there's no place else." His voice sounded reasonable and sincere, even kind. And his eyes were more beautiful than I had ever noticed, and gentle. Deep in the Maine wilderness, exhausted and hopelessly lost in a blizzard, we really could not have gone any further. We were at the end, or so we thought, and he lowered all his defenses, all of them, exposing to me his most tender and precious self. I always thought he was cute, I'd wanted him from the first time I saw him. His shy smiles, his beautiful face, his sweet disposition, none of those were what I really loved, although that's what I always thought. Those were all just symbols and tokens of the real thing, and as we stood in deep snow, next to the spot where we thought we would die, he showed me the real thing. There is, really, no limit to human beauty. It is only limited by our fear to reveal it.
I survived. Surrounded by deep powder, and in the white shadowy spaces beneath snow-laden pine boughs are where I want to go to be with him, that's where we were when he left. I have stopped on deserted ski trails near such spots and feel the saddness, and the joy, of that last best time with him. What I really want is to have frozen with him then, so now on deep winter days when I find similar snow under similar low tree branches, I want to curl up there again, like we did on my last day with him. Only now I'm alone, so that just won't do. But still I stop for a bit whenever I see one of those snowy shrines like the one he found for us, because there's no place else.
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