Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Trinity
This was a bad idea. We’re just going to freeze to death faster out here in the open, where the wind blows snow directly into our faces.
I’ve thought about how awful it would be to die by drowning or fire. Ironically, I’ve also considered how horrible going down in a plane crash would be, knowing you were plunging to your death for however long it took to hit the ground. Even with my propensity for worrying about things that probably won’t happen, I’ve never wondered what it would be like to freeze to death.
Until now.
We set out from the wooded area many hours ago and we haven’t seen any sign of shelter. Sometimes we pass through groupings of trees where we get a break from the wind, but mostly we’ve just been walking through snow. It’s about a foot deep in some places and up to my knees in others, thanks to drifting.
“Whose turn is it?” Lincoln turns around and looks at me. “Am I up?”
“Yeah, it’s you. Fourth grade.”
He told me when we set out from the forest that we needed to keep our minds occupied every minute because it would help us keep moving forward. We talked about our jobs and homes and I told him everything there is to know about my cat, Karma. Then I thought of this little exercise, where we each tell the other person everything we can remember about every year we went to school. We’ve already been through kindergarten (when I peed my pants and had to miss the class holiday party to go home and change clothes), first grade (when Lincoln broke his arm falling out of a tree), second grade (fairly uneventful for both of us), and third grade (Lincoln kissed his first girl and I won the spelling bee).
Everything hurts. It’s not just my ankle but my entire body. And cold isn’t enough of a word for what it’s like to be out here. It’s a bone-deep pain that almost burns. The only way I’m able to keep putting one foot in front of the other is that I know I’ll die if I stop.
“I had Mr. McGill for a teacher,” Lincoln says, yelling so I can hear him over the wind. “He brought his golden retriever to school with him every day; her name was Cookie.”
I want to stop walking. Scream. Cry. Quit. I’m exhausted. My chest hurts when I breathe. It’s only thoughts of my mom and Dalton that keep me moving forward. My mom loves her two children with her whole heart, and it would devastate her to lose one of us, especially like this.
And Dalton will never forgive himself if we die. He put us on that plane, and even though the crash is in no way his fault, I know him and he won’t feel that way. He’ll spend the rest of his life eaten up by guilt over it.
“Tell me about Cookie,” I yell at Lincoln’s back.
I’m trying to step where he steps, even though my feet are soaked and half-numb. It takes less energy to step in an existing footprint than it does to make my own. Lincoln has a big stride, though.
“Cookie was the best girl. She played ball with us at recess. She usually chilled in a dog bed next to Mr. McGill’s desk, but sometimes she’d walk up and down the rows of desks and we’d all pet her.”
“Did you work on your kissing technique in fourth grade?”
“Yeah, but not with Cookie.”
My lips crack painfully when I smile. I don’t know how either of us can still make lighthearted comments when we’re probably marching to our final resting places, but Lincoln keeps saying we have to keep our minds from wandering to the worst-case scenario. I’m trying.
“We took a field trip to the children’s museum in Cincinnati and that was my first time holding hands with a girl.”
“Who initiated the hand-holding?”
He glances over his shoulder at me. “Me, of course.”
“Right. Back when you were just a cave boy ? Not yet a full caveman?”
He laughs. “All women like men to make the first move.”
“Gay ones don’t.”
Another laugh. “True. But Amy Ackerman liked it when I held her hand. She wrote in my yearbook that I was the cutest boy in the whole school.”
“Do you know what became of her?”
“Amy? Let’s see...I think we went to school together until seventh grade and then her parents put her in a Catholic school.”
Lincoln is wrapped in the moving pad and the metallic silver emergency blanket, my scarf still the only covering on his face and ears. I keep my focus on his back, telling myself that if he can do this without a coat and hat, I can do it while bundled in his parka.
Every step is so hard, though. My feet seem to be made of lead. Deep down, I know being in this kind of cold with wet feet isn’t survivable for long. We’ll both get frostbite.
I’d normally find the prospect of my feet slowly turning black and dying something worth getting upset about. I just don’t have it in me, though. It’s getting dark, and our gamble didn’t pay off.
I’m vaguely aware I’m not moving anymore. My whole body still hurts. Instinct makes me curl up into the fetal position.
“Trinity!” Lincoln runs back to me, dropping his blankets and the survival kit and using both hands to lift me up. “What happened?”
“I can’t.” Emotion wells in my throat. “Take the coat and leave me.”
“No fucking way,” he says fiercely. “Get up.”
“I’m so tired.”
“We’ll find something soon. I’m tired, too, but I’ll carry you if I have to.”
“No. It’s my fault.”
I don’t have the energy to explain what I mean—it was my idea to set out like this. Without the right supplies. To leave the plane.
Lincoln grabs the parka, a hand on each side, and hauls me into a standing position. I stumble against his chest and he supports my hips, fresh pain shooting through my injured ankle.
“You’re either walking, or I’m carrying you.” His breath against my face is the only warmth I’ve felt in...who even knows anymore? “We either live together or die together, you hear me? I’m not leaving you.” He digs through the survival kit and takes out another energy bar. “Eat this and let’s fucking go. I know you’re tougher than this.”
His harsh tone awakens something inside me. I grab the energy bar and shake it at him. “Is this going to heal my ankle? Will it make my feet dry? This is just a slow death and you know it.”
“Quit bitching. We’ve gotta work with what we have.”
He rewraps himself in the blankets and I rip open the protein bar, breaking it in half. Even without a coat, he’s still going and not complaining. I don’t know why I resent his determination.
I pass him half the bar and he shakes his head. “You eat it; you need it more than me.”
“Eat it and I’ll keep walking.”
He shakes his head and takes half of it, glaring at me as we both eat.
“I’ve got a lot more fourth-grade shit to tell you,” he says when he’s finished. “You gonna listen?”
“Can’t wait.” My tone is heavy with sarcasm and a smile plays on his lips.
He starts walking forward again and I drag my feet into motion. Would I really have just stayed back there and died if he’d let me? Am I really that weak?
“I had my first official girlfriend in fourth grade,” Lincoln yells from in front of me. “Macy Rivera. And that was when I started travel hockey. I wanted to be a goalie but my coaches rotated all of us on all the positions.”
I imagine a little Lincoln with his dark hair and confident smile. Was he a born leader, or did he grow into the role? I don’t have the strength it would take to ask him.
As he tells me all about his first year of travel hockey, I focus on breathing and walking. Deep breaths, in and out, while keeping pace with him. It doesn’t feel like I can do this, but I’m doing it anyway. Instead of thinking about the cold and our dismal survival odds, I think about breathing and stepping in the footprints he leaves in the snow.
Just. Keep. Going.
It’s almost fully dark now. We’re stopping about every hour to eat snow so we don’t dehydrate. We’ve made it through school recaps up to sixth grade, and my dark sense of humor is encouraging me to at least live until I can tell Lincoln about winning the school science fair in eighth grade with the hypoallergenic lotion I invented.
Will I tell him I nearly died in ninth grade? I normally don’t talk about it, but I’m entirely out of fucks to give at this point. Lincoln was twenty feet away when I peed in the snow behind a pine tree an hour ago. We’ve known each other for less than forty-eight hours and he’s already seen me at my worst.
I can hardly feel my feet and my ankle is throbbing with pain. I just want to rest for a few seconds.
The second I stop walking, he somehow knows and turns around.
“No stopping,” he barks. “No quitting.”
“My ankle.” I’m so weak the words are barely audible.
My body sways, the effort to keep myself upright almost too much. If I fall right now, there’s no way I could get back up.
Lincoln growls at me, getting in my face. “Don’t be a pussy.”
“You don’t know.” Emotion wells in my throat.
“Am I carrying you?” he snaps. “It’s either walk or be carried.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I’m the asshole who’s keeping you alive.”
“Fuck you!” I snarl back at him. “I’m the one walking on a busted ankle. I’m the one whose feet are probably frostbitten.”
“Cry me a fucking river. Just walk while you do it.”
I ball my hands at my sides, still icy even though I have gloves on, and scream “Fuck you” as loud as I can. The effort hurts my chest and my back, but there’s a tiny bit of a spark in me now.
Lincoln walks back a few steps, still facing me. “Catch me and you can have a free kick to my balls.”
“With a broken ankle? Thanks, asshole.” Glowering, I advance toward him. He turns and keeps walking.
Catching him isn’t an option. It’s all I can do to breathe and move. I had a moment of weakness back there, but I’m myself again. I’m not giving up. If I don’t make it, I’ll fall face-first into the snow while walking.
I close my eyes for a brief second, silently asking my mom and Dalton to send me the strength I need to get back to them.