Maybe he’s gone back to the camp. Or is out gathering more firewood. Or maybe he grew desperate when I didn’t wake, and he went to get one of the counselors who is trained in basic first aid. Wherever he is, I’m alone in the house.

I consider shuffling back across the living room and collapsing onto the couch, letting sleep tug me under once again. But I’m wearing the same T-shirt as when I went out onto the lake. The sweatshirt and jeans I had on are now gone—Oliver must have removed them when he brought me back to the house. All of my clothes soaked through.

I walk to the stairs, knuckles tightening around the railing, and I drag myself slowly up each step to the loft.

But once inside the loft, the room feels different, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. The bed is crisscrossed in shadows, no candles lit, and a cold breeze slides over my skin. The window is open, pushed up in the frame, and the thin embroidered curtains sway out from the wall then settle back again, like they’re underwater.

On the floor, a dusting of snow has gathered.

And through the window I see him standing out on the roof.

He didn’t go back to the camp—he’s still here.

I pull on my heaviest sweater from the closet, thick wool socks, my slippers with the rubber soles, and step out onto the roof—into the snow.

My muscles are weak, and the cold almost knocks me over. I feel hollow boned like a bird—a soft wind could surely carry me away.

Oliver hears me and turns. “What are you doing?” he asks urgently, crossing the space that separates us. “You shouldn’t be out here. It’s too cold.”

“The air feels good,” I say, my eyes blinking closed, then open again. But he shakes his head. “Just for a little while,” I tell him. “I just want to stand outside.” I need to feel my legs beneath me, the air in my lungs. Alive.

He folds my hand through his arm and helps me to the edge of the roof, where the view of the lake is the clearest, where a few stars even prick out from the dark, clouded skyline.

“I used to come out here when I was little,” I say, my voice still shaky. “My mom hated it, said I would slip off the edge and break my neck. But I did it anyway.” I smile in spite of the cold. “It’s quiet up here,” I add. “The sky feels closer.”