Vagabond by J.D. Brewer Read Free Book Online Page B

respect yours, hon.” And he did. He never made me feel bad for feeling uncomfortable.  
    Sleep wasn’t coming. I’d stopped even trying.  
    “I know yo-you won’t like this, but yo-you-you’re going to get hypo-therm-ermia if we—“ Xavi said. Both our lips bordered on the color blue, and even his dark skin had turned pale. “Don’t free-ee-eeze on me,” he whispered as he began to strip down. I was too cold to be shocked— too cold to help. He fumbled with zippers and buttons until we were in our underwear, then, he zipped himself into my bag, piled his blanket on top of us, and shoved our clothes inside the bottom of the bag. “They’ll be-ee warmer tomorr-ow,” he explained, not that I was listening. I just focused on how warm his cold arms were, as if I could feel the blood, hot under his icy skin. He was smooth and rough. Callused and perfect.   I felt a subtle kind of warm, and my teeth slowed to an unobtrusive chatter. “Yo-ou okay?” His breath was hot and cold on my ear, and I pulled my face into his neck to smell the pine in the crevices of his skin. I nodded. I was okay. And we settled into sleep with our legs intwined like climbing ivy.      

    It made sense now. I knew what it was like to need the warmth of a stranger— that weird necessity that was only about survival and not about awkward implications. Survival was intimate in a different way— a purer way, and personal space took on new meanings in this world. No matter how much I distrusted someone, I could always trust in their warmth. I didn’t know this boy’s name, but, when it came down to it, his heat was universal. We all have in us an energy that can light fires in the coldest of situations.  
    I knew it now, but I didn’t know it then.  
    I wish I had.  

    Xavi helped me re-dress. He tugged the beanie cap over my tangled hair and pulled up the hood of my jacket. It was all so surgical that I didn’t think to blush. A part of me wanted it to be different— wanted a reason to blush— wanted him to look at me like he did under the canopy that day we met Randolf, but that was so far gone it wasn’t worth thinking about.  
    “Randolf? You awake?” he yelled out to the other tent as he unzipped ours. It wasn’t snowing anymore, but the air suggested it may as well have been. The cold front had been unexpected and terrifying, and luck had not been on our side. Train after train had passed us by— none of them slow enough to hitch onto. But I felt hopeful about today. Today had to be different. I could just feel it.    
    I stepped out into the sting after Xavi, and wished we were still wrapped up in the sleeping bags. “Randolf! Rise and shine, buddy. Let’s get out of this hell-hole before it gets worse,” Xavi continued.  
    But silence dripped off the old man’s tent like blood running cold.  
    “Randolf?” Xavi asked, but I knew without needing to know.  
    I didn’t want to see, but I watched anyways, as Xavi unzipped Randolf’s tent.  
    Later, when Xavi began to dig through Randolf’s pack, I protested. We could at least leave his things be. Besides, what if he woke up? But I knew that was just a fantasy. Death looked blank in ways life did not. “It’s the Bond of the Vagabond,” Xavi answered my thoughts. “He’d want you to have it.”  
    I held the pack in my hands and felt a volley of shivers that had nothing to do with the cold. I knew Randolf wouldn’t have taken offense. He’d have wanted me to take it so that I had one instead of none. We took his synth-e-down vest too. It was entirely too big on me, but I wore it like a memory. His boots were too small for Xavi, so we left those. There was money in his pocket, and Xavi also took his belt. “Can never have too many of these. Good for strapping things together,” he explained as he began to pull Randolf from the tent. The old man was too heavy, and I had to help carry him. The weight of his body was different— like life existed