When I checked out of the hospital, I got a pretty long instructional lecture about how to care for my ankle. Things I should be doing including taking it easy, keeping my leg elevated when possible, taking it easy, drinking plenty of fluids and getting lots of calcium, taking it easy, seriously, and make sure I’m gentle with the cast.

I’ve at least been getting lots of fluids and calcium. The other stuff is more… guidelines, right?

“They’ll really fuck up a watershed, you know,” Grace says, walking into the kitchenette.

I turn and look at her, blinking. She’s even more direct than most of the other scientists here — not a group known for tact, if I’m being honest — and I have absolutely no idea who’s been fucking up watersheds. I didn’t know anyone was fucking up watersheds.

“Pollutants?” I guess as the electric kettle clicks off.

Grace gives me a blank look, blinking once.

“Musk oxen,” she says, as if it were completely obvious what she was talking about. “That herd you’re chasing down really fucked up the stream I’m trying to study and now all my samples are filled with silt.”

She shakes her head like it’s my fault, her shiny black top knot bouncing slightly.

I’m at a loss for words. That’s not exactly unusual for me, but Grace is proving to be kind of a mystery, even for a fellow scientist. She’s got a weird habit of being unnecessarily accusatory.

Like right now. With the musk oxen.

“Walking through streams is what they do,” I point out, pouring hot water over my teabag. “They’re animals. They walk over stuff. It’s their thing.”

Go on, sound less professional, I tell myself.

Grace exhales loudly, pouring the last dregs of a mostly-empty mug into the sink.

“Well, their thing is fucking up my thing,” she says, even though she says it without malice or annoyance. It’s just a fact to her, I guess.

I say nothing. She says nothing. There’s a long, awkward silence in the kitchenette while I stare into my tea as it steeps, feeling baffled about human behavior.

Does she want me to do something about the oxen? Should I build a bridge over that stream? There are other streams.

“Can’t you use a different stream?” I finally ask.

She looks at me like I just farted.

“Of course not,” she says. “I’ve been measuring the phosphate levels in that one since last summer, and I need to know how the bacteria that naturally live at these climates are adversely affected by…”

The door to the kitchenette opens, and she trails off. We both watch as Wanda, the most senior person here and thus our de facto leader, pokes her head in and looks at us both for a long moment, blinking behind her round glasses.

“Imogen, there’s someone here to see you,” she says.

I’m stirring my tea, and I stop. I tilt my head in confusion, like I’m a baby bird.

“Someone here to see me?”

She just nods.

“Here.”

“Yes.”

“To see me?”

“Yes. He said he had to talk to you?”

I’m just dunking my teabag again and again, trying to wrap my brain around this even as my stomach tightens.

Suddenly I remember that plane a little while ago, as I was walking back to the station. I didn’t think it was Friday. Maybe I was right all along.

“You mean on the phone or something—”

“I mean here, Imogen, I didn’t misspeak.”

I toss the teabag into the trashcan, because at the moment my lungs feel a little like they’re being compacted, and I can’t breathe, because there’s exactly one person who has the means, ability, and reason to show up at my arctic research station.

And there’s only one who’d just show up without consulting anyone first, someone who thinks that he’s God’s own gift to the world. Someone who takes what he wants and doesn’t care if he has to lie about it as long as he’s happy, as long as he gets what he wants.

Flying in unannounced sure does look good, I’ll give him that. I’m sure the other scientists here are all very impressed, and I’m sure that was the entire point of his dumb, stupid, immature stunt—

“It’s too late in the day to send him back, so just come talk to him before everyone starts gossiping, will you?” Wanda says. “It’s bad enough that Jim and Tandy are practically doing elaborate mating dances at each other—”

“Jim and Tandy?” Grace asks. “They are?”

Wanda sighs.

“I’ll come talk to him,” I say, walking quickly for the door before we start speculating about which bird Jim and Tandy’s dance most closely resembles.

“In the lounge-slash-viewing room-slash-cafe,” she says, pointing. “And he’s not supposed to be here, you know!” she calls after me.

“I know,” I mutter to myself, my mug of tea still held in one hand, sloshing dangerously side to side as I limp quickly down the hallway.

He wasn’t supposed to come, I think, heart pounding. He did something stupid and showy, and now he’s here, and now all summer I’m going to be that girl who had some guy fly in just to beg her forgiveness, and they’re all going to wonder why and either I’ll have to explain it all or make up some lie...

It’s not a long hallway. I’m already there, standing outside the lounge/viewing room/cafe, staring at the metal doorknob, desperately wishing I didn’t have to go inside.

More than anything, I feel like an idiot. The first time I let Wilder chew me up and spit me out, I was in high school. I was seventeen. I’d never really had a boyfriend before, I’d never done more than kiss a guy.

I wanted it. He wanted it. None of the other stuff really mattered over the roar of our hormones, and look where that got me.

But now I’m older and I’m supposed to be wiser, but I fell for it again. He lied to me and I believed him only to realize that I shouldn’t, that I can’t, not if I don’t want the past to repeat itself.

I can’t do it again. I won’t. Wilder already tore my heart out and played baseball with it once, and that was more than enough.

I tighten my grip around my mug of tea. I grasp the metal doorknob in my other hand, firmly, square my shoulders, and open it.

Wilder looks up. He’s got the bomber jacket on again, leaning his elbows on his knees, his hair flopping in front of those jewel-tone eyes.

I almost close the door and run away, a wave of anxiety crashing over me the moment I see him. I didn’t come here after all that with a broken ankle because I want to confront my problems, I came here — to the Arctic, for crying out loud, it’s pretty far from everything — because I want to ignore my problems and spend my day researching oxen.

“Squeaks,” he says, and he smiles.

Over in the corner are two of my colleagues. They’re pretending to play chess but it’s incredibly obvious that now they’re just eavesdropping.

“Wilder,” I say, and it comes out sounding stiff and formal. I glance at the chess players again, nerves crawling up my back because I do not need to be the butt of gossip here for the next two and a half months, I don’t want to look across the cafe area at someone and wonder if they’re talking about me and the guy who flew a plane in unannounced…

I jerk my head backward, telling him to come out into the hallway, and when he rises from the chair I realize that underneath his jacket, his shirt’s weirdly wet, sticking to his chest.

That must be cold, I think, but before he fixes it I can see his chest muscles flex and move as he walks. I realize I’m staring. I step into the hallway to make myself stop, but I do it a moment too soon, the door closing into Wilder who catches it gracefully with his shoulder.

Of course he does. I’d be on my ass if that happened to me, but of course not him.

We face each other, surrounded by concrete and drywall and bright lights.

“Why are you here?” I hiss. “You’re not—”

He leans in and kisses me.

I jump and step back, stumbling a little. The hot tea in my mug sloshes out, burns my hand, and without thinking I drop it with a yelp.

It shatters on the floor, splashing our feet and legs.

“What the fuck?” I hiss at Wilder, shaking my hand.

He’s holding his shirt away from himself, brushing liquid from his jacket sleeves.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine, but what the fuck, Wilder?” I say again. I’m trying to keep my voice down but it’s not really working, because I’ve pretty much just announced to the whole station that I’m having some sort of lovers’ spat out here and that is not what I need.

“I can’t let you go again,” he says.

Suddenly, the smirk is gone, the funny little smile, the God’s gift to the world swagger is gone and Wilder just stands there. Staring at me like he’s piercing my soul with those eyes, hands wet with now-cold tea, a brown spot on the front of his shirt.

A whirlpool opens up in my stomach.

“Yes, you can,” I say, shoving my glasses up my nose. They’re not even properly fixed yet, though I glued them together last night since Wilder’s tape job was starting to come apart.

“In fact, it’s pretty easy, all you have to do is leave me alone and not get in a plane to an Arctic research station just because you think you can do whatever you want and have whoever you want with no consequences,” I go on. “Maybe I came here without telling you because I didn’t want you around and didn’t want you showing up and trying to kiss me again. You think of that?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Then what the hell?”

“I couldn’t forgive myself if I let you go again,” he says quietly.

“You say that to all the girls you bang?” I snap.

I’ve got that unsteady feeling in my throat that means I’m about to cry, and I clench both of my wet fists, trying to get myself under control.

“Or do you only say this shit to the girls you bang on the side while you’ve got some other girlfriend who’s prettier and funner and has bouncy hair and laughs the right way at your jokes? The girls who you can string along so you can laugh about it later with your buddies when you crawl back into whatever hole you crawled out of and tell them oh hey, I really had that girl Imogen going again, she thought I was into her for real can you even believe it—”

“You think I flew to the end of the earth in that tiny fucking plane so I could laugh about it later?” he says, incredulous. “I know you know how getting in one of those things felt.”

I sigh, shutting my eyes because he’s right and I hate it.

“I got into that thing because I had to come see you,” he goes on, his voice quiet and serious. “I got into that thing and flew it for almost ten hours even though I was shaking the entire time because I wanted to see you again. I want to listen to you talk about musk oxen family sagas and I want to hear you laugh when you make an awkward joke and I want you to wake me up in the middle of the night to—”

The door opens, one of the chess players comes out. He’s middle-aged, gray-haired and wearing a puffy vest.

“Everything okay?” he asks, brow slightly furrowed as he glances at the broken mug at our feet, the tears streaming down my face.

“Fine,” I say, and point at my foot. “Just clumsy.”

He nods and starts walking away. I try to wipe some tears off my face, but I just smear tea on myself, which makes me cry harder.

I’m sure the flight attendant never breaks mugs and sobs like a little kid and then smears tea all over herself, I think self-pityingly. I bet she’s even pretty when she cries.

“Imogen—”

“I can’t do this again,” I tell him.

I finally manage to look into his eyes, holding my breath for strength. Tears are still leaking down my face, and I’m barely holding it together without sobbing, snot going everywhere.

“I already did this once,” I go on, my voice a miserable stage whisper because I don’t trust myself. “And, you know, I can forgive myself for believing you when we were out there because it was a weird situation, and there was a lot of stress, and I thought I was going to die and people make bad decisions when they think they’re going to die.”

I swallow hard and force myself to take a deep breath.

“I’d do it again,” he says.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he murmurs, teasing.

I laugh despite myself, wipe my hand on my pants, finally wipe off some of my tears.

“Once was enough,” I tell him. “That’s all I’ve got in me.”

“Squeaks—”

“Don’t. Please.”

Wilder reaches out, smooths a strand of hair back against my head. His thumb brushes tears off of one cheek and I breathe deep, force myself not to lean into his touch like a cat.

“Let me say something,” he murmurs, his hand still on my face. “You don’t have to believe me. You don’t have to say anything back, you don’t even have to acknowledge me, you can just walk away. Just let me tell you.”

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t. I know that whatever he’s about to say is going to make this a billion times worse and harder and then I’m going to spend ages second-guessing any decision I make, but despite myself I nod.

“I loved you ten years ago and couldn’t admit it,” he says. “That’s why I came. Because even if it took a plane crash and a broken ankle and a bunch of nearly dying, I finally figured out that I love you, I did then, I do now, and I’d crash the plane again in a second if it led me back to you.”

I push my glasses onto my head, rub my eyes with my hands.

“Please don’t crash another plane,” I whisper.

“There’s no one else,” he says. “Amy was just… a distraction. She’s nice, but she was a way to pass the time.”

I want to believe him. I do. My whole body wants it, from my busted ankle to the top of my head, all my nerves harmonizing in a symphony of this feels right.

Just say yes.

“It’s different this time, I swear, Squeaks,” he murmurs. “Please believe me.”

I bite my lip, trembling, my voice untrustworthy as I look up at Wilder again, pure desperation in his eyes.

He’s telling the truth this time, I think.

He came all the way here. He has to be.

Once burned, though.

“I can’t do this again,” I whisper.

Twice shy.