The Forever of Ella and Micha

we’ve been stuck out here and we learned our lesson the first time we got stranded to always be prepared with a snow shovel, tow strap, and chains. Otherwise, it’s a long walk home in below-freezing weather.
    After the car is back in the shallow end of the snow, Micha takes the tow strap off and winds it around his hand as he proudly takes in the scratches and dents on the front fender.
    “I’m going to ride home with Ethan,” Lila tells me, reaching for the handle of the door.
    “Wait, I have to ask you something.” I hesitate and rotate in the seat to face her. “Are you sleeping with Ethan?”
    Her blue eyes round as she ties the scarf around her neck. “No, we’re just friends. God, Ella, I don’t sleep with everyone.”
    “It’s not that,” I tell her. “It’s just that you two seem close… and I mean, what do you guys do when you’re alone?”
    She pushes the door open and steps out, her feet sinking into the snow. “We talk.”
    I lean over, wondering what the two of them could possibly have in common. “About what?”
    “Life.” She shuts the door, tramples to the back of the car where Ethan’s truck is running, and climbs inside.
    One day, I’ll get her to confess to me what is they do. I turn up the music and sing along as I wait for Micha to get in. When he opens the door, a gust of wind blows in and chills the cab.
    He pokes his head in, his cheeks pink from the cold and snowflakes speckling his hair. “What? Are you driving?”
    I run my hand along the top of the steering wheel. “I was thinking about it. Why? Are you not going to let me?”
    “I will totally let you.” He laughs. “But there’s something I need to do first.”
    With my shoulders slumped, I swing my leg over the console and sit down in the passenger seat. “What do you need to do?”
    He shuts the door, pausing as he nibbles at his lip ring and stares pensively out the windshield at the sky, which is getting darker. “I’m still deciding.”
    “We really should be getting back,” I say, checking my messages. “Dean texted me, like, five minutes ago and said dinner is in an hour. I guess my dad is there now and your mom and her boyfriend are going to be over soon.”
    “You seem sad that your dad’s there,” he states, looking at me intently.
    I stare up at the cloudy sky and the snowflakes falling from the sky. “I’m not sad, just nervous.”
    “But I thought the letter made it better,” he says. “That he let you know it wasn’t your fault.”
    My breath puffs out unevenly. “Micha, I’ll always carry that night with me, whether my dad says it’s my fault or not.”
    “Ella, it wasn’t your fault.” Panic flares in his eyes; he’s worried I’m reverting. “You have to start believing that.”
    “Micha, I’m okay.” I place a hand on his as a comforting gesture. “It’s when I don’t say these things aloud that there’s a problem.”
    His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows hard. “Okay.”
    We sit in silence, watching the snowflakes land on the hood and drift through the beam of the headlights.
    When he looks at me again, the lust in his eyes forces me to suck in a sharp breath. “Alright, no more drowning in our sorrows. It’s confession time again.”
    “Haven’t we done a lot of that over the last day?” I thread my fingers through his. “I think I might be all confessed out.”
    “I have this dream,” he says, ignoring my request. “Well, it’s more like a fantasy… But anyway, you and I have sex in my car. We are in the driver’s seat, with you on top of me.”
    “That sounds an awful lot like the dream I had.”
    “That’s because great minds think alike. But having sex on the hood in this weather doesn’t seem like it would work, so I’m going with inside.”
    I glance over my shoulder at the road. “You want to have sex in the car? Right now? What if someone comes up here?”
    “Hardly anyone comes up here in this kind of weather. You know that.” He stares at me, biting on the damn lip ring and my body burns hot with longing. Without even thinking, I maneuver over the console and straddle his lap.
    His lips quirk. “I really thought it would take more persuading than that.”
    He considers something, and then moves me over to get out of the car. Popping the trunk, he grabs something before hurrying back in, shivering from the cold air. There’s snow on his shoulders and a blanket in his hand. “Just in case someone does show up