Snowed In by Rachel Hawthorne

reached out—
    It released an ear-splitting screech and flew toward me!
    I let loose a blood-curdling scream and found 126
    myself facedown on the floor of the cave, with Josh lying on top of me, covering me, while the cave filled with the horrendous echoing of a thousand angry wings.
    When things finally quieted, we scrambled out of the cave, sliding down the snowy embankment until we landed on even ground.
    I was breathless, my heart beating so hard that I figured it would wake up all the hibernating crea-tures within a five-mile radius.
    Laughing, Josh dropped back in the snow, like he was planning to make a snow angel or something. But I figured that was the last thing on his mind.
    “They’ve never done that before. Scared the crap out of me,” he said.
    I figured I’d just scared ten years off my life expectancy. I was shaking, and it wasn’t from the cold.
    We were both breathing hard. I had my arms wrapped around my drawn-up knees, trying to be as small and unnoticeable as possible. I pressed my forehead to my legs. “Do you go in there a lot?”

“Yeah. I like studying bats. Weird, I know—”
    “No, not weird.” I glanced over at him. “My grandparents live in Austin. I’ve seen bats there when I’ve gone to visit them. I think it’s neat to 127
    watch them. And when we went on vacation at Carlsbad, my dad and I watched the bats leaving the cavern at sunset, then we got up before dawn to watch them coming back. It was totally awesome, the way they just swooped in one after another.”
    He didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at me. Maybe he was trying to figure out why I thought he’d care about my previous bat-seeking excursions.
    “I should have told you I had a girlfriend,” he said quietly.
    He shoved himself into a sitting position. “I really did think that Nathalie had told you, but I didn’t say anything because if she hadn’t—or even if she had—I didn’t want to talk about her. I just wanted to find out everything I could about you. I wanted to get to know you. And I guess I felt kinda guilty about that.”
    My breathing had slowed. As a matter of fact, it had almost stopped completely. Because while he’d talked he’d moved really close to me. I could see the deep blue of his eyes.
    “I like you a lot, Ash.”
    Our breaths were visible as they mingled, intertwined.
    “A whole lot,” he said in a low voice.
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    Then our breaths were no longer mingling, because neither of us was breathing. We were kissing.
    And all I could think about was how much I liked the swirl, that Josh was an absolute master at kissing.
    I had a feeling the snow around us was going to start melting.
    But as much as I enjoyed him kissing me, as much as I didn’t want him to stop, I couldn’t help wondering . . .
    Had I just become the other woman?
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    11
    I shoved Josh’s shoulder, breaking us apart.
    “We can’t do this,” I said, scrambling away from him, getting to my feet. “You’ve got a girlfriend.”
    “Don’t you think I know that?”
    “Based on the past couple of minutes, I’d say you forgot.”
    “Ash, wait!”
    I was skidding onto the trail, desperate to get to the skis, trying to figure out how I could move the quickest—by ski or by foot.
    He grabbed my arm. I jerked free. “Don’t!
    Nathalie was my first friend here. I’m not going to do that to her,” I said, pointing back to the place where we’d been kissing. The snow was no longer pristine there. It had obviously been disturbed.
    “Look, I’m sorry, I’ve just wanted to kiss you ever since that first morning—”
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    I shoved him hard, he staggered back. “That’s the reason you didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend.
    You were flirting with me.”
    “No. I mean, okay, maybe I didn’t intentionally mention Nathalie because I thought you’d put up barriers. I know it makes me sound like a jerk, but I don’t want to hurt Nathalie. I mean, she’s been my girlfriend since I was twelve. I care