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And cold Tonight, he decided, setting aside the coffee cup and turning toward the groceries He handled the ite the carton of rips, outcrops, footholds, ones that ive way if he weren’t careful That first week, every single piece of food had turned to ash in his hands Now he cupped a Granny Slistened

He was ready

Behind hi

“Fuck,” she swore, fu coffee across the tiles “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she ers

“You okay?” David knelt and gathered up the broken shards

“Careful,” she said, running her hand under the tap “It’s hot”

David nodded absently as he piled the broken pieces in his pal them in the trash Dulled nerves, he’d told her Fro ice

You should really get that checked out, she’d said

You’re probably right, he’d replied

“Sorry,” he said now, sponging up the coffee with a towel

“It’s not your fault,” she said She didn’t know “Sorry about theto be late” Jess taught second grade at an elearten there It had been 294 days since he’d seen him

“Go,” said David, wringing out the towel “I’ve got this”

Jess didn’tat hie “I’ his shoulder He didn’t touch her back “Call me when you’re home, okay?”

David nodded “Sure thing,” he said as if the very act of leaving the house wasn’t a strange and terrifying prospect

It had been 297 days since David died

Aside from the constant count in his head and his new … affliction, the only reraph It sat in a fra version of hi off snow The rest of the group—six cli up three gloved fingers It was a milestone His thirtieth climb

David never bothered with photos, but one of his teammates, Jackson—a partner at David’s firm—took his camera everywhere That’s how they’d found his body after, the lens winking in the sun

Gotta capture thea shot Memories fade

So do pictures, David had thought, but he’d smiled and posed anyways

Now he picked up the photograph, and ran a finger over the fralass

So happens to the deep, and all that’s left is a stretch of white in their heads, like fresh snow Looking at it—at the was trapped beneath

So

He reht-headed thrill of the climb The wind-stripped voices of the others in his wake The crunch of the icy crust on the snow The sound and shape of his breath in the air And somewhere, between an exhale and an inhale, a far-off sound like a hush but heavier He re as the sky

He re er h every layer of clothing, bit into his skin, clawed at his bones All David could think of was that cold, and how badly he wanted to warm up

Warht, the plea like a pulse, soft and slowing until the air ran out, and his thoughts froze, and his heart stopped

It had been 297 days since David died And 297 since he’d coasped and sat up in a base ca pads, the defibrillator still buzzing in thewith cold