I. Red Shack, White Silence

(His Voice — Then)

We climbed past where the trees give up,
boots sinking through hush and drift,
wind at our backs like a warning
we chose not to hear.
The red shack waited—
tilted, rust-kissed,
half-swallowed by snow.

Inside,
a match struck light against the cold.
One flame,
then another,
until the dark softened
just enough to hold us.

There was one chair.
Two blankets.
The kind of quiet
that lets you hear
your own name
in someone else’s breathing.

We didn’t talk about what waited below.
Not your return flight,
not the half-packed bag,
not the years of almost.
You laughed at the frost
collecting in your lashes.
I didn’t say
how long I’d been watching
that storm coming.

Your knee brushed mine
beneath the blanket.
You didn’t move.
Neither did I.
The silence turned warm
around us.

Outside,
snow piled up against the door—
a kind of mercy.
Inside,
your hand rested near enough
that I could’ve reached it
without asking.

And didn’t.

You slept.
Or pretended to.
And I watched the window
turn from black
to the soft grey
of not yet morning.

Later,
we climbed down
without speaking of it.
The wind had died,
but something else
was already drifting.

Now,
sometimes,
when I smell woodsmoke
or hear the hush of snow
against tin,
I think of that night.

Not with regret.
Not exactly.
Just the ache
of something so nearly true,
it still breathes somewhere
in the white.

⸻

II. What the Snow Didn’t Cover

(Her Voice — Then and Now)

We climbed higher than we should have,
past the line where trees
stop pretending to survive.
You didn’t complain once—
just kept pace,
like you’d follow me anywhere.
Maybe that was part of the problem.

The red shack was smaller
than I remembered from the map.
Leaned east,
like it had been bracing against wind
for decades.

Inside,
your hands shook lighting the match.
Not from cold.
I said nothing.
You handed me the flame
like a question.

There was one chair.
Two blankets.
No space for lies.

I pulled the blanket over both of us.
You didn’t move away.
The silence felt
like something we’d been circling
for years.

We didn’t speak
of the train waiting in the valley,
or the person I said I’d marry.
Not of the night you left my flat
before I woke,
not of the letter I never wrote.

Your shoulder touched mine.
Just that.
But it lingered.

I didn’t sleep.
Faked it
because I couldn’t bear the weight
of your eyes on my back,
not if they were saying what
I think they were.

In the morning,
you brewed coffee so quietly
it hurt.

I thanked you.
Too softly,
but you heard.

And we walked down
like the snow hadn’t buried something
between us.

Even now,
when winter presses its fingers
against my windows,
I go quiet.
I remember the warmth
we almost let happen,
the way you never reached for me—
and how I never asked you to.

And I wonder
if love is just
the sum of all the silences
we never dared to break.

⸻

III. All That the Snow Kept

(His Voice — Years Later)

You never looked back—
not once—
as we left the shack behind.
But I remember
how your hand brushed mine
that night,
how you didn’t pull away.

And how I didn’t take it.

We both left something
in that red-walled hush.
Not a kiss,
not a promise—
just the warmth
that might have followed.

You were always better
at staying silent.
I was always better
at pretending not to notice
what silence could mean.

There was a moment—
when you shifted in the dark
and the blanket slipped
just enough—
I saw the skin of your back,
pale in the lantern glow,
and I thought
if I speak now,
if I say it—
but I didn’t.

You were leaving.
And I was too late.

Now, sometimes,
I find frost on my window
and think of your breath
fogging the glass
above the sink.
The way we made coffee
like it was something sacred.
The way we left
without needing to say
we’d come closer
than we ever would again.

I don’t regret not touching you.

But I do miss
the man I might’ve become
if I had.

And I hope—
in some quiet room of your life—
you still carry
a small warmth
from that night.

Ryan Stone