“There’s an escape lane ahead that I’m going to use, but it’s going to be bumpy. I want you to hold on as tight as you can and breathe, trust me. You are brave. You got it. “I don’t know if he’s talking to me or to himself.” You got it? Do you trust me? “His voice is strong now, high-pitched, so different from the soft, murmured tones I’m used to from him.
-Yes of course. I trust you.
He looks at me quickly and nods.
The next few moments pass in deathly silence, with white knuckles and bated breath. It is an almost ethereal moment. As if I were watching a slow motion video in which we are heading towards death.
When the lane appears through the thick snow, jutting sharply over the mountainside, I bite the inside of my cheek.
It’s very steep.
I know that’s what it’s about, but that doesn’t stop abject terror from blooming in my chest.
I close my eyes as we crash into the gravel of the road. The impact shakes the truck and my body as Jasper pulls us to safety. Or so I hope. I can’t look, but I haven’t noticed any of us tipping over or crashing, so that’s a win.
In a matter of seconds we are no longer moving. The truck stops on the steep slope and, with a firm hand, Jasper hits the emergency brake before gripping the steering wheel tightly again.
The episode lasted a few moments, but it seemed like hours. My whole body vibrates, my chest hits me so hard with the strong beating of my heart that it seems like my vision is rattling.
-Jesus Christ. Holy shit. Are you OK? I whisper all my favorite curse words, let go of the handle, and place a trembling hand on my chest.
After a few seconds, there’s no response, so I turn to look at Jasper. His hands are clenched and his entire body looks like stone. He is a statue, so still that I can barely see him breathing.
“Jasper?”
His strong nose points forward and his skin is the color of crisp white printer paper, as if all the blood has left his body.
Jas. “I touch him timidly and squeeze his shoulder, but he doesn’t respond. Suddenly I’m less scared about our situation and more about him. You are scaring me.
His jaw flexes and he swallows, but his eyes remain fixed on the windshield, the wind howling as the tall, dark pines sway and the white snow swirls around us.
He’s in shock, I can tell that. And although I am not a psychologist, I imagine that this event was too similar to the day we were talking about.
The day everything fell apart.
Because the man next to me looks traumatized.
Without thinking, I unbuckle my belt and do a few quick movements. I take his hand off the wheel and climb into his lap, straddling his legs, trying to get him to look at me and not at the windshield, as if he were frozen in time… another time.
My hands rest on his shoulders and I give him a little shake.
Jasper. Look at me.
His eyes don’t move and panic takes over me. I carefully remove the cap and throw it into the passenger seat. It’s too hard to see from under the wing, and deep down, I know that’s why he always wears it.
He constantly tries to blend in, but even when he hides, I see him.
I run my palms over the tops of his shoulders and up the sides of his sturdy neck until my fingers intertwine with the hair on the back of his skull. Spearmint and eucalyptus. The aroma seduces me every time. It is a shock of electricity for my senses. I realize that if you wash your face with that soap you probably use it as shampoo too.
My fingertips move on their own, massaging the base of his skull. Am I taking liberties that I normally wouldn’t take? Of course. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and this whole petrified wood on a mountainside act has me stressed.
I press my forehead against his, trying to force his line of sight to mine.
Jas. I’m here. You kept us safe. Everything is going well. You did it very well. Thank you for always taking care of me.
He blinks once, and it’s as if he pushes away a layer of dark shadow that covered his irises. Where a moment ago they were bordering on black, they are once again the soft navy blue that I know so well, soft as velvet, illuminated with streaks of denim and small sparks of glitter where the light reflects.
Sloane. He sighs and a warm breath hits my throat. He doesn’t move his forehead, but he does move his hands. They shape my waist and I feel them tremble.
All I do is keep rubbing the back of his neck, calming him down in the only way I know how.
-Are you OK? His voice is gritty and wavers slightly into okay.
I nod, rolling my forehead against his.
-I’m fine. I’m fine.
He moves away and, as if he didn’t believe me, his hands take inventory of my body. They run down my body and squeeze my hip bones through my thin leggings. They slide down the top of my thighs, and he watches me entranced, as if he needs to see and feel it to believe it.
It’s not enough for me to tell you.
His breathing becomes labored and the tremors that started in his fingers take over his arms as well. When he looks me in the eyes, I nod, trying to reassure him. But that doesn’t stop him. His fingers run back up my legs and his hands spread across my back, enough to cover it completely.
“Doesn’t it hurt you at all?”
“It doesn’t hurt at all,” I confirm, staying deathly still, not wanting to break whatever moment it is right now.
He needs it and so do I. But in two very different ways.
As the warmth of his touch runs over my shoulders, I surrender to my body and let my eyelashes close for a brief moment. I delight in her soft hands, which slide in unison along my arms, checking each point as if it were the most precious glass doll.
-You are safe. “I don’t know if he says it to me or to himself.”
But I say it anyway.
-I am safe.
When he reaches my wrists, which are on either side of his neck, he grabs them and meets my gaze again. Inhale for four seconds. And exhale for four seconds.
And we only exist in each other’s eyes. Locked up. Loaded.
“Are you sure your nose doesn’t hurt?” He asks me about my nose, but he looks at my lips.
My tongue runs over them as I try to calm my nerves. This moment is intensely intimate.
I’ve had a lifetime of intimate moments with Jasper, but none of them have ever felt like this, with the air around us thick and heavy and hot.
Pushing us together somehow.
His finger runs across the bridge of my nose. It’s barely a touch. It’s a whisper.
“Does it hurt, Sloane?”
I watch his lips come together and part to form the words. And God, I want to kiss him. I want him to kiss me. I want this moment to never end. I helplessly want to live in this truck, in the snow, on top of a mountain with him and never leave.
My eyelashes flutter, and I tilt my chin down little by little to prevent our lips from aligning, to avoid doing something that will embarrass me… or worse, ruin us.
We are so close. Close enough for him to… place a soft kiss on the tip of my nose and steal my breath in the process.
My eyes lock onto his. Very open. Shocked.
“I’m sorry I threw that at you.”