Instead, I focus my energy on wriggling around until my arm is poking out of the face-hole so I can turn the dome light on and get back to work on the knot from hell.
I make zero progress before the back door opens and Gideon tosses my backpack in, then climbs into the driver’s seat and looks over at me.
“I think I’ve almost got it,” I tell him, inaccurately.
“Looks the same.”
“Positivity is important,” I say, wondering if I should use my teeth. “Haven’t you read The Secret?”
Gideon snorts, which is probably the response that question deserves, but he leans in again and then his face is inches from mine. I can feel the cold air leaking off him and then the first blush of warmth: pink nose and pink cheeks and pink lips, moss-green eyes, long, pretty eyelashes. A short dark beard and dark hair that’s just long enough to start curling at the ends, slashes for eyebrows. I wonder if they still express every thought that crosses his mind, or if he’s learned to control them. I’m still trapped in a sleeping bag and probably suffering from hypothermia and it’s obviously all my imagination, but still. Still.
“Hold on,” he says after a long moment, then grabs both sides of the zipper and tugs in opposite directions. Nothing happens.
“I did try that,” I say.
“I think it’s fucked.”
“Is that the technical term?”
“Technical enough,” he says, leaning back so he can reach into a pocket. “C’mere.”
I flinch back when he opens a knife and reaches for me.
“It’s for the cord, not you,” he says, disbelievingly.
“It’s a surprise knife!”
Gideon closes his eyes for a moment as if gathering patience, and I subtly shift back to where I was as best I can. It’s hard, because I’ve started shaking, suddenly colder than I was when I was outside.
“Andi,” Gideon says. “I need to use a knife to cut the cord on your sleeping bag so you can maneuver out of it and buckle yourself safely into this truck before we attempt a journey through a snowstorm, which is only getting worse the longer we sit here and fuck around.”
There’s a blunt edge to the way he says it, matter-of-fact and clipped like he’s reading out safety instructions to a group of tourists. To strangers.
“Sorry. Do it,” I say, and I’m trying not to shiver but I can’t help it and the more I try to control it, the worse it gets.
Gideon’s eyes flick to mine. He pauses. His grip on the knife shifts, a tiny movement I wouldn’t notice if we weren’t this close.
“I’ll be careful,” he promises, deep and soft and gentle, cutting through the white noise of the truck engine and the heat on full blast, and… it works. Despite everything, I’m soothed.
“I know,” I say, and he is. At least with me. He cuts the drawstring and I emerge halfway from the sleeping bag like it’s been eating me alive, sweaty and freezing and still shaking even though I’ve got a coat on. Without a word, Gideon turns all the heat vents to point at me, then grabs a camp blanket from the jump seat behind us and hands it to me, my legs still in the sleeping bag.
“Put this on once you’ve warmed up a little,” he says. “You’re shaking.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I—yeah. I didn’t know I was this cold.”
Gideon looks me over for a long moment, half-turned in the driver’s seat, the dim overhead light casting him in odd shadows. He looks like he wants to say something, but all I can do is stare and try not to shake too badly.
“You’ve got,” he finally says, and gestures at his hair.
I pat my head with one hand. All I find is hair. I think my hat’s somewhere in the sleeping bag, along with a glove.
“No,” he says. “It’s—close? The other way.”
“I’ll get it later,” I say, giving up, but Gideon reaches over with one warm hand, fingers whispering into my hair, and gently tugs something free, then holds it out to me: a twig with a prickly leaf on it. Holly, maybe.
“Thanks,” I say, and when I take it, I have a sudden flash of memory.
We were ten. It was summer, midday, hot as anything, and we’d trekked through the woods behind our houses to Threebridge Creek. It was further than we were supposed to go since the land belonged to someone else, but there was no fence and therefore no good reason to stay out.
We took off our shoes to splash through the water, and five minutes later I stepped on a piece of glass. It was deep and hurt like hell and bled like crazy, and we were in the middle of the woods where we weren’t supposed to be.
I panicked. It felt like I’d sliced my foot in half. Everything was slippery with the gushing blood, and I was pretty sure that I was going to die or at least get in really bad trouble.
But Gideon was there. Gideon, at all of ten years old, stayed calm and had a bandana in his pocket. He sat me down and rinsed away the blood and told me I wasn’t going to die, wrapped it tightly and reminded me I’d be fine and then helped me hobble back to my house, where Rick took one look at it and drove me straight to the emergency room.
That was Gideon, back then: gentle, soothing, and honest when something was going to hurt.
“All right,” he finally says, and turns his attention to the windshield, releasing the parking brake with a thunk. “Hang on. This isn’t gonna be pretty.”
It isn’t. Well, it is, in an aesthetic the snowy forest is beautiful and serene kind of way, but the ride itself is pretty gnarly, over a road that can’t be more than a disused track when there’s not a blizzard going on. With this much snow we can’t even see the ruts and rocks, so Gideon has to guess or go on memory, and that’s not a great system.
Within five minutes I’ve given up on acting cool and am actively hanging onto the Jesus handle with my right hand and the side of the seat with my left, both feet braced in the wheel well. I might crack a molar. Uselessly, I remember the “fun” fact that drunk people tend to survive car accidents more than sober people do because the alcohol relaxes them, and I guess being relaxed helps in crashes or something.
I will die for sure if we crash, is what I’m saying.
Meanwhile, Gideon is frowning at the snowflakes through the windshield as though each one has personally insulted him. Which, I don’t know his relationship with snow. Maybe they have. Maybe he insulted them first. I wouldn’t put it past him. It takes all my self control not to ask that, because right now is very clearly not the time to distract him.
And now, a brief sampling of other things I don’t say:
“I’m really glad you’re probably not an axe murderer.”
“Is this a stick shift?”
“Do you still think I’m going to hell?”
“Does this have four-wheel drive?”
“Which is worse, snow or sleet?”
“What have you been up to for the past twenty years? I haven’t asked anyone about you because I’m afraid I won’t like the answer.”
“Did you make your hat? It looks handmade.”
“I knit a scarf once. It wasn’t as nice as your hat.”
“Driving through snow always makes me think of trying to watch Skinemax late at night after my parents went to bed and it was staticky, but I could almost see naked people. Sorry. You probably didn’t do that.”