Page 3 of Jilted By Jack Frost
I just grin and toss one of her chips in my mouth as she walks off.
If it weren’t for Alana, I don’t think I would be here right now. Here, in Salida. Or maybe I wouldn’t be in Colorado at all. I’ve always loved the cold, and I might have gone up north. Definitely would have moved to a city. Not that I resent her for it or anything, but I do sometimes wonder where I’d be now. If I’d even be a nurse still, or if I would have moved on without her to keep me in the game.
Not that I’ve really been in the game as of late anyway.
I sigh, sitting in silence as I turn back to the window and finish Alana’s bag of white cheddar chips. I dump the package in the trash can, and then it’s time to get back to work.
Just like every other day.
Chapter two
Violet
The blizzard is, in some ways, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. A rushing storm of powdered snow, so fine that it sparkles beneath the streetlights.
In others, it is the worst, most disgusting, criminally vile thing to ever exist. I’ve already changed out of my scrubs, though, and the thick coat I’ve bundled around my body is likely to do nothing to keep the chill off my bones the second I step outside.
And yet.
“You can’t seriously be thinking about walking home,” Alana says, draped across two waiting room chairs. “Just stay here.”
Now that I’m faced with actually having to go out there, it sounds tempting to stay put. But I’ve been swearingall night that I was walking out those doors at the end of my shift, blizzard or no blizzard.
I can’t back out now without looking like an idiot. So I nod and pull my gloves on my hands. “Definitely going out there,” I say. “I’ll be fine. My house is just down the street.”
“Vi, please.”
“You’re worried about nothing,” I promise Alana. “I’ll be okay. I think I can manage to trudge two blocks home without dying of hypothermia.”
“It’s not the cold I’m worried about, Vi, it’s the fifty mile-per-hour winds.”
“I’ll crouch into a ball and roll home.”
She snorts, then glares and scowls.
“Not funny.” Alana reaches for my hand and squeezes my fingers tightly. “If you really want to go, fine. But you call me the second you get home, alright?”
“Can’t,” I say, giving her a bashful smile. “My phone’s been dead for the past hour. I plan to be fast asleep before it turns back on.”
“You kill me, you know that?”
“You’re going to be wishing you’d walked to my house, too, when you wake up every thirty minutes tonight and have a backache for the next week.”
She sticks her tongue out at me. “Get out of here.”
“I thought you didn’twantme to go?”
“I swear to—?”
My laugh cuts her off. “Goodnight, Alana. Sleep well.” I turn to walk away, a smile on my face.
“Your sarcasm is not appreciated!” She calls after me.
I’m laughing until the minute I step outside. And then the freezing cold blows harshly against my face andsucks the air right out of my body, immediately dismissing all notions of humor I just had. My instant reaction is to turn right back around and hightail it into the heated lobby, but I brace myself against the cold and take another step. It’s a little too late to back out now, anyway. My mom always said my stubborn streak would get me in trouble.
One foot in front of the other, I make my way down the sidewalk. The streetlamps give me just enough light to keep me from walking into pitch black darkness.
And then they start flickering.