He pushes on toward the carcass of the plane and we enter from the far side. I stand and watch Paul as he grabs his yellow backpack. I was right: this is his bag. He opens the bag and digs into it, pulling out a little black notebook. He pauses and stares at it for a moment and then tucks it into the lining of his jacket and slings the backpack onto his back.
“I forgot about this,” he says, pointing to his backpack. “I’ve got wet matches in here. We’ll be good.”
He looks around and takes in what lies before him. The open-ended cabin, the swirling wind. There’s no protection here. He looks up to the sky.
“It’s getting dark-is this it?” he says. “We’ll fucking freeze to death here.”
“No,” I say. “The tail, it has the bathroom. There’s a door.”
“Which way?”
I point toward the direction of the tail. He walks past me without so much as thanks or an excuse me or good work. Despise doesn’t quite describe the deep, roiling hatred that I am developing for Paul Hart.
On his way out of the cabin, he spots Margaret and he holds up her hand, pointing to the ring. “That’s a whopper!”
A rage explodes inside of me and I’m unable to hold back.
“Shut up,” I shout. “They’re dead. She’s dead. People are waiting for her.”
Paul stops for a moment.
“What?”
“They’re human beings,” I shout. “Her name is Margaret!”
Paul stands there frozen in the snow, just staring at me and apparently bewildered by my rage.
“They’re not garbage to be picked over and laughed at.” I sound defensive, which is ridiculous.
Paul stands motionless for a moment and then looks down at Margaret and then, lifting his sunglasses, at me again. His gaze is blank.
“Dead is dead. She’s not here anymore.” I try again.
He looks up, like he’s acknowledging heaven, though I can’t imagine for a second that he gives any currency to that belief system. I just stare at him as tears well up in my eyes. I feel a sadness I can’t place. I can’t move or speak, and my bones feel like they are crumbling. I start to shake uncontrollably and my mouth opens but nothing comes. Warm tears flow and freeze on my face. I’m having trouble breathing and then my head starts to spin. The world turns upside down, and for a split second I feel like I’m falling.
Paul springs toward me and puts his arms around me, keeping me up. He holds me very tight, like my father did when I was a little girl.
“Hold on, Solis. Steady.”
I can’t believe this is same guy who joked about the captain’s head.
My body continues to shake uncontrollably. He squeezes me tighter and tighter, constantly whispering, “Breathe… breathe… breathe,” until I gain control.
And then something unexpected happens. I hear myself speak, and not sarcastically or vaguely, or with anger or rage, but with honesty.
“I should be the dead one, not Margaret,” I say, pointing to her body.
“Did you know her?” he asks.
“Not exactly,” I say. “I mean, a little. She had a whole life; she was a newlywed and she had Eddie at home who loved her more than life itself.”
“Sometimes luck makes you feel guilty,” Paul says softly. “You can’t beat yourself up for still being here.”
He doesn’t even know what I’m talking about, but he has said the right thing. All that life Margaret had to look forward to, all that life I was trying to wreck and throw away. None of it matters. I was the lucky one. She wasn’t. And now I feel guilty about it. The same way I felt guilty about living and my father dying. Why should we carry on when the people we love are dead?
“Doesn’t anything matter?” I say as a few tears roll down my cheek.
I look up and see his eyes and I swear I see tears building. He looks down at me curiously and then drops his sunglasses back down.
“Are you okay?” he says again, wanting to move on.
“I should be dead.”
“I understand.”
“No you don’t. I tried to kill myself last night, in the bathroom, before the plane crashed. That’s why I survived. It’s fucked up. I’m so fucked up.”
I don’t know why I chose to tell him at this moment, in a frozen graveyard of bodies, or why my normally impenetrable steel vault is suddenly wide open for him to see into, but there it is.
“What do you mean?” he says. I can’t see his eyes, but his mouth is twisted with anguish and his upper lip trembles. I think he’s trying to say something-anything-to be helpful, but he can’t find the words. I finally blurt out a river of thoughts.
“I started to take pills in the bathroom, then the plane crashed, and I woke up alive. I should be dead, but I’m not. She should be alive, but isn’t.”
Paul stands there like a statue, looking at me and through me, trying to process his thoughts as quickly as he can. I can imagine some of those thoughts: Holy shit, I’m on a mountain with a freakazoid; Hide the knife, she could kill us both; Don’t let her at the minibar, if I can find it.
But he only says, “If you weren’t lucky, I’d be dead. It’s not just about you.”
His mouth relaxes and a big smile crosses his face, like he’s proud that he just put together a little philosophical escape hatch for me.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
He wraps his arms around me one more time and rubs my back. His arms make me feel warm and remind me of how cold I am.
“I’m so cold,” I say, sniffling. “You must be frozen.”
“I am,” he says.
“This way,” I say. I grab his hand and pull. We walk silently together to the tail of the plane.
Chapter 17
By the time we cross the short stretch to the tail, it is nearly dark. We open the door and slide in. It’s tight, but we manage to stand side by side, though we are forced to lean against the wall to accommodate the tilt.
Paul looks around for a second.
“This is good.”
I reach into my jacket and hand him an energy bar and some chips. He just looks at it, sheepishly.
“My hands are too numb. I can’t open it.”
I take off my mittens and put one end of the bar into my mouth and tear the packaging open. I hand it back to Paul. He holds it in his gloves and bites half off and hands me the rest. It’s semi-frozen, and we have a tough time chewing.
Paul points to the chips and I rip them open. We both grab a handful and shovel them into our mouths. I immediately realize this is a mistake and Paul does too. We look at each other trying to chew up the semi-frozen, taffy-like energy bar and the greasy chips and start to laugh. We crunch and chew and crunch, but the giant wads in our mouths never get smaller. Paul starts to make his chewing exaggerated and then he tries to speak, which is apparently impossible with potato chips and energy bar in your mouth.
“Wwwwtter.”
“What?”
He pantomimes drinking and I shake my head.
“Noooothing?” he says.
I shake my head again. I look at him closely for the first time as my eyes adjust to the light. His entire body is shaking uncontrollably. I reach up and take his sunglasses off and touch his face. For the first time, I notice how
