The Mountain Between Us

by Charles Martin

the worst is a possibility, then you keep it on the table. Don’t hide from it. Don’t run. It can happen.

And if and when it does, you need to have thought about it ahead of time. That way you’re not crushed when your worst thought becomes your reality.”

And every minute that passed would feel like an hour. Waiting for somebody does that. It turns minutes to hours, hours to days, and days to several lifetimes.

“Once a heart breaks…it doesn’t just grow back. It’s not a lizard’s tail. It’s more like a huge stained glass that shattered into a million pieces, and it’s not going back together. Least not the way it was. You can mush it all into one piece, but that doesn’t make it a window. That makes it a pile of broken colored glass. Shattered hearts don’t mend and they don’t heal. They just don’t work that way.

I steadied the compass, let the needle settle, and took a reading. I stared across the face of the compass at the mountains in the distance. To get to them we’d have to travel all day, maybe two, through tall trees and deep snow. Wouldn’t be easy, and once in them, I’d lose all sense of bearing. Never make it without the compass. In the trees, I’d lose all sense of perspective. Direction. Maybe life is like that.

“I thought we were in this together.” “We are, which is why I’m not leaving here without you.” I stared at her. “Ashley, this is no game we’re playing. We…both of us, are either going this way or that way. It’s either-or, not maybe-and-what-if.”

I know a lot of people have survived much worse conditions, but ours aren’t getting any better. It’s like…it’s like being in hell when things froze over.

Pelicans in V-formation flew silently overhead, riding the updrafts, dragging their shadows across mine.

You laugh easily—a rare and true gift, one that you share liberally. We are all the better for it.

The Mountain Between Us is an adventure story, a story of survival, and above all a love story.