Uncle Jasper sets my bag on the floor, the old hardwood creaking under his weight. He looks around the room. “If you need anything, just let me know,” he says. “All right?”
I only nod and stare at my comforter. The bed calls to me, whispers for me to hide away under the covers and sleep the days away until I wake up, realizing everything was a dream. I want this whole summer to be over with. When school starts up, there will be more distractions, things to take my mind off everything that’s gone wrong.
Uncle Jasper pauses at the door.
“Harper?” I look up, trying not to show how I feel. “I’m really glad you’re here. I know it may not seem that way, but I am.”
Despite everything, I smile. “I think I am, too.”
“You sure?”
“No, but it’s like you said. I made a decision.” Then I say, “And I actually do need something. Do you still have that extra TV that used to be in the guest room?”
He raises an eyebrow and steps back into the room. “Yes? You want it in here?”
“Yeah, it’s just … I game.”
“You game? What do you mean, like, Nintendo 64?”
I try not to laugh. “No, like Xbox. I play with other people online. And you don’t have to worry about me staying up here all day—I limit myself. You still have wifi, right?”
Now he’s the one who wants to laugh, but he finally shrugs and says, “Yes, I still have wifi, and I’ll move the TV later tonight.”
At least something will be somewhat normal.
After he leaves, I unpack my clothes, and when I go to put my sweatshirt into the third drawer, I find a picture from my last summer here, laying exactly where I left it. I never took it with me, because I felt it belonged in this house more than anywhere else. And it does. Everything about this picture is proof of how much I loved it here.
Uncle Jasper’s property line borders with our neighbor’s house on the other side of the woods. A river runs halfway between our houses, and that was where I found my company every summer. If it wasn’t for the Jackson kids, my summers here wouldn’t have been so memorable. My aunt and uncle were fun, but a kid can only hang out with grownups for so long.
The picture was taken in the yard under the oak trees, the three of us hanging off each other’s shoulders, grinning like nothing could make that day better. They labeled Uncle Jasper and Aunt Holly as their Aunt and Uncle, too, since they never saw theirs and they were around enough for them to be exactly that.
I stare at Libby, and then Kale. Bryce was always doing something with school or hanging out with his older friends, so it was always just the three of us.
Looking at Kale again, even after all these years, sparks something inside. His smiling face and single dimple. And this is a picture from six years ago—I can’t help but wonder what he’s like now, and how much he’s changed. Because my parents couldn’t have any more kids after me, I hadn’t known what it felt like to have siblings until I met Libby. She was the sister I never had. But Kale—I felt something entirely different about him.
He makes me look forward to the days here.
Maybe this wasn’t a mistake after all.
2.
Kale
Everything about this place is cold.
It’s in the air around me. In the earth underneath my boots. Through every breath I take.
I hate it.
My numb fingers fumble with the cigarette as I try to get it out of the package. When I finally manage, I bring it to my lips and cup my hands around the match, waiting for it to catch. My hands shake too much.
I just want a smoke, and even this seems too hard.
“Here, let me try.” Adams crouches in front of me, leaning his rifle against his shoulder so he can use both hands. I can only see parts of him where the moonlight catches breaks between the clouds.
I give him the matches, just wanting the damn thing lit. And when it does, my hands don’t shake as much. I take a long drag and offer it to Adams, who does the same, half smiling when he hands it back.
“Where did you say you got these again? They’re terrible.” He settles down next to me, his leg pressing against mine.
I tell him. “I’m not saying it’s true, but I might have found it lying next to a Kraut officer last week.”
“Just lying there, huh? No wonder they’re so bad. The Germans don’t know the meaning of a good cigarette.” He laughs—right not to believe me. I wanted to smoke so bad, I went as low as searching for them. Most guys do it—to find watches or other souvenirs—but it was my first time.
I never realized how cold a dead body could become.
We sit in our foxhole and pass the cigarette between us until it’s gone. There’s something about sharing a smoke—something I could never explain. And because I’m not alone here, next to someone who’s going through the same thing, it’s the warmest I’ve been all night. I hear the guys five yards from us, in their own hole, smoking their own cigarettes, talking about the girls they left behind back home and about better times.
When I think of home, I don’t think the same way these guys do. In this world—in this time—I have no home.
And the place I call home in my own time isn’t much of one anyway.
“What did you say your sister’s name was again?” Adams asks.
“Libby.” I stuff my hands into my armpits. A sad attempt to warm them.
“And how much younger is she than you?”
I glance over, my eyes shooting a glare. “Lay off. We might share a hole, but that won’t last long if you keep asking about my sister.”
He laughs and it vibrates through his chest. With his shoulder pressed against mine, I feel every chuckle. It makes the night a bit warmer.
“It’s all right,” he says. “When I save your ass one of these days, you’ll have to introduce me. It’s in the code of conduct.”
“Really,” I say.
“I kid you not,” Adams says. But he can’t keep his face from breaking into a grin.
After a while, I feel him drift off to sleep, his chest rising and falling slower and slower like it suddenly might stop. But it doesn’t. He keeps breathing and the night wears on. The snow rains down on us, cold and silent, making the forest around us a forbidden land.
I don’t know how the rest of the guys do it, but it’s almost impossible for me to sleep at all in these holes. In this place.
My heart pounds too hard when I think of them out there. When they could bear down at us at any moment with their guns raised. Shooting through us like we’re paper mache. In these woods, in this hole, there is nothing else I can think of.
Sometimes I try to think of home to make things more bearable. Of my sister and brother, from back before everything turned for the worse. Of my only friend—the only person who hasn’t given up on me. It’s hard to think about them when they don’t even exist here.
Here, everything is cold.
Even my thoughts.
A few hours before dawn, I’m finally exhausted enough to sleep. It happens while thinking of past summers and a girl I can hardly remember in this place.