This wasn’t a fawn or a hungry little doe; the deer was as long as Reagan was tall—it must have weighed two hundred pounds.
“Shhhh,” Mason was saying. Maybe to the deer, maybe to Reagan. He was crouching behind it, which seemed like the dumbest decision in the world.
“Mason,” Reagan whispered.
“It’s all right,” he said, reaching for the trapped hoof. “Her other legs are on the other side of the fence.”
“I think that’s a buck.”
“She’s not a buck, look at her head.”
The deer struggled again. Mason froze. Reagan took another anxious step toward them.
When the deer stilled, Mason shot forward. He bent the tree back and grabbed the trapped hoof, lifting it free.
The deer pulled the leg forward—and in the same motion, kicked its other hind leg through the fence, catching Mason in the chest.
“Oof,” he said, falling backward.
The deer ran away, and Reagan ran to Mason. “Jesus Christ!” she shouted. “I told you!”
Mason was lying on his back in the snow. Reagan went down on her knees beside him. Her right knee hurt like a motherfucker. “Are you okay?” she asked, touching his arm.
His eyes were wide. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just surprised. Is she okay?”
“The deer?”
He nodded.
“She’s fine,” Reagan said. “She’ll live to spread ticks and disease, and destroy crops. Where’d she get you?”
He pointed to his shoulder.
“Can you move it?”
He rotated his shoulder. He was broader than he looked from a distance. Broad even under his coat. His neck was thick, and one of his ears was partly inverted, probably from an old injury. He had snow in his ears and his hair. His hair was much darker than Reagan’s, almost black.
“Did you hit your head?” she asked.
“No. I think I’m okay.”
“That was so stupid, Mason—that could have been your face.”
“I think I’m okay,” he repeated. He lifted his head up out of the snow and pushed up onto his elbows.
Reagan moved away from him.
He stood up, so she stood up, too. The pain in her knee flared. She hissed, shifting her weight off it.
Mason caught her arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Reagan looked up at him. He was an inch or two taller than her. Not very tall. “That could have been your neck,” she said. “That was so stupid.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“God damn it,” Reagan said. Her heart was still pounding.
Mason looked worried. There was snow on his glasses, and his mask had fallen below his nose. He was holding her arm. “I’m sorry, okay? Are you hurt?”
“No,” Reagan said. “I’m just . . .”
Mason was holding her arm. He was standing right next to her. She’d put herself this close to him, and she wasn’t even wearing a mask—where was her mask? He was so close, she could see his chest moving.
He reached up, slowly, with his free hand, and tugged his mask back into place over his nose.
Reagan watched him through the fog of her own breath.
Then she reached up, with her own free hand, to touch his cloth-covered cheek.
He didn’t move away.
She pulled his mask down. Slowly. Deliberately. Under his soft chin.
Mason watched her face. He wasn’t smiling, but she could still see his two front teeth.
Reagan made a fist in the suede collar of his coat and pulled herself closer to him.
His head dipped forward, more fiercely than she was expecting, to kiss her.
She closed her eyes and just let it happen for a few seconds—he was kissing her. He was in her space. Past her perimeter. This was the second person to touch her today. The second person in ten months. (If Reagan had known in February what was coming, she would have thrown her body into more arms.) (She didn’t need people the way other people needed people, but she still needed . . . something.) Mason squeezed her arm. She felt herself waking up. She pulled hard on his collar and kissed him hungrily—he tasted green. God. God damn it. He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her even closer. They were both wearing thick coats. Reagan was still wearing her ankle boots. Her feet were drenched. That deer was probably long gone. God damn it. Damn it. Damn it.
Mason pulled his mouth away. “Hey,” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
Reagan was fine.
“Reagan . . .”
She was fine. She was alive. She was lucky.
“You’re crying,” he said, loosening his arm, letting go of her elbow. “I’m sorry . . .”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s not . . .” She didn’t have the rest of that sentence. She was at a loss for everything. Mason was just standing there, with Reagan’s hand holding his collar. She pushed her face into his shoulder.
“All right,” he said, touching her back again gently. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. It maybe never would be. Reagan was crying like . . . like she was someone else. Someone she’d judge too harshly to pity.
“All right,” Mason was whispering.
Reagan let go of his collar. She lifted her head. She looked up at his face. She didn’t remember him from high school. She shook her head but couldn’t find anything useful in it.
She took a step away from him and thought about apologizing, but she wasn’t sure how. She ran back toward the house, past the deck and around the front.
When she rang the doorbell, her grandpa answered it.
Christmas 2021
The house was full of Reagan’s relatives.
It still felt surreal to Reagan, to be this close to people. It still felt unsafe.
But her grandfather had decided it was probably as safe as it was going to get. Half the family was vaccinated, he argued, and the other half had already had Covid—a few of them had had both. “I’m tired of waiting for it to get better, honey. It feels like we should all get together before it gets worse.”
Grandpa had just gotten his booster shot, and he was feeling invincible.
Reagan couldn’t imagine that feeling.
She’d spent too much of the last two years feeling paranoid and vulnerable. She’d gotten through Thanksgiving at her mom’s house by sitting next to an open window. And she got through most other social situations by avoiding them. She was still working remotely, by choice. And she still used the drive-up lane for groceries.
She’d tried going out with her friends a few times, this summer, when the future had felt brighter—but even then, it was hard not to look around a crowded bar and wonder how everyone there had spent the last year. Had they been the ones making it all worse?
Her friends said she was bitter. Levi said she had PTSD.