Paul stands there frozen in the snow, just staring at me and apparently bewildered by my rage.
“They’re not garbage to be picked over and laughed at.” I sound defensive, which is ridiculous.
Paul stands motionless for a moment and then looks down at Margaret and then, lifting his sunglasses, at me again. His gaze is blank.
“Dead is dead. She’s not here anymore.” I try again.
He looks up, like he’s acknowledging heaven, though I can’t imagine for a second that he gives any currency to that belief system. I just stare at him as tears well up in my eyes. I feel a sadness I can’t place. I can’t move or speak, and my bones feel like they are crumbling. I start to shake uncontrollably and my mouth opens but nothing comes. Warm tears flow and freeze on my face. I’m having trouble breathing and then my head starts to spin. The world turns upside down, and for a split second I feel like I’m falling.
Paul springs toward me and puts his arms around me, keeping me up. He holds me very tight, like my father did when I was a little girl.
“Hold on, Solis. Steady.”
I can’t believe this is same guy who joked about the captain’s head.
My body continues to shake uncontrollably. He squeezes me tighter and tighter, constantly whispering, “Breathe… breathe… breathe,” until I gain control.
And then something unexpected happens. I hear myself speak, and not sarcastically or vaguely, or with anger or rage, but with honesty.
“I should be the dead one, not Margaret,” I say, pointing to her body.
“Did you know her?” he asks.
“Not exactly,” I say. “I mean, a little. She had a whole life; she was a newlywed and she had Eddie at home who loved her more than life itself.”
“Sometimes luck makes you feel guilty,” Paul says softly. “You can’t beat yourself up for still being here.”
He doesn’t even know what I’m talking about, but he has said the right thing. All that life Margaret had to look forward to, all that life I was trying to wreck and throw away. None of it matters. I was the lucky one. She wasn’t. And now I feel guilty about it. The same way I felt guilty about living and my father dying. Why should we carry on when the people we love are dead?
“Doesn’t anything matter?” I say as a few tears roll down my cheek.
I look up and see his eyes and I swear I see tears building. He looks down at me curiously and then drops his sunglasses back down.
“Are you okay?” he says again, wanting to move on.
“I should be dead.”
“I understand.”
“No you don’t. I tried to kill myself last night, in the bathroom, before the plane crashed. That’s why I survived. It’s fucked up. I’m so fucked up.”
I don’t know why I chose to tell him at this moment, in a frozen graveyard of bodies, or why my normally impenetrable steel vault is suddenly wide open for him to see into, but there it is.
“What do you mean?” he says. I can’t see his eyes, but his mouth is twisted with anguish and his upper lip trembles. I think he’s trying to say something-anything-to be helpful, but he can’t find the words. I finally blurt out a river of thoughts.
“I started to take pills in the bathroom, then the plane crashed, and I woke up alive. I should be dead, but I’m not. She should be alive, but isn’t.”
Paul stands there like a statue, looking at me and through me, trying to process his thoughts as quickly as he can. I can imagine some of those thoughts: Holy shit, I’m on a mountain with a freakazoid; Hide the knife, she could kill us both; Don’t let her at the minibar, if I can find it.
But he only says, “If you weren’t lucky, I’d be dead. It’s not just about you.”
His mouth relaxes and a big smile crosses his face, like he’s proud that he just put together a little philosophical escape hatch for me.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
He wraps his arms around me one more time and rubs my back. His arms make me feel warm and remind me of how cold I am.
“I’m so cold,” I say, sniffling. “You must be frozen.”
“I am,” he says.
“This way,” I say. I grab his hand and pull. We walk silently together to the tail of the plane.
Chapter 17
By the time we cross the short stretch to the tail, it is nearly dark. We open the door and slide in. It’s tight, but we manage to stand side by side, though we are forced to lean against the wall to accommodate the tilt.
Paul looks around for a second.
“This is good.”
I reach into my jacket and hand him an energy bar and some chips. He just looks at it, sheepishly.
“My hands are too numb. I can’t open it.”
I take off my mittens and put one end of the bar into my mouth and tear the packaging open. I hand it back to Paul. He holds it in his gloves and bites half off and hands me the rest. It’s semi-frozen, and we have a tough time chewing.
Paul points to the chips and I rip them open. We both grab a handful and shovel them into our mouths. I immediately realize this is a mistake and Paul does too. We look at each other trying to chew up the semi-frozen, taffy-like energy bar and the greasy chips and start to laugh. We crunch and chew and crunch, but the giant wads in our mouths never get smaller. Paul starts to make his chewing exaggerated and then he tries to speak, which is apparently impossible with potato chips and energy bar in your mouth.
“Wwwwtter.”
“What?”
He pantomimes drinking and I shake my head.
“Noooothing?” he says.
I shake my head again. I look at him closely for the first time as my eyes adjust to the light. His entire body is shaking uncontrollably. I reach up and take his sunglasses off and touch his face. For the first time, I notice how little he’s wearing. If he didn’t have his jacket on, he would be dead. But it isn’t a thick jacket, though that can be deceiving.
But he is wearing jeans and, from what I can tell, only a flannel shirt underneath the jacket.
“You’re freezing. My God.”
I quickly pull out the clothes I had jammed under my jacket and hand them to him.
He looks at his boots and then to me.
“Can you unlace them for me?”
I take off my gloves and tug on the laces and loosen up the knots. Then I pull the boot apart the best I can.
“Pull with your leg and I’ll hold,” I say.
There’s some resistance, but eventually his foot slides out. I unlace the next one and it slides off too.
“The socks too.”
I slowly peel off his socks, which causes a few yelps from Paul.
“Fuck, that burns,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m trying to be careful.”
Every part of his body is frozen red, and when I touch him, little white spots appear on his skin. His clothing is damp from the snow. The cliff protected him from the worst of the storm, especially the wind, but hanging out there for hours left him exposed.
“My pants, please,” he says, still trying to flex his hands.
I look up at him. His eyes are soft, sky blue. I nod, like it doesn’t bother me in the least. I’ve never taken a guy’s pants off before, and this certainly isn’t how I expected it would go down: on top of mountain, in the bathroom of a crashed plane, in the middle of a blizzard.
I put my hands on his jeans. There’s a belt that I loosen and then pull off. I unbutton the fly and unzip. I put my fingers around his waist and grip both sides. I turn my head to the side and yank down as hard as I can. He lifts one leg and I pull the pant leg over his foot, then the next.
“And these-they’re soaked,” he says, feeling the back of his briefs.
My eyebrows go up instinctually and I say, “Really?”
He puts his hands out in front of me and for the first time I see how red and bruised they are.
“Okay, sorry. I’m gonna close my eyes.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “Sorry. I apologize for the weirdness.”
I close my eyes and slide my hand beneath the band at his waist and slowly pull them down as he steps out. I grab the long johns and open them up so he can step in them, which he does. I stand up and pull them over his crotch. I sneak a peek and feel a flush spread across my face. I never look up, afraid he’ll see me blushing.