IT’S SO STRANGE TO BE in this place again, caught between life and life unraveling. Colin feels the faint burn of ice and snow against his skin, but he’s not cold. Flashes of light pulse beyond his closed lids, and the echo of his name rings through the air in panicked voices, but he can’t gather the strength to open his eyes. Despite the noise in his head, his chest is strangely silent. It’s taking too long, and the instinct to return grows fainter and fainter.
He feels a mild tickle of fear, but it’s gone quickly, the urge to slip back into darkness wrapping around him like a blanket. In a thick, creeping realization, Colin understands that his inclination to curl back into the lake is because it’s Lucy’s lake. He’s less surprised to feel positive that Lucy is the ghost at the lake than he is to feel in his frigid bones that she’s been waiting for him. For so long there hasn’t been anything for him here, and there is everything for him in the lake. It would be so easy to go back in and walk down the trail to Lucy.
That’s all he’s ever had to do.
