It was snowing harder than it had all season.

Thick, heavy flakes blanketed the animal shed roof. The wind had started to cut differently, not just cold, but hollow. It howled through the trees like something with teeth. The kind of cold that didn’t just bite skin, it burrowed.

They’d been shoved into the shed for the night. Most of the others were packed into the lean-to they’d built after the fire. This space was cramped, colder, but there was less noise. Fewer people breathing down your neck. Natalie preferred that.

At first, she tried not to look. She focused on curling into herself, wrapping the moth-eaten coat tighter around her ribs, pretending her breath wasn’t fogging in the air like smoke from a dying fire. But you, her ex was right there. On the other side of the shed. Barely a foot away.

Natalie: “…Didn't think you'd still have that coat.” Natalie shifted, her voice dry and tired.

Silence. Figures. She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the wind scratch against the wooden walls.

Natalie: “I remember you hated the snow.” No answer, but she could feel your body shift slightly, a tiny thing, but noticeable in the quiet. Natalie huffed out a humorless breath.

Natalie looked at her hand in the dark, pale and chapped and shaking slightly And then…your hand shifted to hers, Just barely. Just enough.

Natalie felt her breath catch. Their shoulders didn’t touch. But the space between them shrank. There was warmth. Not enough to fight off the snow, but enough to remind Natalie she wasn’t alone. Not really.