Windchill

MARA

The first flakes fell soft and lazy, like ash from something already burned out. Mara watched them melt on the glass before Alex’s wipers could touch them. It gave her somewhere to look that wasn't his profile.

"This weekend went fast," she said.

She tried to sound light, like someone who hadn't spent three days waiting for a conversation that never happened.

"Mm."

Alex kept his eyes on the road. His voice wasn't cold, exactly. It was careful. The same buffer tone he had used for months.

She tucked her fingers into her sleeves. The heater wasn't cutting it. Or maybe she just needed something to hold onto. They hadn't talked about the purpose of the trip or if coming here had fixed anything. Every time she tried, Alex redirected. He talked about the drafty fireplace, the trail they didn't hike because he was tired, or the diner coffee. He filled the space with noise so neither of them would have to say anything real.

"We should probably beat the storm," she said.

The weather alert on her phone had warned of fast-moving bands and possible whiteout conditions. She had read it twice while Alex packed the trunk. She hadn't mentioned it to him.

"We'll be okay." He adjusted his grip on the wheel. "Twenty minutes and we’ll be back on the highway before the heavy stuff hits."

Mara nodded. She didn't believe him. She didn't push him either.

The snow thickened faster than she expected. One minute she could see the pines standing on the shoulder; the next, the world was white feathering across the glass. The wipers fought a losing battle against the accumulation.

"Alex."

"It's fine," he said. He sounded friendly enough, as if she had commented on a cloudy sky instead of the white wall swallowing everything.

The sky turned a bruised, dark grey. Slush began to thicken under the tires, making a wet, tearing sound against the asphalt.

Mara swallowed hard.

They weren't really talking about the snow. They hadn't been talking about anything that mattered in a long time. Last night, at the cabin, they had sat across from each other with a candle and a bottle of wine. The perfect setting for a breakthrough or a fight. Instead, Alex had talked about his truck’s suspension. Mara had let him.

She realized she was waiting for him to crash. Not the car, but the facade. She wanted him to panic so she didn't have to be the only one holding the anxiety for both of them.

ALEX

He told himself he wasn't ignoring her. He was concentrating.

Alex leaned forward, squinting. The yellow lines were ghosts buried under the white. The forecast had said flurries. An inch, maybe two. Not this. A squall must have blown in early. Honestly, he should have been paying attention to the weather more carefully. He should have been paying attention to a lot of things more carefully.

He felt Mara staring at the side of his face. She was chewing her lip. It was her tell. She did that when she wanted to say something but wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. It always made him feel like he was failing a test he didn't know he was taking.

"We could pull over," she said. "Wait it out."

"If we stop, we'll get stuck behind a drift. Safer to keep moving."

She went quiet. She folded. That was worse than arguing.

The road angled downhill. The wheel trembled in his hands. Beyond the glass, it was white on white. There was no horizon or reference points. There was nothing to anchor them.

He should’ve listened to her. He should’ve turned around ten minutes ago. Admitting it now felt like admitting something bigger. Something they had been dancing around since… since when? He couldn't remember the day the silence started. It was a slow accumulation. Like the snow.

"Really coming down," he said. He tried for a light tone, but it came out fake.

"Alex, slow down."

"I am slowing down."

"You aren't." Her voice was measured. She sounded like she was trying not to startle a wild animal. "You’re doing that thing you do. You’re pretending everything is fine until it’s too late."

The words landed hard because she was right.

He eased off the gas. It was already too late.

The tires caught a sheet of slush concealed under the fresh powder then everything went sideways. Mara said something, maybe his name, but the word broke apart as the car spun.

The world blurred. Gray sky. White snow. Dark trees.

Crunch.

The car thudded nose-first into a snowbank. No movie effect explosion of glass and fire. It was a heavy, sickening sound of plastic and metal meeting resistance. The momentum threw them against their belts, knocking the wind out of them.

Then, silence. Just the sound of his own pulse hammering in his ears and the light clicking noise of a cooling engine.

MARA

The headlights threw twin cones into the swirling white, illuminating nothing.

Mara’s breath came in pale bursts. She touched her face. No blood. No sharp pains, just a dull ache where the seatbelt had dug into her collarbone.

"You okay?" Alex's voice was rough.

"Yeah. You?"

"I am... yeah. I think so. I'm sorry. I should have..."

"Slowed down? Turned around? Listened?"

The words came out sharper than she intended. Adrenaline made her mean.

He flinched. She felt bad about it immediately. She didn’t feel bad about saying it, but she felt bad about the timing. They were always out of sync. One of them was always ready to talk when the other was ready to sleep. One angry when the other was sad.

"Let's just figure this out," she said.

He tried to reverse. The tires whined and spun helplessly. The snowbank held them tight, the ditch underneath making the angle impossible. The car felt heavy, like a beach whale.

"We’re stuck." He tried to keep his voice level and failed. "I’ll try rocking it."

Drive. Reverse. Drive. The car sank deeper. The smell of burning rubber filled the cabin.

"Stop," Mara said. "You're digging us in."

Outside, the wind screamed. It wasn’t a poetic description. It sounded like actual screaming, high, thin, and angry. Mara checked her phone. No signal. Not even a flicker of a bar.

"How long until someone else comes down this road?"

"Hard to say." He wouldn't look at her. "If the squall is bad enough, they’ll close the mountain gates until morning."

The heater hummed. It sounded soft and fragile against the roar of the wind outside. The gas tank was a quarter full. They had heat. They had blankets in the back from the cabin. They just needed to stay calm.

But calm felt impossible. The exhaustion hit her, sharp and heavy. The disappointment of the weekend, the fear of the crash, the months of loneliness while sitting right next to him.

"Alex," she whispered. "I'm tired."

He blinked in the dim light. "Tired?"

"I'm tired of feeling like a stranger next to someone I’m supposed to be close to."

This wasn't how she had planned to say it. She had planned to say it at the Italian restaurant back in the city next week. She had a script in her head. But maybe there was never going to be a right moment. Maybe the disaster was the only thing that could shake the words loose.

ALEX

His throat tightened. He glanced at the dashboard thermometer. It was dropping fast.

"Mara, we just need to get through the night. Focus."

"I am focusing." Her eyes were bright in the dashboard glow. "For the first time in months, actually."

He looked away. Looking at her, it meant seeing everything he had let slip into silence. It meant acknowledging all the conversations he had avoided. It meant admitting all the times he had chosen easy over honest.

"I didn't know you felt that way," he said finally. It sounded pathetic.

"You did." She wasn't accusing, just stating facts. "You just didn't want to talk about it."

Wind slammed the car. The metal frame shuddered.

"So, let's talk," he said. "Right now. Tell me what you need."

"It isn't a list of needs." She sounded bone-deep tired. "It’s this feeling. Like we’re both holding our breath because we’re scared of disturbing something."

He had no defense for that. He felt it when they were hiking and ran out of things to say after ten minutes, and he felt it when they went to bed and stayed on their own sides of the mattress.

He leaned back. His breath plumed blue in the air. Their relationship had become like this car. It was stuck and sinking slowly, held in place by things neither of them addressed until it was too late.

"How long until the engine dies?" she asked.

"A while." His voice shook.

He reached into the back seat and grabbed the emergency kit. He pulled out the foil blankets, and the heavy wool throw they had brought for the cabin couch.

"Put this on," he said.

She wrapped the wool around herself. She looked small and breakable. He hated himself for driving so fast, among other things.

MARA

The hours stretched out. Time became something thick and viscous.

Snow piled against the doors, sealing them in a gray capsule. The heater weakened. The dashboard glow dimmed.

Mara’s fingers went numb inside her gloves. The cold crept in slowly, like it had all the time in the world.

"We need to be smart with the heat," Alex said. "Ten minutes on. Twenty off."

She nodded. Fear sat tight in her chest, but the silence between them felt different now. Open and raw.

"Alex." She made herself say it. The cold made everything urgent. "When did we stop talking? Like, really talking?"

""I don't know." His voice was soft. The condensation from his breath fogged the air between them. "It wasn't one thing. It was a lot of little things."

"I kept thinking we would come back," she said. "I thought one day we would just wake up and feel like we used to. Like the beginning."

"Me too."

"But it hasn't happened."

He didn't disagree.

Her body felt heavy. She remembered the first year they were together, driving to the coast in the rain, ordering pizza and talking until 4:00 AM. Now, sitting two feet away, she felt invisible.

"I don't want to hurt you," she said, her voice quieting.

He reached over the console and covered her hand. His hand was surprisingly warm. Tears stung her eyes before she could stop them.

"You aren't hurting me," he said. "You’re being honest. That’s more than I’ve been."

A gust hit the car hard. Snow spilled off the roof, blocking out the last bit of light from the top of the windshield. They were buried.

"No." Alex’s voice cracked. "Stay awake. Mara. Look at me."

She tried. Her eyelids felt like stone.

"Talk to me," he said. "Tell me something."

She forced her eyes open and found his in the gloom.

"I still care about you," she murmured. "That hasn't changed."

"I know. I care about you too."

The admission didn't fix the windchill or the snowbank. But something inside her loosened. Like finally letting go of a rope she had been gripping until her hands bled.

ALEX

Her head kept falling forward. He squeezed her hand hard.

"Stay with me."

"Trying." A whisper.

He unbuckled their belts and reached across the console, awkward and stiff, pulling her as close as the gear shift allowed. He wrapped the blankets around both of them.

Her hair brushed his cheek. He caught a whiff of her familiar shampoo that smelled of almonds and vanilla. A sharp ache in his chest almost took his breath away.

"Mara. I'm sorry. For all the times I didn't show up. For taking the easy way out."

She laughed, a weak, shaky sound. "I didn't make it easy either."

"No. You were patient. I was just scared."

She looked at him, confused through the haze. "Of what?"

"Of trying hard and still not being enough."

He hadn't meant to say it. He hadn't even really thought it, not in those specific words, until this very moment. But there it was. The truth had been frozen inside him, and now the cold was cracking it open. The cold wasn't the only thing making his jaw tight now.

"I thought if I didn't rock the boat, things would stay steady," he said. "But all that did was freeze us in place."

He held her face between his gloved hands. Her skin was terrifyingly cold.

"Mara. I love you." His voice cracked. "But we can't keep doing this. The waiting. The pretending. We deserve better."

A tear slid down her cheek, freezing halfway. "I know."

He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. "If we make it out of this, and we will, I don't think we should keep living this way just because it’s what we know."

Her forehead pressed against his.

"Thank you," she said. "For finally saying it."

The engine sputtered. Coughed once, twice, and died.

The silence that followed was heavy. Outside, the wind screamed for entry. Inside, something had finally settled. It was painful, but it was clean.

MARA

She drifted, Alex’s voice pulling her back.

"Look at me. Mara. What was your favorite part of the cabin? Stay awake."

She fought the sleepiness. It was thick and sweet. She felt warm. Too warm. She knew that was the danger zone but couldn’t make herself care.

"Alex." Her lips felt numb. "If something happens..."

"Don't." Desperation in his voice. "Don't talk like that."

"I need to. I want you to know I don't regret it. Any of it."

"You are not dying," he said. "I won't let that happen."

She tried to smile. Through the snow, she saw movement. Light.

"Alex. I think someone is coming."

He turned sharply. A faint bobbing yellow glow appeared through the white. It was a headlamp and it was beautiful.

ALEX

Relief hit him so hard he almost sobbed.

A figure emerged from the swirling snow, bundled in heavy gear. It was a ranger.

"Hey!" Alex banged his frozen fist on the window. "Here! Over here!"

The ranger fought through the drift to the driver’s side. Alex cracked the door against the piled snow and the wind rushed in, brutal and biting.

"You two okay?" The ranger shouted. "Road is shut down. We’ve been sweeping for stragglers."

"She needs help," Alex said. He pulled Mara upright. "We’ve been here for hours. She’s freezing."

"We’ll get you to the truck. Heat is running strong."

Alex wrapped the blanket tighter around Mara and lifted her arm over his shoulder. She shivered violently as the wind cut through the wool.

"Easy," he murmured. "Lean on me."

They stepped into the night, snow up to his knees. The ranger took Mara’s other side. Twenty yards up, a massive truck idled, its lights cutting the storm.

The intense blast of hot air as they opened the door felt like a physical blow. He helped Mara into the backseat, piling blankets around her while the ranger radioed their location.

Her hand found his, fingers ice cold.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"For what?"

"For fighting for me tonight." A pause. "Even if we aren't going to keep fighting for us."

He nodded, throat too tight to speak. He didn't try to change her mind. The truth had settled between them. They had just finally said it out loud.

The truck pulled away, rolling carefully down the mountain. Alex watched the snow swirl past the glass. Somewhere above the storm, dawn was pushing faint gray light into the sky. They survived the night. That didn't mean they were meant to survive together.

MARA & ALEX

When the truck reached the clearing below the storm line, the world softened. Snow-covered pines stood hushed, bowed by the weight of the night.

They parked beside an ambulance. Paramedics wrapped Mara in heated blankets and checked her vitals. Alex stayed close but didn’t hover, watching her face regain some color.

"You should warm up too," the paramedic told him.

"I will." But his eyes stayed on Mara.

She held out her hand. He took it, lowering himself beside her on the ambulance bumper. They watched the last flurries of the storm drift down like feathers.

"I still love you," she said. "That hasn't changed."

"Me too." His voice was quiet. "But love is not the same as a fit."

She nodded. Her eyes stung, but she wasn't crying. "No. It isn't."

He squeezed her hand. "We’ll work out the logistics. The apartment and stuff. It doesn't have to get messy."

"It won't." She meant it. "Not after tonight."

They sat there in silence. It wasn't their old kind of silence. It wasn't the strained silence of the car or the cabin. This was something different. It was clearer. It was the silence of two people who had stopped running.

A paramedic handed them two Styrofoam cups of hot broth. The steam curled up into the morning air. Mara blew on hers as she stared out at the tree line. The sun was just beginning to break through the clouds. It painted the snow in shades of pale pink and gold.

"I’m glad you’re okay, Alex," she said.

He looked at her, memorizing the way the light caught the stray hairs escaping her hood.

"You too," he said.

They sat together on the bumper, drinking the broth, watching the sun rise over a world that was buried, cold, and brand new.