At first, I’d taken comfort in the single ring my cracked and smashed phone had registered from Rami. Then, as the day had gone on and no further sign of life had come down from the mountain, I’d started to panic. What if he’d been calling for help?
Worse, what if he’d been hurt and someone else had been calling to tell me?
Don’t catastrophise. You already know the landslip started further down.
Yeah, but—
Stop.
And I had to. My thoughts were too jumbled to make any sense. All I could do was put one foot in front of the other until the precarious path I’d staggered upside Christmas Mountain evened out into something that didn’t try to kill me every other step.
Rami. Get to Rami.
My foot caught on a rock. I pitched forward, hands hitting the deck for the umpteenth time. My palms were bloody and raw, at least, they looked it. Cold, remember? I couldn’t feel a thing.
Dazed, I came upright and kept moving, still waiting for the mountain to be kind to me. I tripped again and sighed as I went down like a sack of spuds. The fear that had carried me this far was muted, and I waited for the sharp impact of the ground. Pain was pain. It meant you were alive, right? And as long as I was alive, I had Rami.
IlovedRami. I’d tumble down this mountain a thousand times if I reached him on my next attempt.
But I didn’t fall. The bruising impact I’d resigned myself to never came and instead of a face full of dirt, I found myself spinning and spinning and spinning until I opened my eyes to a gruff curse, and the sweetest brown gaze I’d ever seen.
“Jesus fuck, you look like you’ve been in a landslide.”
In my hazy brain, it was hard to discern a couple of things. One: if Rami was genuinely annoyed. Two: if he was even real. A lazy chuckle fell out of me, distant and low. “I think I woke up in a landslide.”
“Are you awake now?”
“You tell me.”
Rami said something I didn’t catch, then my weight shifted and my feet didn’t feel like bricks anymore.
I couldn’t tell you what happened next. Just that the mountain disappeared. The cold ground gave way to rustic wooden floorboards, the frigid air to a roaring fireplace, and my hands regained sensation around a mug of something that smelt of chocolate and whisky.
Rami’s face solidified too. What I’d mistaken for anger was something else—something I recognised as the emotion that had carried me up the fell: fear. The real stuff, the kind that gripped your soul until something wonderful made it go away.
I put the mug down and reached for Rami, aiming for his face, but my cold-addled hands landed on his shoulders instead.
He caught them, squeezing them tight, and leaned close enough that I could smell him, that cinnamon and mystery scent that wasn’t so mysterious anymore. He smelt different now; dry humour, earnest compassion, and love. I’d told him I loved him, right? In between being stuck on a lorry for nineteen hours and waking up to forest dystopia, I was doubting everything.
“Fen.”
I blinked.
Rami said my name again and released my hands to cup my face in his warm palms. “Never mind. You can tell me later. But canItellyousomething before you fall asleep on me?”
“I’m not asleep.”
“Whatever. I love you, and I need you to know that.”
My head jerked up from where it had been fast descending to my chest hard enough to give me whiplash. “What?”
Rami laughed. “I said, I fuckingloveyou. And I’m sorry you didn’t know it until now.”
A beat of silence settled between us. My brain jolted to life, my heart too, but the rest of me wouldn’t comply. My eyes were so heavy it felt like they were melting into my face and I couldn’t quite believe that those sweet, sweet words were meant for me.
“Lie down,” Rami whispered.
“What?”