Saving Winter

Chapter 4

"Okay Winter, do you have an empty suitcase anywhere?" Cass calls from her spot lounging on my bed trying to fix a broken toaster. 
"Um... I might have one somewhere, yeah. Do you really think this is a good idea, Cassie?" I pause halfway through dusting my dresser.
My days off are few and hard to come by, but when I have one, Cass always takes the time to come hang out and help me with housework.
"Yes." Cass sits up, suddenly serious, "We have to work on getting you out of here, girl." 
I catch my bottom lip between my teeth, debating.
"Please, it'll make me feel better. We can just toss in your old clothes that you don't wear." Cass's eyes are dark and stormy.
"Why do you think that this is so important?" I've lived here in this house for nineteen years and survived it. Suddenly everyone is acting like the world is going to cave in on me. 
"I don't know, Win. I just... feel it in my bones." Cass scrunches up her nose.
"You sound like my grandma." I mutter as I shuffle to the hall to swipe a suitcase.
"I heard that! My intuition is always right. Well... most of the time. Except when it comes to this stupid toaster." Cass hollers after me.
I grin as I pull the cord that releases the ladder leading into the dusty attic.
I head up and snatch a suitcase as fast as I can, trying not to think of all the spiders that have made their cozy homes up here.
When my feet hit solid ground again, I hear the front door slam and I shove the attic stairs back up in lightning speed and run to my room to shove the dusty treasure in my closet.
"Winter?" Phoenix's voice rings through the house. 
"Yeah?" I call back down the stairs, but I don't miss the blush that creeps up Cass's face at the prospect of my brother's presence. 
All the relief that flooded my veins at the sound of my brother's voice over my father's is short lived when I hear his voice echo once more, "I need help. And bring bandages." 
Both Cass and I fly out of the room and race down the stairs.
"What's wrong?" I call out, suddenly panicked.
I hear Phoenix's voice, but it doesn't register in my mind.
All I notice is the river of blood dripping down his arm.
The floor suddenly seems to tilt and I feel the blood draining from my face in response.
"Winter? Winter, it's not as bad as it looks." I want to go grab wet washcloths and bandages, but my feet are rooted to the ground in shock.
Cass is in a flurry of motion beside me, a first aid kit in her hands.
"Phoenix, what did you do?" Cass guides him to a chair and forces him to sit down.
"Just... got distracted by a horse that got spooked and I caught my arm in the barbed wire fence. It's really not as bad as it looks, it just bleeds a lot." Cass just nods calmly and begins to clean and bandage his arm. 
I can't force my arms or legs to work, but my mind is spinning a thousand miles per hour, the dread settling in the pit of my stomach churning.
Phoenix isn't clumsy, and Phoenix doesn't get distracted. 
That's survival instinct number one around here, because distraction leads to mistakes.
And mistakes can be your undoing and lead to a pretty hefty beating.
"It really isn't bad, does it hurt?" 
"A little." Phoenix hisses through clenched teeth. 
"I think it'll heal fine, but you ought to rest for awhile today. You lost quite a bit of blood." Cass informs him.
"I can't, Cassandra. I don't have time." Phoenix pulls his arm away as soon as she finishes.
"One hour, Phoenix." Cass's voice is clipped and tight, leaving no room for arguing.
Cass is good at that.
My eyes turn to the window and I see my dad storming through the waist-high grass and jumping into his pickup to take off to town.
The dark look in my father's face scares me.
"Nix? Was dad angry with you?" My eyes shoot lasers at my brother, seeking the truth.
The tips of his ears turn red as he turns his face away, "No, of course not."
Cass doesn't miss the implication or my brother's lies.
"Phoenix? Your dad did this to you?" She slides into the seat directly across from him and leans close, studying his face.
"It was my fault, okay? I challenged him." Phoenix clenches his jaw and takes a deep breath.
Impressive, actually, the way Cass can get answers. 
I can't help but feel a little snubbed. 
I walk over to the table and lower myself into a chair before my shaky limbs give way. 
Things have been escalating at an alarming rate, and I'm powerless to stop it.
"It isn't your fault," Cass is practically shaking with anger.
The room echos with the slapping of her palms on the table, "Alright, that's it. We're packing emergency bags for both of you."
I wince and prepare for Hurricane Phoenix.
He doesn't take to being bossed around very well.
"Okay." Phoenix wilts beneath Cass's gaze.
Even Cass looks a bit taken aback by his sudden willingness to go along with her crazy schemes, and her face softens, "Come on, I'll help you pack."

Twenty minutes later, Phoenix has a fully stuffed bag underneath his bed.
A feeling has lodged itself inside my heart, and I can't quite put a finger on what it is.
We actually have the means to run if we need to. We are packed.
It seems so real now, like escaping this prison is actually plausible. 
My head starts to throb with the thought.
All my life we've been stuck here. 
Fear is a huge enemy to battle, and even though I hate this house, this life.... it's familiar.
Would I actually be able to drop my life here and start over somewhere else?
"Winter?" Cass's voice pulls me from my thoughts and I struggle to refocus.
"Are you okay?" She shoves a glass of water at a stubborn Phoenix, and I watch the battle of the wills play out with amusement.
"Yeah, of course." I smile, but I can tell that she knows I'm not.
Nothing is okay. Nothing has been okay for years, but we do the best we can.
Cass finally sets the water down with a thump and snags my arm, "Let's go finish that treehouse, Winter. I've had enough of this stubborn boy." I can't help but laugh at Phoenix's face as we leave the confines of the house.
The treehouse is another thing I've been wanting to fix up a little, but I just haven't had the time. Well.... if I'm honest with myself, I just don't want to stir up the old memories.
But it's starting to fall apart in places, and if I want to preserve it, I need to push the feelings aside and fix it up.
"Watch out for the third step, it's loose. And there's a jagged nail up in the hatch, don't let it catch you." I call behind me as I climb up the steps to the small treehouse.
The beautiful, worn-out treehouse of my childhood. 
Phoenix, Erik, Cass, and I spent many, many wonderful summers in this treehouse. 
We used to dream about life and the future up in this sanctuary of ours.... reaching for the stars, Phoenix called it. 
I open the hatch and slide through with Cass right on my heels. 
"Alright, girl, what needs to be done here?" Cass stands up and surveys the small space with her hands on her hips. 
"We should go through these totes. They've been sitting up here collecting dust for two years." My breath catches on the last word. 
Two years since Erik left me without a word, without looking back.
"Win? Are you sure you want to do this today?" Cass rests her hand on my shoulder.
"I'm sure." I reach for the nearest tote and rip the lid off with vengeance.
Cass just nods and reaches for the next container, shuffling through it's contents.
"This one is all blankets, they need washed." Cass comments as she shuffles it towards the hatch.
"This one is board games and such. That can go back in the house, too." I set it on top of the one Cass set aside.
"What's in that one, Cass?" Silence answers me, and I swivel my head around to peer at my best friend.
With the way she's staring into that crate, you'd think it held the answers to all the world's problems.
"What is it?" I peek over her shoulder and my lungs forget how to work. 
Two innocent children stare back at me, encased in a black frame and forever frozen in time.
My hands tremble as I reach for the photograph. The first summer I met Erik.
What is this doing here? I don't remember storing any pictures up here.
I push it aside and several more frames with images from my past sit underneath it.
One at a time, I pull them out and examine them.
Erik and I in middle school.... at the beach.... at football games.... the last one the day of his graduation. 
It's a timeline, I realize, of our friendship.
I remember talking to Erik about hanging photos up here, but we'd never gotten around to it.
So how....?
It dawns on me that Erik must have come here on the night of his graduation to hang these and surprise me.
"Why didn't he finish this project?" I whisper, mostly a question for my own heart to wonder about.
"I don't know, lovey." Cass drapes a protective arm around me, as though by sheer will she can protect me from these memories. 
I haven't seen Erik since the day of his graduation.

We were supposed to meet at McDonalds to buy celebratory hot fudge sundaes, but I waited for nearly four hours and he never showed up. 
I'd called him and texted him frantically, afraid that something horrible had happened.
I'd borrowed a phonebook and called every single hospital within 250 miles, praying that he hadn't been in some sort of horrific accident and landed there.
Phoenix had to come pick me up that night, I was too hysterical to drive.
Halfway home, I started having trouble breathing, so Phoenix drove me to the ER.
I don't remember much of that night, just that I'd had the worst panic attack of my life and that they gave me so much medication that I was loopy.... which was better than desperate urgency of hysteria, I guess.
The only thing I remember with clarity was Phoenix's words- ones I wish with all my heart that I can forget now, but they're seared into my heart for the rest of my life.
"Hey sis...?" his eyes roved the room, the walls, the ceiling. Anywhere but my face. "Erik told me to tell you to quit calling and texting him, he said it's getting really annoying because it keeps freezing his phone."
That was the moment I realized that Erik was fine.... he just didn't want to take my calls.
Ten years of a friendship so close that I could read his mind with just one look... and he abandoned me without warning in one single day. 
The only explanation was routed through my brother, of all humiliating things to happen.
"It's getting really annoying...."
Looking back, that whole summer is a blur. 
I didn't want to get out of bed for weeks, I didn't want to go outside, didn't really want to carry on.
But Phoenix and Cass coaxed me out of my shell-shocked state and forced me to get back out into the 'real world'. 
Ever since then, I've shut the memories out, they're still just too painful for me to sort through.
So I survive the only way I know how: by pretending that it never happened and that it can't hurt me.