The mountains had swallowed the road by then.
Only stone,
thin air,
and a silence that seemed to hold everything still.
He was somewhere nearby.
Not close enough to touch.
Close enough to notice.
We had met before,
somewhere closer to the ground,
where there had been more noise,
more people,
more things to say.
Up there,
none of it followed us.
There was warmth against my chest,
a small weight,
a breath soft enough to disappear into the cold.
Tiny fingers opened,
closed,
opened again.
I looked down.
When I looked up,
he was already looking at me.
From a distance.
Long enough for me to notice.
Long enough for him to know I had.
Nothing passed between us
that could be repeated later.
Still,
something had crossed.
Later,
I saw the same small body in his arms.
His hand steady behind the head.
His face lowered.
Careful.
Quiet.
I watched him.
Then he looked up.
For a second,
the space between us felt smaller than it was.
The wind moved through the grass.
Someone laughed somewhere behind us.
The light shifted over the stone.
And that was enough.
Later still,
there was a woman beside him.
A shoulder close to his.
A familiar kind of ease.
I turned away before I understood it.
The path was steep.
Loose stones moved beneath my feet.
Then my name.
Once.
Again.
Closer.
When I turned,
he was already coming toward me.
I do not remember what he said.
Only the look on his face,
as though whatever I had thought
could not be left there between us.
By morning,
the mountain was gone.
The cold,
the stone,
the small warmth,
his face.
All of it.
And yet my body
seemed not to know.
It was still somewhere up there,
turning toward him.