"You should have seen what I saw tonight, Josh," Sam smiles from beside him. His fingers tap out a nervous, jittery beat against the damp, rocky floor. Close to her hand. He smiles at her.
"It was incredible," she breathes, closing her eyes. He imagines the memories dancing inside her eyelids. Of icy nights and bodies wrapped up in huge, thermal jackets. Of Icelandic, dramatic lights shimmering across the expanse of the universe. And steaming mugs of hot chocolate. "I could have stayed there forever."
Her breath curls out of her lips in drips of excitement. His fingers crawl. They near hers. His palm is wet. With his sweat. With the cold. With that damp.
"You should come next time, Josh," her eyelids slip open. She looks at him, her lips filled with hope. The ceiling cries with it's usual drip drip drip. It echoes. It dampens.
They reflect in her eyes. Like glistening puddles of blue. He remembers them.
She smiles at him. The usual smile. In the usual place.
He opens his cracked lips to speak but can't. He hasn't in so long. But she hears him anyway.
"Anywhere," she grins with the possibilities of it all. "We can go anywhere." She breathes those words out. He feels her breath. It clings to his skin. Her face is so alive in the darkness of everything else.
It's so lonely down here.
The wind howls like wendigoes.
He leans his shoulder close to hers. He imagines her warmth. She always sits here. Nowhere else. Always right next to him. Always close enough to touch.
She tells him of her adventures. Outside of this hollow of a grave. In the wide world, filled with mountains and animals and astonishing things. Things she deserves.
Things he doesn't.
His eyes trail away from her. They find themselves hovering on that familiar spot on the wall. Black as coal. Dripping with damp. Sticking.
"I miss you, Josh," Sam empties her voice.
He glances back.
To the place where she used to sit.
To the place where she's never sat.
It's empty. Her fingers are gone. Her shoulder and breath and eyes. The space where she's never occupied.
He closes his eyes, rocking his head back, skull digging into the wall of the mines. His damp fingers drag on his overalls. His bones ache.
He tries to capture her voice. The one that still lingers in the air. The one that never has.
She rots on a floor.
Eaten. Burned.
She speaks to him. She explores the world. She lives.
He cries.
The tear digs into his skin.
He breathes. The damp room swallows it. He rots.
His cracked lips smile.
It's okay.
She'll visit next week.