Four Years Ago

            “I don’t think you should go,” the girl said as she folded her arms across her chest, hugging her coat to her so that she could try and trap the heat her jacket was barely giving her. Winters were unbearable in Alaska.

            “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. It’s just a ski trip. We’ve both been on those countless of times before,” the boy grinned, pushing his crazy blond hair behind his ear. He always had hair longer than average, he though it looked like a professional snow boarder which was what he wanted to be when he grew up.

            “But the weather man said there’s supposed to be a massive blizzard tonight.” She wrung her hands nervously together.

            “Princess, how many times has he said that and we all plan for a snow day and yet nothing happens and we still have to take our finals the next day. Nothing is going to happen. He probably just needed some excitement in his boring job.”

            “But what if something does? I’ve read books about this sort of thing. You know night skiing is dangerous,” she protested.

            “I’m going with your brother, why aren’t you worried about him?”

            “Because he’s not a stupid as you are!”

            “Thanks for the vote of confidence Princess,” the boy chuckled. The duo stopped at his locker to drop off his books.

            “It’s because I care about you,” she said as he grabbed his coat and pulled it on.

            “I know. Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.” He was beginning to grow excited. It was the first time he had been invited by anyone to go night skiing and he was going with the hockey star and the captain of the basketball team along with some of their friends. It was a big honor. Things like that didn’t happen to freshmen like him.

            “It’s my job to worry about you, I’m your best friend.”

            “Yes and I appreciate that but I’m a big boy now. You don’t have to make sure I’m always wearing a coat or that I’m not eating mud.”

            “I know, I know,” she said, biting the bottom of her lip and chewing it nervously. He smiled down at her. She used to be taller than him when they were younger but over the summer he had shot up like a weed as his mom said and now was a few inches taller, a big accomplishment in his book.

            “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. After all I don’t have any plans to get myself killed, I’ve got to tell you something important tomorrow.” The girl’s eyes lit up.

            “Really? What?” She asked.

            “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

            “You ready to go lil’ sis?” An older boy asked, walking up to the duo, his backpack slung casually over one shoulder and his hands jammed into his winter coat to keep out the freezing cold winter air which streamed through the door whenever someone opened it.

            “Yeah, just trying to convince this idiot that you’re also an idiot and that he shouldn’t go with you tonight.”

            Her brother gave a goofy grin which made most of the girls in his grade squeal. “Don’t worry about him, he’ll be in capable hands.”

            “And by that you mean your hands which is exactly why I’m worrying. You couldn’t even take care of a baby doll for your health class!” She said exasperated.

            “That was not my fault and you know it,” he snapped.

            “Don’t worry Princess,” the younger boy said, grasping her hands in his own. He always had warm hands, even on freezing cold days like today. “I’ll take care of myself and I’ll look out for your brother too. We’ll hang out tomorrow ‘kay?”

            “Okay,” she relented. Then she threw herself on him in a bear hug, her bushy brown hair flying all over. Students stopped and stared at them, some snickering and more of the older students thinking it was adorable. “Be safe,” she whispered into her best friend’s ear.

            “I will, don’t you worry,” he smiled, his blue eyes sparkling.

            “Come on sis, I’ve got to get you home or else Mom will have my head,” her brother said, draping an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll pick you up in an hour ‘kay?” He told the younger boy who nodded.

            “See you Princess,” he called to his best friend as she left.

            She gave him a little wave and then headed outside into the freezing, white air.

It had started lightly snowing a few minutes before her brother left. “Are you sure you should go?” She asked, leaning against the wall in the hallway as he laced up his snow boots, her hands clutching her book which she was planning on reading tonight.

            “It means fresh snow, it’ll be fine. Don’t worry, I’ve done this hundreds of times,” he smiled at her, standing up. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

            “Promise?” She asked.

            “I promise. We’ll be home before you know it.” He grabbed his skis and pack and then hugged his little sister. “Don’t give Christie any reasons to get you in trouble tonight and make sure you take your medicine.”

            “Alright Dad,” she quipped sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

            He chuckled and opened the door. “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be home around eleven tonight.”

            “Aye aye Captain,” she said in mock salute.

            “See ya.” He closed the door as he headed into the garage to start the car and leave. She watched the door close and stayed standing there, frozen as if the winter wind had come in and prohibited her from any movement whatsoever.

            Finally forcing herself to move, she shuffled to the living room where one of her sisters was watching TV. She looked up and gave her a smile. “Don’t worry, they’ll get home safe. Everyone goes night skiing at least once in their teenage years. You’ll probably want to go next time.”

            “Maybe,” the girl muttered, picking up a blanket from off a chair and wrapping it around herself before falling into the chair and opening her book. “Maybe not.” She didn’t want to think about night skiing or skiing in general. She just wanted them to get back home quickly and safely.

            For hours she watched out the window, waiting for her the headlights of her brother’s car to flash through the glass, signaling that he’d gotten home safe. Her phone sat at her side just in case someone wanted to text her. Just in case.

            It was nearing eleven at night when the phone in the kitchen rang.

            Her mom picked it up. After a few hushed words there was a great sob and the girl sat up out of her daze quickly, throwing off her blanket and sliding across the hardwood into the kitchen. “What? What is it?” She asked, her eyes looking wildly at her mother who was clutching the phone to her chest, her face sheet white as if a ghost had waltzed through.

            “There’s been an accident. Keats is at the hospital,” she whispered, leaning against the kitchen counter for support.

            The girl’s world went cold. It felt as if someone had latched onto her with icy fingers and was drowning her in a lake which had been frozen over. Her vision swirled and she had to grab onto the fridge to keep from slipping to the floor. “What… what about Skip?” She whispered.

            Her mother gave her a broken look. “I’m sorry Bronte, they can’t find him.”

The whispers behind her back were annoying.

            They were so annoying that sometimes she clenched her pencil so tightly in class that she was almost positive that it would snap in to two pieces if she just clenched it a little tighter.

            Snap just like what would happen to the necks of those whom the whispers belonged to if they kept it up. Not that she was an overly aggressive person. She wasn’t. She was just sick of everyone talking about her behind her back. Any normal personal would be sick of it as well.

            But even worse than the whispers were the stares which followed her up and down the hallways of Woodsworth High, into her Physics class, out to her old Chevy truck, at the only grocery store in town, everywhere. They were pitiful stares and she didn’t want her classmates’ pity.

            Heck she didn’t want anyone’s pity.

            That was why Bronte hurried down the hallways of Woodsworth clutching her books tightly to her chest and her eyes down. She didn’t want to look at anyone, she didn’t want to meet eyes with anyone. The one thing that would make this day even harder than it already was would be crying in front of the whole student body and having her little sister Sylvia come and comfort her. And she didn’t want to have to spend hours in the counselor’s office talking about how she felt when all she wanted to do was feel nothing.

            Why didn’t anyone understand that?

            Her mom had told her that the stares would go away, that people would stop whispering about her to their friends and everything would go back to normal. But there was no possible way that anything would ever be normal again.

            It was impossible.

            Normality was gone. It was gone the night that there was the biggest blizzard to ever hit their small Alaskan town.

            “Good morning Bronte,” Ms. Solvic said as Bronte slipped into her AP English class, fifteen minutes before school started. She didn’t want to have to brave the hallways alone this morning. Sylvia was at band practice so she couldn’t make sure Bronte wouldn’t get cold feet and run home when she saw everyone so she had come early.

            “Morning,” she grumbled, sliding into her usual seat in the back and slouching down low, pulling out her old paperback novel she had bought from the used bookstore on the one street in town. She would go there at least once a week to try and find something new to read. Bronte had gotten her mother’s avid reading genes and the only trophy she held was for the most books read over the summer.

            She had broken her own record twice.

            “How are you doing?” Ms. Solvic asked, a concerned look on her face. Bronte scowled and looked down at the words on the pages in front of her which seemed to dance a little off of the page as tears welled in her eyes.

            She wasn’t emotional. Not really. She was just tired.

            “Fine,” she said quietly. Normally she wouldn’t have answered but Bronte liked Ms. Solvic. She was an interesting teacher that didn’t make Bronte write essays. She made her write stories after finding one of her notebooks and reading through a few pages. Bronte thought she was going to die of embarrassment when she saw her reading it but Ms. Solvic just smiled and told her that they could work something out.

            After all, she’d rather read a story than an essay.

            So Bronte wrote a short story about World War Two while other kids wrote an analysis of  the Hiding Place. For their final research paper this semester Bronte was working on a fifty page story about a feminist instead of writing down boring facts about feminists. Even though it wasn’t technically what you were supposed to do in English class, Ms. Solvic said that she’d rather her students learn their strengths than do something that would never benefit them in the long end.

            And she knew Bronte wanted to write.

            “Some storm that’s brewing out there isn’t it?” Ms. Solvic said, looking out the windows in the classroom, arms crossed, at the whirling grey skies. Bronte looked up a little and then quickly back down, chewing on the bottom of her lip a little, a habit which she had to break.

            “I guess so,” she said with a little shrug, not sure what else to say. Ms. Solvic was from California where the sun shined all day and snow was unheard of. Even a slight snow fury was big for her. The first day that it snowed she stopped class and had everyone go outside.

            The door opened and Bronte looked up again for a moment only to see Knox Lewis, the captain of the hockey team, enter the room. Bronte scowled and looked back down at her book, trying to focus on the words. Knox was one of her least favorite people. They had once been really close friends, her, Skip, and Knox but then he got a little aggressive and rude when they got older. She still remembered when he had tried to cut off one of her curls when they were in third grade.

            Skip had beat him up at lunch and got sent to the principal’s office. But he came out grinning. “I told Mr. Horne that I was defending your honor,” the eight year old boy had said proudly, puffing out his chest a little. “He said that I was a good friend but that I can’t shove anyone’s faces into the mud anymore.”

            Skip had always been obsessed with the idea of chivalry and heroics. Bronte smiled a little at the thought.

            “Why are you smiling Calloway? Have a good morning?” Knox asked, sliding into the seat next to her. The same seat he had sat in for months. The same seat where he enjoyed flicking pencils at her and tugging at her braid.

            “None of your business Lewis,” she bit out.

            “Oh you wound me fair maiden,” he said Shakespearean like, clutching his chest. “Methinks I now have a hole in my heart.”

            “That is probably one of the most cliché things I have ever heard in my life,” Bronte said, rolling her eyes. “You should hire someone new to write your pickup lines because they’re all old and stupid.”

            “I guess my smart phone is out of a job then,” Knox grinned. “Shame though, she seems to really like my voice.”

            “Are you done trying to be the class clown now?” She sighed.

            “I don’t know. Is it working?” He asked hopefully. Bronte shook her head and looked back at her book. Knox wasn’t one of the most popular boys in the school. While he was captain of the hockey team as well as the goalie, he tended to steer clear of everyone and isolate himself, preferring to pick on Bronte than go and socialize.

            He had always been a little weird.

            “Not at all,” she muttered under her breath and turned the page of her book.

            There was an awkward silence between the two of them and Knox drummed his fingers on his desk, staring at her like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. His stare was getting really annoying and Bronte was about to snap her fingers in front of him just to make sure that he was still awake and hadn’t dozed off. He finally cleared his throat. “Look Bronte,” he began

            Well that’s new, he hasn’t called me by my name since we were in elementary school she though, putting her dollar bill which was serving as her bookmark into her book and closed it, eyeing Knox suspiciously. “What do you need Lewis?” She asked slowly.

            “Nothing… I just… I know that you and Skip were close and…” he trailed off and Bronte closed her eyes. So he just wanted to talk about Skip and her. Probably feeling bad for abandoning them when they were little.

            “Look Knox I really don’t have any desire to talk about Skip today, so if that’s all you wanted to talk about then please don’t,” Bronte asked, her voice holding a silent plea as she looked at him. “I just want to get through today and then go home and go to sleep.”

            “Sure… sure thing Calloway,” Knox said and then looked down at his desk and folded hands. “But, if you ever want to talk… about anything at all, I’d be willing to listen,” he volunteered. Bronte had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

            “Thanks Lewis,” she said dryly.

            For the rest of the day Bronte had to ignore everyone staring at her. It was more than normal due to the day. Didn’t anyone know anything about social cues? Obviously not. As she was walking to her Physics class one of the cheerleaders had stopped her and said how sorry she was and that she always had had a crush on Skip when they were younger.

            Was that supposed to help? Because if anything it did the exact opposite. You’d think after four years people would stop bringing it up and just let things be. Let those who were actually affected grieve in peace.

            But obviously her town knew nothing about peace.

            Everywhere she looked today there were memories of Skip. Someone had pinned one of his jackets that he wore to snowboarding tournaments up on the bulletin board with the words REMEMBER THE CONSEQUENCES OF UNNECESSARY RISK.

            Bronte hated that sign. It made Skip seem like some sort of wild hooligan. Which he never had been.

            Lunch that day was the one day a year where everyone wanted to sit next to Bronte and tell her stories about what the remembered of Skip. “I still remember when he ate mud in kindergarten and we all thought he was so funny,” the girl who had said the exact same thing for the past three years said again as she sat next to Bronte, pretending to be her best friend.

            Bronte wanted to punch her in the face but Sylvia sat at her side making sure she didn’t do anything stupid.

            “Skip was such a good friend to me,” a boy with tattoos on his neck said, patting Bronte on her shoulder. She was almost positive that he didn’t go to Woodsworth until the year after “the Incident” as everyone called it. And if she was wrong she would have remembered him.

            After all she was Skip’s best friend.

            One boy had once tried to claim to be his best friend to the news reporter but he didn’t even know Skip’s real name. Almost no one did because Skip had been so embarrassed by it. But everyone had managed to point the reporter to Bronte’s direction.

            But she couldn’t say anything.

            She missed him too much, words couldn’t say anything to even remotely express the pain she had felt that night.

            “You heading home?” Sylvia asked at the end of the day while Bronte shoved all the books she needed for over the weekend. She crammed her wool knit cap over her head and slung her backpack over her shoulder.

            “I’m going to go see Keats first,” Bronte said. “It’s been a week and he’s probably missing me.”

            Sylvia nodded. “You want me to come with you?” She asked, her large hazel eyes softly studying Bronte for anything that would make her nervous about letting her drive by herself. Bronte knew what she was doing and snorted inside. Sylvia had always been the perfect little sister.

            “No I’m fine. You have drama remember? And I’m pretty sure they can’t do Romeo and Juliet without Juliet,” Bronte said, smiling.

            “It’s a stupid play anyway,” Sylvia supplied. Bronte rolled her eyes.

            “You don’t need to follow me around like a mother hen Sylv, I’m a big girl,” she said softly. Those words seemed so familiar to what Skip had told her the afternoon before he had disappeared. “I’ll walk there, it’s not that far. You can take the truck home after play practice and I’ll call Aggie to come and pick me up.”

            “Are you sure Te? It’s freezing outside,” Sylvia said, worriedly. Sylvia was like those Mary Sues Bronte read about in books, always perfect. She could do no wrong. Smart, pretty, kind, and an amazing athlete and actress, Sylvia had continued the famous Calloway legacy which had skipped over Bronte. Was it a sin to be jealous of your little sister because she most certainly was.

            “It’s always freezing in Alaska,” Bronte snorted. “Of course I’ll be fine. Go and knock ‘em dead Sylvie.” She gave her a quick hug and then pulled on her heavy duty winter coat and gloves that her older sister Louisa knit her for Christmas a few years ago.

            Outside kids were frantically trying to get to their cars, holding their backpacks over their head so that they could try to stay dry. Bronte pushed her hands into her pockets and headed towards the street which was only a street behind the main street of Carpenter, Alaska.

            “Hey Bronte do you need a ride?” A girl in her Government class asked, pulling over a little so that she could yell out the window at her.

            “Nah, I’m good. Thanks thought,” Bronte called back, reaching up to pull her hat down even more over her red ears.

            “Alright then, have a good weekend. I’ll see you on Monday.” She then gunned her engine and sped off.

            “Bye,” Bronte said quietly, waving a little, not that her classmate could even see her wave. That was how it usually went. People were like mosquitoes, only out to get something that will be useful for themselves… like blood… or attention… or feel good about themselves. And everyone wanted to feel good about themselves. So they tried to make Bronte feel important but she knew better. She knew what they really were after. Self admiration.

            Some people are so selfish she thought bitterly to herself as she kicked at the snow which was beginning to pile up on the sidewalk. Someone sped past in their car, spraying snow all over her. “Hey watch where you’re going!” Bronte whirled around to see Knox giving a rude gesture towards the car. He turned and grinned at her and then jogged forward towards her. Bronte sighed.

            “What do you want Lewis?” She asked, picking up her pace since her fingers were growing numb.

            “Why do I always have to want something when I talk to you? Can I not just talk to you just to talk to you?” He asked, keeping pace with her as they walked down the street.

            “No, now what do you want? I don’t have time to get into an argument with you again,” she sighed.

            “Where are you heading to?” He asked, ignoring her question and giving her a goofy grin, showing off his chipped tooth from where a hockey puck hit his mouth and his lips swelled so bad that he couldn’t talk for days.

            “Somewhere that you’re not going to,” she replied. “Now are you going to tell me what you want because I don’t have time for this witty banter as enjoyable as it is.”

            “I’m glad you find it enjoyable Calloway because I find it to be the highlight of my day.”

            “If this is the highlight of your day then you need to get a more exciting life,” Bronte snorted, shifting the weight of her backpack around. Why did teachers have to assign so much homework over the weekend?

            “I have more of an exciting life than you do, all you do is live in the library twenty four-seven,” Knox said, kicking at some of the snow.

            “I’ll have you know that I like it there. And nothing you say is going to make me feel like I have a boring life, I’m perfectly comfortable with my life.”

            “Sure you are Bronte. I know you, you want adventure. We used to be best friends remember?” He prodded.

            “I’m sorry, I think you’re delusional. I have no idea what you’re talking about, now if you’ll excuse me, this is my stop,” she said, thankful that they had reached the assisted living home where Keats currently was at. She pulled open the door and was greeted by a rush of warmth which went all the way to her toes. Before heading inside she paused, turning to look at Knox who was standing awkwardly looking upwards at the sign above the doorway.

            “Hey Knox,” she said. He looked up at her, a little more hopeful than before. “I’ll see you on Monday.”