Under the Northern Lights(72)

Mom looked at me, then gave Dad all the containers of food. “Why don’t you go set the table, dear. I think we need a girl talk.” Patricia nodded in agreement while I let out a groan.

“We don’t have to do this,” I told her. “I’ll be fine. It’s just . . . been a long winter.”

“One you haven’t told us much about,” Mom countered. “You fell asleep five minutes into the ride home last night.”

Dad gave me a warm smile; oddly enough, it reminded me of Michael. “Talk to your mom, Mallory. You know it will help. It always does.” Dad also had speckles of gray in his dark hair. In made him seem older, too, and wiser.

He left the room, and Mom and Patricia sat down on either side of me. Patricia grabbed my hand. “I have to imagine that after the extreme survival experience you went through, you must be experiencing some sort of posttraumatic stress. I can help you through it, Mallory, but you have to talk to me.”

I didn’t want to be rude, since she was only trying to help, but I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes at her. “I’m not going through PTSD. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine, and you don’t seem fine,” she said. “You seem . . . sad. Are you sad you made it? Survivor’s guilt?”

Compressing my lips, I firmly told her, “I can’t have survivor’s guilt when no one died, Patricia. That’s not it at all.”

Patricia opened her mouth to ask more questions, but Mom put a hand on her knee, silencing her. “Instead of trying to guess what you’re going through . . . why don’t you tell us? From the beginning, what happened to you?”

Looking between the two of them, I could feel my eyes watering. I didn’t want to talk about it . . . which meant I probably should talk about it. I’d never truly heal until I verbally released my burden. “Everything was fine until I hit a storm. My plane stalled; I couldn’t get it restarted. I thought I was dead . . . but somehow, I wasn’t. But I was hurt. And scared.”

I looked over to see that my dad had quietly reentered the room. His warm brown eyes were full of sympathy, and he nodded at me to continue. “I managed to make a shelter, but I didn’t have a lot of supplies. I knew it was just a matter of time before . . .” I paused to swallow a rough lump in my throat. “And then . . . he appeared. He came out of nowhere and saved my life. He took me to his home, patched me up. He shared his food, his supplies . . . his life. He kept me alive.” And then he made me feel alive.

Mom shared a look with Dad. “Who, honey? Who saved your life?”

A single tear dropped to my cheek as Michael’s smile floated through my brain. “Michael. He lives all alone in the woods near where I crashed. He gave me everything he had; then, when he could, he brought me home.”

My voice cracked, and my tears grew thicker. Mom looked confused. “Isn’t that a good thing?” she asked, rubbing my back. “Why are you so . . . upset?”

“She’s in love with him,” Patricia whispered.

As I looked over at her, a sob escaped me. “And I’m never going to see him again. He wouldn’t come home with me. He said he loved me . . . but he wouldn’t leave.”

I completely fell apart after admitting that to her. She pulled me into her arms. “I’m so sorry, Mallory,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I love him so much. It hurts . . . so much.”

“I know,” she said, rocking me back and forth in a soothing pattern. “But it will fade with time. I promise. Once you’re done grieving, the feelings will fade.”

I knew she meant her words to give me hope, but they didn’t. They only filled me with more despair. I didn’t want my feelings to dim with time . . . and I didn’t believe they would. Michael had touched me too deeply. If only I’d been able to touch him half as much, then maybe he would have picked me over solitude.





Chapter Twenty-Five

Days passed. Then weeks. I tried to get into my old routine, but I’d become so adapted to life in the woods that I’d forgotten what my “normal” routine was. I didn’t need to get water, didn’t need to chop wood, didn’t need to do much to prepare my food. My days were so wide open they felt empty. And my nights . . . those were pure torture. Because my sister was wrong. My feelings weren’t dwindling—they were growing. Every day apart from Michael was worse than the last, not better.

Since I didn’t have enough money to buy another camera, and I couldn’t do my job without one, I was working for my parents at the diner. I didn’t mind being there; it was like a second home to me, but it wasn’t where my heart was. Of course, that was true on several levels, so it didn’t bother me as much as it should have.

I was just dressing for my shift when I heard my doorbell ring. All three dogs started barking. They were great at letting me know people were here . . . once I was already aware of that fact. “Shush! Quiet down, you three. Don’t make me get Gandalf.” That was what I affectionately called my disciplinary water bottle. The tactic didn’t work as well on dogs as it did cats, but it had its moments.

As I stumbled toward the door, I shouted, “Coming! Hold on.”

Breathless, I swung the door open . . . and saw Shawn standing there, holding a dozen roses. “Okay . . . it’s been three weeks. You can answer me now.”