Towering - By Alex Flinn Page 0,52
my arms.
“Missed you,” I said. “I couldn’t make it in the rain.”
“I knew.” She shivered. “Cold here.”
“I brought you some stuff.” I gestured to the coat I’d stolen. “There’s a hat and gloves in the pocket. I thought we could play in the snow. Have you ever done that?”
“I think, maybe when I was a little girl. I remember building a snowman with Mama. But then, she got scared and we had to go inside.”
“We can build a snowman. Put it on.”
I picked up the coat and held it so she could step into it. Then, the hat and gloves. Once dressed, she twirled around, modeling, and I wondered if that was some instinct all girls had, twirling, modeling, even if they’d never seen a television or even met another girl before.
I had a strange sense of déjà vu, looking at her, as if I’d seen that girl in that coat before. I shook it off. Of course I hadn’t.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Adorable.”
I kissed her. The wind picked up the fresh snow and flung it around us, and I felt like this was the first day I’d ever lived, like Tyler and Nikki and everyone at home didn’t exist, and we were the only people in this beauty of a white world. “So what should we do?”
31
Rachel
I stared around at the green and white trees, feeling the ache in my muscles, the cold on my face. The air was silent, waiting.
I looked at Wyatt. “I’d like to make a snow angel.”
“A snow angel?”
“Yes. I’ve read about them in books. You lay on the ground and flap your arms until it looks like wings and a full skirt.”
“I know what a snow angel is.” Wyatt glanced around. “It just takes a lot of room. We sure can’t go on the lake.”
“Please. If I made one, I could see it from my tower, even after you leave. There’s a clear spot back there, behind those trees. I can see from the window.”
I suddenly realized I’d staked it out. I’d been doing it for years, planning my escape, thinking of how it would be when I left. Why had I never tried it before? Was I so afraid of falling, of dying?
I had no life to lose. Until now. I breathed deeply, letting the world into my lungs.
It was as if saving Wyatt from the ice showed me that I could do something, that I wasn’t helpless, worthless after all.
I grabbed his arm. “Come this way!” I felt like a different girl.
“You show me then,” he said, laughing. “I’ll follow you.”
“I will!” I knew there was a clear path nearby. I’d been tracing it and retracing it.
“We have to pass that tree.” I gestured toward the big one, the one that had always frightened me as a child, its gnarled branches resembling a monster. It almost completely blocked the path.
I reached behind me for Wyatt’s hand. He grabbed mine, squeezed it.
After we passed the monster tree, there would be two more. Then, the clearing would become visible. It was so incredible to think I’d be there, in person.
The only thing Wyatt had not brought was warm shoes. But I ignored my frozen feet as I pushed through the snowy tree limbs, then held them for him.
As he clambered through, one branch slipped from my grip. It sprung back, hitting him in the face and sending a pile of snow onto him as well. “Oh, sorry.”
“You did that on purpose!” But he was laughing.
“No, I didn’t!”
“Okay. Just let me hold the next one for you.”
“Not a chance.” I ran as fast as I could toward it. Which wasn’t very fast because of the snow. I had never walked in anything like it before. At least, that I remembered. The snow was white and sparkly with a hard crust on top. But when you stepped on it, your foot sank down, down, and you had to lift it high to get out. Wyatt was gaining on me.
He grabbed me. “Let me go first, actually. Not very gentlemanly to make you do all the pushing.”
“You just want to get back at me.” I struggled against him, and then, I reached the tree.
“Maybe,” he said.
I pulled up a huge, snow-covered branch, held it back, and then, again, flung it in his face. “Gotcha!”
Even though that time, he must have known it was coming, he didn’t duck. He let it hit him full in the face. “You think you’re so funny!”
I laughed. “I’m hilarious.”
He started to