Things you said too quietly

  “I don’t like the deer skins. They’re way too scratchy,” Sophie complained as Jack laid another one around her.
  “They’re all I have,” he said.
  “Can’t you kill a bear? Do we have wolves here? I bet they’re softer.” She sniffed and rubbed her running nose, squinting drearily at the damp stone floor. “I can bring some Downy and we’ll scrub the fur until it’s nice.”
  “I don’t know what that is.”
  “I know.” She looked at him through her water-smeared glasses and settled further into the pile of moss on her makeshift seat. The rain beat down loudly and relentlessly on the canopy overhead. Jack passed under the holes, pelted by freezing droplets, seemingly without a care, filtering in and out of the moonlight like mist. He was being quiet tonight and she couldn’t figure out why.

  “My ears hurt,” she sighed after a while, grinding her palm into one. “Really bad. I wish it would stop raining.”
  “It’s too cold for you out here,” he said.
  “I’ll be fine. I’m all wrapped up.” A clap of thunder resounded and she lifted her head.
  “I should take you back to your house,” Jack went on, not even looking at her.
  “No! I already said no. It’s no better there.”
  “You should have at least brought food. We don’t know when the storm will let up.”
  Sophie shot him a wry smirk. “Why are you the worry wart tonight? Relax.”
  Jack watched her curl into a ball the best she could and carefully lay her head down. She winced and kept rubbing the life back in her ear. Her hair was matted and disheveled, her nose bright red and mud all over her shoes. Jack took a glimpse at the soaked failure at starting a fire, the vague shapes of hanging meat and plants in the far corner of the ampitheater that Sophie hadn’t noticed. He looked at her again. She shivered continuously under the hides.
  “I can’t give you what you need,” he said.
  She paused from holding her ear and blinked at him. She raised her voice over the thunder and the rain. “What did you say?”
   Jack hesitated. He furled his fists and finally turned away, returning, “Nothing.”