As the lightless days passed and we stayed buried in the snow, I found myself unable to stir from my nest of warm blankets. I'd wasted a large chunk of funds on this disappointing trip. There had been good moments, for instance, the three day long game of Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. What was a silver lining, was now a lead bar weighing heavy on us. The shared air we passed between us so carelessly, wasting the dwindling few breaths of fresh air, fell stale between us.
I was once grateful for his cheery spirits, but his jaunty tunes turned to crashing chants of smug contentment. Of course he could afford to slack, he had nothing to lose. He should be grateful he's here at all. I regret the resentment that grew between us, we thought we knew everything.
Each day came grudgingly, although when mountain rescue finally came I'd realized how short of a time we'd actually been there. It felt like it would never end, and then it ended.
The winter warmed into spring, and what time should have healed, I kept picking at, leaving my heart an infected scab. Fiddleford was persistent in trying to mend things. He didn't understand, the problem wasn't him and his ever accommodating kindness. It was me and all my failures looming over me, threatening to topple down and render every sacrifice I made to be here useless. So I lost myself in the work, pushing myself in my studies, practically living out of the library. I'd stay through the summer and take on extra courses. Fiddleford was finally heading home, and we had an encounter of the awkward kind.
He'd been packing up the last of his things when I'd come in, head lodged in a comic. We crashed into each other, knocking the glasses clean off my face. In a panic I patted the ground around me. Fiddleford the gentleman he was, grabbed my shoulder firmly.
"Here," he said, his voice commanding me to hold steady.
"I reckon you're gonna break somethin'" Fiddleford chuckled. I flinched as he placed the cool metal frames against my skin, pushing them in place. He gave my head a playful smack, and my heart caught in my throat.
"Watch where you're going, what do you New Jersey folk say? I'm walking here" Fiddleford said in a mocking tone, his thick accent not quite disappearing behind a botched east coast accent.
"New York," I murmured.
"What's that now?" He called, returning to his things.
"That's what they say in New York, not New Jersey and no one even says that yet," I said a little louder. He turned to look back at me, "huh," is all he said.
"So I reckon I won't be seeing you for a while then," he said.
"Yeah, I reckon," I said poking fun at his mannerisms.
"Well I think that," he said, stuttering through his words "Well, it would be nice," he continued fighting to find some courage to say what he wanted.
"What is it?" I asked mildly annoyed.
"I'm just wondering if it might be nice to spend some time together before I left," he said, "like the old days" he quickly added in the last part.
I didn't say anything, I just buried myself deeper into the comic. I could feel his eyes boring into me. I heard him sigh from behind my book, grateful for somewhere to look other than at him, but he cut through my screen of privacy, pulling my comic from me.
"Just spend this last day with me. I can distract you. I'm here for you," he said pleading with me. I can distract you. Somewhere along the road a thread was tugged out of place, and I found myself unraveling and free falling. Was it when I failed at the cabin, or before that when I started drinking? Was it when Stanley left, or was it when I was born? I was somewhere deep in my mind, Fiddleford could never reach me here. He held onto me like he was trying to pull me from it. I'm a bad person, I'm used to the guilt, what's one more person to let down?
"I have to go," I said, walking away, and leaving him alone in our room.
