I shook my head, unable to finish.
"But I make you want to stop," he said quietly.
"Yes."
"Is that so bad?"
"It is when there's something I have to do. Something that can't wait."
He was silent for a long moment. His hands were still on my arms, warm through my layers, the only point of heat in this frozen world.
"Then let me help you do it."
"You don't know what you're offering."
"I don't care." His jaw tightened. "Whatever's up there, whatever you're trying to find—you don't have to face it alone. You don'tgetto face it alone. Not anymore."
"James—"
"I'm not leaving." His voice was steady, certain. "You can yell at me, you can push me away, you can tell me I'm an idiot. I don't care. I'm not leaving you."
The wind howled around us. The cold bit through my layers. And standing there, looking into the eyes of a man who'd followed me into the wilderness with inadequate gear and iron resolve, I felt something crack inside me.
Not break. Crack. Like ice in spring, making way for something new.
"You're an idiot," I said.
"I know."
"You're going to slow me down."
"Probably."
"If you die out here, I'll never forgive you."
"Fair."
I stared at him. He stared back.
And despite everything—despite the fear and the mission and the thousand reasons this was a terrible idea—I laughed.
It burst out of me, half-hysterical, carried away by the wind. James's face split into a grin, surprised and delighted, and suddenly we were both laughing, standing in the middle of nowhere with a mountain trying to kill us and nothing but each other to hold onto.
"You're insane," I gasped.
"You left campus to climb Denali alone in late season. I think we're both a little insane."
He wasn't wrong.
I pressed my hands against my face, trying to get my breathing under control. The laughter faded, leaving something else in its wake. Something that felt dangerously like hope.
"If we do this," I said slowly, "you have to listen to me. No arguments, no heroics, no trying to prove something. When I tell you to stop, you stop. When I tell you to go back, you go back. Understood?"
"Understood."
"I mean it, James. This isn't a hiking trail. One wrong step, one bad decision—"
"I know." He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers brushing my cheek. "I trust you."
