Jade & Trina's Very Strange Christmas

A Very Strange Place

Jade was dozing. Somewhere in her brain, she knew it wasn't a good thing, though. She knew it was because of the cold.

She wasn't sure how long it had been since the car died. The snow hadn't let up. The wind howled. At some point, the girls slipped out of the their individual blankets and moved closer together, going so far to wrap their arms around each other and then wrap the blankets around them, to try and trap in their body heat.

But as the cold worked its way into their skin and bones and organs, even that precious little heat seemed to be waning. The cold kept them from breathing deeply. The lack of oxygen made them tired. And so, Jade dozed.

No. Wake up. Come on.

"Trina."

Silence.

"Trina! Wake up."

Trina grumbled. "Leave me alone," she said. "I'm dreaming of me and Johnny Depp."

"Come on," Jade said, poking her in the side. She grumbled again but her eyes slid open.

"Is it morning?"

"I don't know. Check your phone, see if your text went through."

Trina shifted under the blankets and pulled the phone out. No signal. Jade's heart sank.

"I seriously can't believe it hasn't stopped snowing," she said. "I hate that shit. That's why I live in California."

"Jade."

"What?"

"I want to tell you something."

Trina's ice-cold hand clumsily reached for Jade's face. Jade winced as those icy fingers guided her face to look into Trina's eyes.

"Get off me, you're freezing," Jade said. "Just tell me."

Trina took a deep breath. It seemed like a struggle. Enough of a struggle that Jade was suddenly very concerned.

"Since we're going to freeze to death up here..." Trina began.

"No one's freezing to death." Even Jade didn't believe herself anymore.

"Okay, we're not," Trina said. "But since we are...I just wanted to tell you, I think you're the prettiest, most talented woman I've ever met. More than my sister. More than Cat. More than anyone. And even though I've always been really jealous of you, because you're so much prettier and better than I am...I've always kind of admired you for it."

Jade's heart might have melted if it weren't freezing in her rib cage. Not in a million years would she have thought she'd ever be touched by something that Trina Vega would say. She'd been wrong about a lot of things in her time, but maybe none so drastically as her judgment of the elder Vega.

"You don't have to be nice to me because we're going to die up here," she said through chattering teeth.

"I'm not, you jerk," Trina said. "I meant every word."

Jade smiled, but she doubted Trina could see it in the dark and half-buried under their cold blankets.

"Well," Jade said. "Since we might actually die up here, I guess I'll tell you something too." Jade paused and took a breath. Man, it was getting tough to do that. "No one likes you."

"You ass," Trina said.

"Let me finish," Jade said. "No one likes you, but you don't let that stop you. You put yourself out there no matter what people think or tell you. You're always who you are and you never apologize for it. I think that's...amazing. I hide behind my anger and the threats...I don't want to show how I really feel. You just do it no matter what. You're brave in a way I could never be. So I guess...what I just said isn't true, about no one liking you. I do. A little." Jade felt both relieved and nauseous to have gotten all that out. "And if we somehow survive this, I'll deny I said any of it. Got it?"