“I thought you were in danger,” I say, and I cross my arms and puff my chest out a little because I did, she was, and now she’s mad about it?
“I told you I wasn’t.”
“I know, but—”
“Do you think I can’t tell when a glorified farm animal isn’t gonna rock climb up to where I am?” she asks, and she’s talking fast and high, panic and fury and something else threaded through her voice. “It didn’t come within two feet of me! It was getting bored! It was about to leave until you ran over!”
“I wanted to help!”
“You did!” she says, and now she’s shouting even louder and she waves her arms in the air, her voice breaking. “You helped by telling me what to do in the first place! Which I was doing! EFFECTIVELY! Which I told you!”
I clench my jaw and look away, my hands tightening into fists because how dare she, how dare she shout at me like this when I just risked life and limb to chase off an animal that could’ve easily killed her.
Could it have? A tiny, unwelcome voice in the back of my head asks. I ignore it.
“I was afraid you’d get hurt,” I say through my teeth, not looking directly at Andi, all anger and righteousness, standing against the sky like some kind of Valkyrie. “So, I came over and dealt with the problem.”
“By putting yourself in danger!” she says, and now her hands are over her face. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she sounds shaky. “Gideon, that’s not—that’s so fucking stupid and reckless, oh my God. You can’t do that.”
I snort and roll my eyes, pissed-off and instinctual. “Of course, I can,” I tell her.
When she doesn’t shout again—when she doesn’t say anything at all—I finally steel myself and look up at her. It’s hard to see the expression on her face since she’s backlit and I’m not used to this angle, but she’s not happy.
After a long moment, she crouches, puts one hand on the boulder, and hops off.
“I need a minute,” she says, and walks away between the trees.
I fight the urge to shout after her: that it’s dangerous in there, that there’s a hog, that she shouldn’t get lost, that it’ll be dark before too long, but I don’t. Partly because she might strangle me herself if I do and partly because I know, deep down, that I don’t need to. The hog’s long gone, it’s just a forest, and Andi’s too smart and capable to get lost thirty feet away.
I pack our things instead of shouting. The hog rooted through it all, leaving some of it slick with pig snot and saliva, so I wipe that off as best as I can, put everything into our packs, and head down to the net.
I’m halfway done untying the destroyed net trap from the trees when Andi suddenly appears at the other end, on her toes, wordlessly untying the knot on the opposite side of the small clearing. When it’s down we meet in the middle and she hands me a mass of tangled nylon, frayed and unraveling where the hog won its fight.
Andi’s mouth is bright pink, her face flushed, her eyes red-rimmed. I don’t question any of it, just swallow around the sudden tightness in my throat.
“Gideon,” she says, voice low and controlled and tight. “You should take more care with yourself.”
If you’d asked me to guess ten things she’d say, that wouldn’t have been one. Instead of answering I crouch and shove the mess of ruined net into the backpack, because that’s easier than looking at her right now.
“By which I mean don’t do things that might result in you losing a limb to an infected pig bite because you thought I wouldn’t follow instructions,” she goes on, still soft and a little shaky. I zip the backpack and stay down, staring at the muddy snow like it’ll give me an answer.
It doesn’t.
“That’s not what I thought,” I finally say and rise to my feet, slinging the pack over one shoulder. “I wanted you to be safe and you’re my responsibility.”
“I’m not.”
“Andi—”
“I’m my own responsibility.”
“I found you chained to a tree in a blizzard,” I say, and it doesn’t come out loud, but it comes out harsh, like rubbing alcohol on a skinned knee. Andi closes her eyes and her jaw flexes.
“I know,” she says. “That was a dumb mistake and bad judgement.”
“So maybe you can see why—”
“I don’t want to see you get hurt!” she says, and now she’s louder, that edge back in her voice. “I want you to be safe and whole and happy, okay, and I especially don’t want you hurt because you think I’m fucking up.” She swallows, hard, but her eyes don’t leave mine. “I thought for a couple seconds back there that you were gonna get, I don’t know, bitten or trampled and mangled and I just—I really don’t want that, okay? I was terrified for you. That’s all. Can we walk?”
I nod, silent, and Andi shakes her head and adjusts her pack on her back and crunches away, toward the cabin, through the half-melted half-refrozen snow, and I follow her.
She leads the whole way back to the cabin and doesn’t falter or lose her way once.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ANDI
It feels good to walk the mile back to the cabin. There’s a small violence in hiking through the forest off-trail, and there’s a small violence in making the only noise in silent surroundings, and there’s a small, purifying violence in Gideon and I not saying a single word to each other until we reach the clearing with the cabin at the center.
The anger has bled out of me by the time we get there but the kernel of discord that preceded it is still there, pulsing and twisting. I want him whole and unhurt. I want him better than fine. I want him to tend to himself sometimes, but we’re leaving tomorrow and I’m far from sure that I get to want any of those things.
I’m far from sure that whatever this is that we’re doing, this spiderweb-delicate thing we’ve started, can withstand real-world conditions no matter how much I want it to. His whole family is fighting because his little sister has a boyfriend. What chance do I have?
“Do we have any leftovers?” is what I ask as I climb the porch steps, because anything else feels like too much.
“We should,” he says. “And plenty of canned soup if we don’t.”
“We’ve got canned soup until the end of time,” I say, hand on the doorknob before Gideon cuts me off.
“Andi,” Gideon he says, all annoyed and rough. “Boots off outside.”
I want to snap back at him, my temper flaring hot and expansive, but he’s right so I grit my teeth and clench one fist and turn toward him without speaking. Gideon’s kneeling behind me on the steps, furiously tugging his laces out of one hiking boot, gloves discarded next to him. Both his knees are soaked through with melted snow, his coat open, his hair curling at the ends with moisture.
“C’mon,” he goes on, and looks up at me.
“Right,” I finally say, and bend over to untie my own shoelaces. I’m still wearing gloves. It takes me longer than it should to realize I’m still wearing gloves and I have to take another deep breath at that because I’m thirty-two and this is no one’s fault and I shouldn’t scream fuck gloves into the silent forest like I want to.