The One Without Words

❀ chapter thirty-five | birthday stone ❀

Jack pulled my face toward his, and despite the voice of reason in my head warning me that someone or something would come out of the trees, creep up on us in the dark, I didn't stop him. I didn't want to stop him.

Instead, I leaned into the kiss. Pressed my body against his until I became less aware of the looming wilderness and more aware of the strange alchemy going on inside me—the feeling of falling and flying at the same time, a lightness expanding in my chest until I could barely breathe.

Talking really was overrated. Any miscommunication, words unsaid in the silent chasms between us vanished as we collided. My arms wrapped around his midsection. His hands tangled in my hair. Just being so close to him was dizzying.

I had to give it to him... Jack had moves. His social skills might need work, but this? 10/10.

He let out a groan, and I realized I'd accidentally touched his injured arm.

I pulled away. How long had that lasted? Ten, twenty seconds? It felt a lot longer than that. Somehow a lot shorter, too. Though the darkness was the same, my eyes flickered open, willing the distance between us to disappear again.

Any cheap thrill from before would never do it for me again.

I cleared my throat. "We should. Um. Take another look at your arm."

He turned on the light on his phone. It illuminated us like a spot light as we stared at each other, wide-eyed and stunned. Talk about a wake up call. The reality of our circumstances—hell, the reality of what we'd just done in the dark—dawned upon us and the whole forest at that. Same trees. Same snow melting into slush. Same silence. Same corner of the universe carved out just for us.

"What are you doing?" I murmured. "You should try to conserve the battery."

Translation: Please turn off that light so you don't see how flustered I am right now.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out. A necklace. With a small, golden rock hanging from the chain.

"This is citrine or... yellow quartz," he began. "It's amethyst but heated up, so the purple turns yellow. Which makes it not real citrine. I've been looking for real citrine for my collection, but I haven't found any yet. It's the stone of prosperity and money and success. I thought... you would like it because of that."

"You're... giving it to me?"

He nodded. I stared at him, the shadows of his face harsh in the dim light.

"That's the most thoughtful birthday gift ever," I said quietly. "And all I gave you was a lame rose."

"...I think I left it in the car."

"Don't worry. I'll get you a whole bouquet of roses once we're finally out of here."

My head spun. Since when was my life this surreal? I forgot about the cold as I floated up and away in a sea of emotions. The silly smile on my face, the warmth swelling in my chest... Old Romy would've pushed it away into the void of her heart, but stuck-in-the-wilderness-with-her-crush Romy couldn't bring herself to push it away. Not when said crush looked at her the way he did, shy and hesitant.

"Well," I said. "Are you going to put the necklace around me now?"

I turned. Shivered as his cold fingers touched the back of my neck.

"There's something else," he said as he pulled away.

From his pocket, he took out a folded paper, soggy with snow. The ink bled, and as he tried to unfold the creases, it came apart in his hands.