Page 118 of Snowed In
I hesitate, staring out at the blanket of snow in case my eyes are playing tricks on me.
Okay, not an avalanche. But it’s not just snow either. It’s a lot of snow. A lot more snow than was there last night.
Not wanting to open the balcony door in case I wake Megan, I instead turn back to the room. My clothes have been packed haphazardly into my bag, but I don’t even care about the creases as I throw on the first things I find and slip into the hallway.
My body is still a little slow, and there’s a hollowness in my stomach that tells me I definitely missed breakfast. We could stop somewhere on the way back before dinner, but even as I’m planning out the rest of our day, I know deep down that none of it is going to matter. Not with what I feel I’m about to open the door to.
With grim resignation, I shove my feet into my boots, grab my coat, step outside, and immediately pause.
Yeah. We’re not going anywhere.
At least not anytime soon.
It’s not like the snow is above my head or anything, but it’s heavy, and I’d definitely have to dig out the car.
I visited Andrew in Chicago last year and grumbled the entire time at how well-equipped the city was to handle its weather. We have nothing like that here. And even if they did get the roads cleared, they’d focus on the main ones first. Not up the mountains.
It’s a shame because if I weren’t so annoyed by it, I’d find it beautiful. It blankets the driveway in a thick white sheet, looking like something out of a children’s book from long ago. Untouched by nothing except what looks like a fox’s footprint circling the house.
Somewhere in the trees, a bird calls to another, and I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the fresh air as I linger on the porch. You can’t hear the traffic all the way up here. You can’t hear anything.
I stand there until the cold gets too much, at which point I return inside, shrugging off my coat as I head back upstairs to wake Megan. As it is, I barely hit the landing before she bursts out of the bedroom, stumbling to a halt when she sees me.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice still raspy from sleep. “You shouldn’t be up.”
“I’m fine. I think I slept it off.”
“Slept it off?”
“Yeah,” I say, confused. She’s acting like I was a step away from death and not just spending a few hours recovering from a headache. “Look, I don’t think we’re going to make it back in time for dinner.”
She just stares at me. “Dinner?”
“With my family,” I remind her. “We’ve already missed lunch. Did you call your Mam?”
“I…Yes, but—”
“I’m going to text Andrew. See if he still wants to come up here or wait until—”
“Christian.” She rubs her face, looking confused. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
“What?”
She steps in front of me when I try and go past, blocking my path. “It’s the twenty-fourthof December,” she says, and I pause, taking her in properly for the first time. Taking in everything.
The snow outside. Megan in her pajamas. The way my body still feels like I ran a marathon.
“Of what year?”
“I’m being serious,” she says, clearly in no mood for jokes. “You slept for a whole day!”
“I think I’d remember if it was that long.”
“How could you? You were out of it. You’d wake up, take some painkillers, complain, and go back to sleep.”
“For a whole day?”
“More or less,” she says, rubbing one eye. It’s only then I notice how frazzled she looks. Her hair is a mess, half falling out of her scrunchie, and there are deep pillow grooves on her cheek.
