like a blanket. The only noise came from the rush of wind above the treetops. The sky was blue and looked beautiful against the stark white below it.
We stopped a small while out from the peak. There, the trees were becoming thin and most didn't get taller than a couple of feet above my head. The tree-line broke for a small vantage point overlooking the western side of the mountain.
She and I took some self-timed pictures and had a small snowball fight. I picked her up and dropped her in a snowbank, and she shoved a small fistful of snow down my pants. While I was yelling because of the cold, she stopped to look at the mountains again.
I quieted down to look at her. She looked peaceful. A Mona Lisa smile crept across her face and she let out a deep breath. I walked up beside her and looked at the same thing she was.
I agreed. It was something worth smiling about.
"I love you, you know that right?" she asked.
"Just as much as you know that I love you too," I said.
"Well, what if I don't know?"
I kissed her. "Then I'm afraid you must've gone crazy."
A smile flashed across her face. "It's concerning that you might just be finding out that I'm crazy."
She turned and continued walking on the trail. I followed.
Twenty minutes passed and we were trudging up the final couple yards to the top. We finally reached the peak and looked over all of the beauty around us. Unfathomable peaks jutted out of the Earth, their peaks level with my eyes. I felt like a giant.
Emma sat down in the snow and closed her eyes. I looked for tears to come but couldn't find any. She looked calm and collected.
I looked around, mesmerized. Even the wind sounded distant. Something about being on top of a mountain changes things.
"Here, look at this," she said.
She pulled out a folded piece of paper from her jacket pocket and a pencil. It was the list of fifteen things on her bucket list. I watched as she crossed off 3.) Go to the mountains, and 5.) Feel like I'm huge. I held her by my side.
The sun was getting lower over the western mountains, so we decided to hike back.
Emma and I changed once again into comfortable clothes and turned on a movie. I threw two frozen pizzas in the oven and snuggled in with her.
We ate the pizzas as the movie tried and failed to keep our attention.
"Hey, I'm gonna go to the bathroom," she said as she pulled part of the blanket off of her.
I let her out of the nest we made and she crept across the corner. I pulled out my phone to check her Twitter page again, but decided it wasn't worth my time.
I was with her. I didn't need to see other people wonder how she was doing.
I tried to focus on the movie, but the more I watched it the worse it was. It was about two trust-fund babies who went against all odds to date each other. The main point of conflict was that the dads were competing hedge fund owners in Manhattan so their love was strictly forbidden. It was kind of the lamest version of Romeo and Juliet that has ever been filmed.
I heard a rustle by the doorway and turned my head towards the noise.
My jaw dropped.
Like, back down to sea level.
Emma was standing, leaning against the doorway in red lingerie. The lace fringes hugged her every curve as my eyes moved up and down her body. I sat up in my seat, every inch of my body now causing an earthquake.
She strutted over to the couch and struck a stereotypical model pose at me.
"You like it?" she said as she spun around.
My brain was on overload, trying to make every second of it last a lifetime. I don't think I've ever paid attention to anything more than I paid attention to that Red Lace (those two words deserve the capitalization. There is nothing else like them). I wasn't ready to handle it.
"Well shit..." I finally spit out.
She smiled and held out her hands to me.
She pulled me off the couch and by body gravitated towards hers. She softly landed a kiss on my lips and I pulled her head in closer. My right hand grabbed the back of her neck as my left grabbed her waist.
She pulled away. "Do you think you're ready for this?" she asked.
I didn't need to clarify her question. I knew exactly what she meant, and I was ready to give her everything. "I love you more than I've ever loved anyone else," I said softly. "There will never be a time that I'm not ready for you."
She flashed a condom in the air and gave it to me. She took my hand and led me around the corner into the room. The thoughts swimming in my mind raced faster.
What am I going to do? How do you know when to actually do it? What if I finish too quickly? How do you even put on a condom, and when? What if I'm not big enough? Speaking of that, when did I shave it? Does she even want it shaved? Why am I calling it an it? Should I even have sex if I'm not mature enough to say the word penis in my own head?
We rounded the corner into the room. The door was closed, but she kissed me once more and opened it. Candles were the only light in the room, and I couldn't help but notice that the animal pelts were locked somewhere far away.
She kissed me again, this time harder, this time longer.
This time more.
She lifted the bottom of my shirt up and I did the rest for her. I reached around her back to undo the straps of her bra. Unluckily for me, the clasp seemed glued shut. I panicked and tried to divert her attention away from my tried and failed attempt, but she stopped kissing to crack a smile and undo it for me. I slipped it off of her shoulders and she pressed against my bare skin.
She was warm against me. I started moving towards the bed and she followed my lead. I couldn't see where my feet were going but I tried squinting past her head to the rest of the room. I started kissing her neck, using the change in position to let me open my eyes.
I let out a gasp when I realized it was too late for me to change course. I stumbled my last step and she ran into one of the bedposts.
"Ow," she laughed.
"My bad," I said back, holding the back of her head for her.
"Make it up for me by taking off your pants," she said back.
I obliged, undoing my belt as she unzipped and unbuttoned. I pulled them down, stumbling around my ankles. Why did I decide to wear fitted pants today? Because God has a sense of humor, that's why. I fixed our stance and lowered her down to the bed with my arm. I climbed on and she held my back. I unclasped her garter belt and lowered the rest.
I noticed a candle flickering by the bed and moved over her to quickly blow it out.
It was her and I now.
Just us. Not even our clothes, and not even candle light.