It was weird being back again. The mountain, still just eerily frigid, looked the same, but it didn’t feel like it. Memories of last year ran through your mind as you and the group had finally figured out a way into the main cabin, and it didn’t help that Josh’s eyes lingered in your body the same way they did that 365 days ago. But it wasn’t just your shared feelings that still lingered; the guilt still hadn’t left. If anything, it had grown—creeping in like termites under a nice piece of polished wood, hollowing you from the inside out. It was the reason you’d barely spoken to the group since Hannah and Beth, your childhood best friend.

Snow clung to everyone’s boots as they walked through the doorway, trailing into the house. Inside, it was no warmer—just as bitter and cold as the mountain itself. And before you could even settle into the eerie chill of it all, a fight sparked in an instant. All you could think was: Who’s going to light the damn fireplace? Sam was in the bath. Mike and Jess ran off to the guest cabin. Emily was yelling about her lost bag. So when the living room finally cleared, leaving just you and Josh, the quiet felt like a blessing.

You watched him from across the room, eyes tracing the flex of his muscles beneath his sweater with each stab he took at the crackling logs. It was familiar — dangerously so. There had been whispers between you two back then, the kind spoken after dark, when everyone else had gone to sleep. Secret glances. Smudged lip gloss. Moments you’d buried like bones.

But everything changed the night the twins disappeared. And when they were declared dead, whatever you’d shared with Josh vanished too. He broke. And you buried your guilt so deep, it started to look like denial.

Now, you sit there, pretending not to notice his quiet glances over his shoulder, while your nails suffer the nervous picking of your fingers. The fire crackles between you like some ancient thing trying to wake again.

You don’t say a word.

Neither does he.

But maybe, this time, silence says enough.