Taken

Chapter Twelve--JEREMIAH

“Jeremiah!”

          I could hear my name being carried in the wind and I shivered.  I knew I was probably just hearing things but then I heard it again and again, and it was a girl’s voice. 

          The snow was flurrying in sheets, blowing through the trees and swirling around the ground like a looming fog.  I sighed heavily, my breath coming out as an icy mist.  My tracks in the snow wouldn’t let me get away.  Denny was smarter than her own good.  She should have stayed.

-

          I screamed for his name.  I called it over and over, the cold settling in my throat and making it sting and my voice hoarse.  He needed to come back, he couldn’t leave me.  “Jeremiah!”

          I was cold.  I was freezing. We could do this together, we could make a lot of ground. He didn’t have to run away to tell me we were taking too long.  Why didn’t he say something?

          “Come back!”

-

          I shuffled along until I couldn’t stand the pitiful yelling any longer.  I stopped and turned, watching as her bright red coat came into view beyond the evergreen trees.  “Stop!” she screamed again, even though I had. She was trudging along with a desperate gate, limping with the weight of Haven wrapped tightly against her.  “Please, just—”

          I stared, her beauty even more apparent in the cloudy lighting.  Her dark hair blew from her face and my stomach clenched.  I couldn’t believe that I had ever left her.  I loved her.

          When she walked up, I braced for a slap or something, anything that would punish me for leaving her.  I was ashamed, and the fact that she didn’t do anything but look at me made me feel even sicker.

          “Are you going to say anything?” I asked, awkwardly.

          “I’d like to ask you the same thing.”  A tear glistened at the edge of her eye, although I didn’t know if it was real or the product of the cold.   

          “I’m sorry,” I breathed, but the words got lost in the snow, getting buried and blown away.

-

          I couldn’t ask why, because I knew why.  I couldn’t yell at him because I knew it would do no good.  I could see it written all over his face, he was sorry.  I could read his lips as he formed the words but nothing came out.  Truth was, I didn’t know what to say either, I was following without a known cause.

          Finally his shoulders drooped and he held out an arm, but I stayed a statue.  He wouldn’t win me over so fast, no way. 

          I swiped at the tear at the corner of my eye.  It was so blasted cold that my eyes were watering like crazy. It seemed like Haven was either asleep, or conveniently deciding to stay out of the conversation.  She hadn’t said much since I swept her up, and luckily she was helping me out on staying warm enough to keep going.  My own personal heater.

          “Why?” I asked anyways.  I wanted him to say it.  I wanted him to say it out loud, not write it in some letter.  I wanted him to be real.

-

          “Why?” I repeated, mainly to myself.  I knew why, I had a whole speech planned out, I knew exactly why.  But that was before I saw her face again.  Now I had no clue.