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“Sure, I’d love to talk. What do you have on your mind?” I ask. My own mind is reeling with possibilities. Is he about to ask me to be in a relationship with him? My belly flutters for the millionth time since we started this little excursion. I really can’t stop thinking about him… us.

“I’ve really only been in one serious relationship,” Finn says.

“Define serious.”

“More than a fling. There had been a few guys in college I hooked up with, but they weren’t serious, and I never intended them to be,” he says.

“More like experimenting with my own sexuality and my likes and dislikes. But… there was this one guy my sophomore year in college who… well, we got serious.”

“Were you in love?” I ask.

He shifts around uncomfortably in his sleeping bag and then turns his head to face me, a look of pain clearly etched across his brow.

“I didn’t mean to bring anything up you didn’t want to talk about,” I say.

“No, it isn’t that.” Finn rolls to his side and looks me in the face. “The guy’s name is David Baldwin. On paper, he was perfect. Handsome, rich, funny, beautiful smile, the life of the party… you get the picture.”

I nod. “But?”

“I’ve never talked to anyone about this before,” Finn says. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this out loud.”

“It’s okay,” I say, trying my best to read his face, wanting to anticipate what he is about to confess. “Take your time.”

“David turned out to be the wrong person for me, and the problem was we were toxic together.” Finn rolls to his back once again as he stares up at the ceiling of the tent. “Things were really great between us for almost our entire sophomore year. But then things started getting ugly.”

“Ugly, how?”

“We started fighting. Couldn’t really go anywhere without one of us pissing the other one off.

Usually, it was him getting upset with me.

He would say I was looking at another guy or flirting with our waiter.

” He huffs out a breath and shakes his head.

“No matter what I did, I was always wrong… it was always my fault.”

“Sounds like he was gas-lighting you.”

“Ended up seeing a counselor my junior year and she said the same thing. She urged me to step away from the relationship for fear I would hurt myself. I was a real mess, Wyatt. A total, fucking mess.”

I clear my throat. “But you got away from him. That’s what matters. You were strong enough to recognize the problem and you left. Good for you.”

He turns back to me, tears in his eyes. “He hit me.”

“He what?” I sit straight up in my bag. “How badly did he hurt you?” I’m seeing red. I have this insane need to strangle this David asshole.

Finn puts a hand to his cheek as if he’s reliving the moment. “I told him I was leaving, that we needed to be apart, and he punched me. Right here,” he says, pointing to his chin. “And you know what the sick thing is?”

I was breathing hard with anger and didn’t quite know what to say.

“Every now and then, I find myself missing him.” Finn wipes the tears from his cheeks. “After the gas-lighting, screaming matches, multiple cheating episodes, and even being physically abused, I still miss him. What kind of fucked up loser am I? Am I even capable of having a real relationship?”

I slip out of the sleeping bag and rush over to his side, taking him into my arms. He begins crying into my chest, big sobs, and shuddering breaths.

I simply hold him, gently rocking back and forth as he lets out the years of pent-up emotions.

As for me, I want to scream, punch the side of the tent, ride right back to the Wildwood and find that shithead and kick his ass.

But all I can really do is hold him. Try my damnedest to make him feel whole, loved, and wanted.

I’m not sure how long we sit there, Finn in my arms, but eventually his breathing normalizes, and I hear him begin to softly snore.

He’s fallen asleep, feeling safe in my arms. To have him feel such a way, sends emotional shockwaves through my soul.

I know from this moment on, I will do whatever I need to do to keep him safe and make sure he is happy.

I lower him back onto the cot and zip his sleeping bag, making sure he has no open areas to let in a cold draft.

Once I am sure he is settled and content, I reach over and turn off the light.

Taking one last look at a sleeping Finn, I push some stray hairs away from his face and place a soft kiss on his forehead.

I get back into my own sleeping bag and zip back into the warmth it provides.

After this evening’s revelations, I don’t know how, but I feel sleep approaching.

Within seconds, I’m feeling the weightlessness that accompanies sleep and drift toward my dreams.

I wake to the sound of howling. The severity is both intense and terrifying.

Blackness fills the tent as it is clearly still nighttime.

My first thought is wolves. Have we been tracked by a pack?

Are they coming in for the kill? But the sound never stops.

Wolves howl for a few seconds but eventually run out of breath. This is different.

Then it dawns on me. The fabric of the tent is shaking and banging about—wind. I reach for my radio and turn it on. It crackles to life and I tune it to the weather station.

“Unexpected polar vortex. Shifted overnight. Cold arctic air plunging into the valley. Overnight lows should bottom out twenty degrees below zero with winds coming directly out of the north at twenty miles per hour—gusts up to forty. The National Weather Service is advising all to seek shelter immediately as this is a life-threatening storm system that will bring heavy snow, high winds, and deadly cold to the entire listening area.”

“Fuck,” I say under my breath.

“Is everything okay?” Finn sits up in his sleeping bag and wipes the sleep from his eyes. “Why is it so windy?”

“A storm system changed course and is headed our way, Finn. We need to find better shelter. From what the weather station is saying, it doesn’t sound like this tent will hold up to what’s coming.”

“Where should we go?” His eyes are wide open and fear radiates off him.

“There’s a cave about a quarter mile back down the trail, toward the lodge. It’s higher up on the cliff side, but it will definitely offer us protection.”

He nods, a look of determination forming in his expression. “Let’s do it.”

We both get dressed quickly and gather our provisions inside the tent and put them into our packs.

I jam as much as I can into the pack, barely able to close the zipper, but there is no telling at this point what we will be facing out here.

Forecasts and weather warnings are great, but they aren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

Things could get even worse than predicted.

The tent continues to be buffeted by high winds and incredibly strong gusts.

In fact, a few seconds after I push the bag to the front of the tent and turn to help Finn finish getting his ready, the entire shelter nearly goes airborne.

One of the support straps that keeps the tent in place snaps. “We have to go, Finn. Now.”

I unzip the tent and an icy cold, snow-filled gust of wind envelops us. My breath is sucked from my lungs, and I gasp. As I turn, Finn is doubled over by the blast of cold air, breathing hard. I reach for him and pull him with me as I leave the relative safety of the tent.

The wind is so loud, I have to yell to be heard overtop it. “Look.” I point to the quads. They are both completely covered over by a snowdrift.

Finn and I run and begin digging down into the snow, trying to find the top of the machine.

If we can uncover it enough, we might be able to get them started, but I am starting to have my doubts.

The batteries are probably encased in ice.

If so, we are going to need to escape on foot.

Our best attempts to uncover our quads, digging with gloved hands and no tools, comes to an end with us lying breathless atop the snowbank.

I shake my head. “We need to go… now.” I look up into the sky as the trees whip back and forth in the gales of wind. “We aren’t safe here.”

I stand and help pull Finn up with me. We secure our packs on our backs and begin our march toward the caves I know are out here from my many adventures as a kid.

My singular focus is keeping Finn safe and the only way to do that is to make sure we both find shelter before it’s too late.

Before we’ve both frozen solid amongst the Alaskan snow drifts.