Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

swiped the nut from Uncle Paul’s toolbox. You like it?”
    “I love it.”
    My face grew hotter yet, but now it was a happy warmth. Darla took the chain from me and clasped it around her neck. The nut slid down the chain until it lay on the sheet between us.
    “Why’d you choose a 15/16ths? Nobody uses those.”
    “That’s what I found. And anyway, I’ve always thought you were a sixteenth short of a full nut.”
    Darla groaned and slugged my shoulder, but she was smiling. “What do you want to do now?”
    “Um, get some sleep?” I capped the lamp and pulled the covers back over our heads.
    “No, I mean after.”
    “After what?”
    “After we find your parents—or find out what happened to them.”
    “Maybe things will change if we find them. Get better.”
    “I don’t know . . .” Darla said.
    “I guess we’ll come back here. Keep helping my uncle. As a family, we’ve got a shot at surviving the winter.”
    “Your uncle’s okay, so don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re my family now.”
    I wasn’t sure how to respond. I felt like I’d just shouldered a heavy backpack. Carrying that load was scary, but it felt good, too. Important. “The winter could last a decade.”
    “I’m not scared.” Darla was whispering, but her voice sounded determined.
    “I am,” I said. “But if we have to die in an endless winter, I’m glad we’re together. . . . I love you, you know.”
    “I love you, too. And if we don’t have to die?”
    “I used to think I’d finish high school, go to college.”
    “That’s not gonna be an option,” Darla said. “Things will never be like that again. If you’re old enough to go to high school, then you’re old enough to work.”
    “I thought I’d finish high school and go to college because my parents did. It wasn’t something we discussed much—it was just assumed.”
    “You would’ve done great. You’re a helluva smart guy.”
    “Am not,” I protested.
    “With no common sense whatsoever,” Darla added. “Besides, I wasn’t asking about that. I was asking about us.”
    “I don’t know,” I said. Darla tried to pull away from me, but I held her close. “My uncle said we might grow apart, and I know he was right—”
    “We won’t—”
    “That’s not what I mean. He was right that most relationships don’t last long—my friends hardly ever dated anyone more than a month. The only other girlfriend I had, Selene, lasted two months. I’ve never had a girlfriend as long as you.”
    “Me, either. A boyfriend, I mean.”
    “And I think I love you more now than I did the first time I said it.”
    “Me, too.”
    We were quiet for a moment. I knew what I wanted to say, but it was bound to come out all wrong. Or hopelessly corny. Eventually, I gave up thinking about it. “If we’re all going to die anyway, I want to die with you. And if we live, I want to live with you.”
    “Like, get married?”
    I hadn’t really thought about it that way. But wasn’t that what I’d just said? That I wanted to live with Darla? Forever? The idea of it was thrilling. And terrifying. “I don’t know. I’m only sixteen.”
    “It’s hard to make plans.” Darla wrapped one arm around her shoulder, hugging herself. “I mean, who knows if we have a future, if we’ll survive that long.”
    “We will.” I peeled her hand away from her shoulder and held it. “I mean, if there’s no future, what’s the point of trying? We’ll find my parents. Things will get better.”
    “I used to love to daydream about growing up. About what my kids might look like,” Darla said wistfully. “I always thought I’d have a farm. A big red barn, fields of corn and soybeans, maybe a few head of milk cows. Five or six kids running around.”
    “Five or six?”
    “Yeah, being an only child sucked. So I always wanted to have lots of kids. Now . . . I don’t know.”
    “Before, I never really thought about kids much,” Well, to be honest, I’d thought about the process of making them a lot. But not the result. “Now I don’t want any. Not unless things get a lot better.”
    “I’ve wanted a big family since I was a little girl.”
    “Well, if things do get better,” I said, “you’re going to need someone to take care of all those kids while you work on the farm. And to, um, help make all those kids.”
    “You don’t get out of farmwork that easy, buster,” Darla said. “You can watch the kids some days, but some days you’re going to have