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It was snowing. A lot. The way it always did around this time of year.
Zeke sat on the front step, legs spread out, a first-aid kit resting between his scraped knees. A half-stuck band-aid clung to his cheek, wrinkled and crooked, like he’d fought with that too. He kept tugging at one corner, wincing every time he pulled too hard.
Dawn had been sitting beside him for a while now, without saying a word. She just kept him company, her hands resting on her lap, snow piling up on her little boots. Every so often she tilted her head, studying him as if she were trying to solve some kind of spiritual puzzle.
“It’s going to hurt the same if you pull it like that,” she murmured at last, far too calm for a girl barely five or six.
Zeke let out a low huff, trying to sound tough but ending up just sounding tired.
“I know. But if I don’t take it off, Mom’s gonna pull it herself… and that hurts.”
He tried again. Yanked. Stopped. Breathed.
It was just a band-aid. Not a dragon.
Dawn scooted a little closer.
“Do you want me to do it?”
Zeke shook his head, stubborn as always.
“I can do it. I’m just… thinking of the best way.”
She didn’t argue. She simply watched him, patient and steady, as if watching him struggle with a band-aid was an important part of her day. She let him try a little longer until he finally dropped his hands, defeated.
Behind them, the barn door hung open, hay scattered everywhere, tiny footprints stamped all over the place. Raccoons had attacked it. Raccoons. A whole gang of them. He couldn’t even turn it into a heroic story if he wanted to. No ogres. No wolves. No monsters. Just raccoons, and they had won. That was what stung the most.
Zeke avoided looking at it. Every time he did, shame tightened in his chest.
Dawn did look. Then she looked at Zeke.
“Did they hurt you a lot?”
Zeke clenched his jaw.
“No… or yes. I don’t know.”
He brushed his fingers over the scratch on his cheek, still burning.
“There were a bunch of them. And I… I wanted to scare them away. It was my job to look after the barn.”
His voice cracked.
“I couldn’t.”
Dawn didn’t interrupt. She grabbed another band-aid from the kit, showed it to him, and with a gentleness that felt far too grown-up for a little kid, she pressed it onto his skin, smoothing it carefully with her fingertips.
“You got hurt trying to protect it.”
“Yeah, but it didn’t work.”
His voice came out broken, which only made everything worse. Crying felt like proving every awful thing adults sometimes said about him: that he was small, weak, clumsy.
Dawn crouched in front of him and placed her cold little hands over his.
“Zeke… you’re brave.”
He blinked.
“What? No I’m not. If I were brave, I would’ve won.”
She shook her head softly.
“Being brave is doing the right thing even when you’re scared. Even when it hurts. Even when you lose. You were brave today.”
Zeke went still, unsure of what to do with a sentence that felt too big for someone like him.
But Dawn smiled as if she had simply stated a fact, as if those three words were as natural as breathing.
“You’re brave,” she repeated.
The town woke up buried in white, even more than what adults liked to call “just a little snowfall.” Zeke walked to school with his scarf pulled up to his nose, kicking at the snow because there was nothing else to kick. Everything around him felt emptier than usual. Not empty of people—empty of Dawn.
He didn’t see her waiting for him at the corner.
He didn’t see her at the school entrance, touching the lonely tree in the yard because she said it had a “kind aura.”
He didn’t even see her arguing with an imaginary bird.
Nothing.
As if someone had carved a Dawn-shaped hole out of the world and taken her with them.
Zeke didn’t understand why it weighed so much, but it did. Every step felt heavier. The school, normally noisy and clumsy, suddenly seemed colder. Bigger. Full of echoes.
He walked into the classroom and did what he always did: sat at the desk in the back, where no one saw him and no one wanted to. He set his backpack down and waited for class to start.
But class didn’t start.
The teacher was speaking with another staff member near the door, in a voice so low it barely existed. That tone adults used when things were serious but they didn’t want to scare the children.
Which, of course, only made it scarier.
Zeke heard his favorite name, and his heart tightened.
“Dawn.”
The word spread across the room. A couple of kids stopped drawing. Others turned toward the windows, expecting to see her come skipping in, smiling, saying it was all a misunderstanding.
But she didn’t appear.
The teacher cleared her throat and said things like “Dawn didn’t arrive,” “the woods,” “the storm,” “her parents know,” “they’re searching.”
But the only words that mattered were: didn’t arrive.
It felt like someone shut off the sound of the world. Zeke felt the chair shrink beneath him. His hands began sweating inside his gloves. His scarf suddenly scratched against his skin, too tight.
One of the boys who always talked more than he knew whispered,
“She probably got lost because she’s weird.”
Another laughed.
“She has that thing where she talks to trees. Bet she followed one and wandered off.”
Zeke clenched his fists.
But said nothing. Because he was Zeke. The kid who never spoke up. The kid who let everything roll right over him.
The teacher stepped out for a moment, leaving the classroom in total chaos. The kids immediately began inventing heroic stories, as if they were starring in a movie.
“If I find her, they’ll interview me.”
“I can bring my flashlight. My dad says it’s professional.”
“Imagine Dawn and me on the front page. Epic.”
They were children, sure, but that craving for glory—childish or not—hit just the same.
The ugly part came when they started competing.
“I’d go if they let me.”
“Me too, but… it’s cold.”
“I don’t want to get my clothes dirty.”
And not a single one stood up.
Not one.
Zeke felt something shift inside his chest. A strange mix of anger, fear and… whatever that other feeling was. Sadness, probably. Not for himself. For Dawn. It was absurd that she was out there, alone, while here they were having an imaginary contest about who would be the most photogenic hero.
And then someone looked at him.
Then another.
Then everyone.
“You’re her friend.”
The word hit him like a bucket of ice water.
“You should go.”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Come on, Zeke.”
“If you’re her friend, do something.”
“Oh please, it’s just coward Zeke. He probably can’t even go outside for recess without crying.”
Coward.
That word had been a thorn in his side for years. Since before the raccoons. Since always.
Zeke’s ears burned. His cheeks felt hot. It was like being shoved against an invisible wall. And on top of that, like the cruelest thing in the world, he remembered her voice.
You’re brave.
A pretty lie. A warm lie. One that had made him feel better, wrapped him in something soft.
And now everyone was telling him the opposite, pointing at him like he was a walking poster with the word fear printed across it.
“Come on, Zeke. Show something for once.”
Zeke lowered his gaze. He wanted to disappear. He wanted to run home and hide under the table. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted them to stop talking. He wanted Dawn at her desk, swinging her legs while she drew a tiny bird.
He wanted to be brave.
But he wasn’t. Not yet.
The murmurs grew louder. Each phrase was another needle:
“Coward.”
“Pathetic.”
“Can’t even save a friend.”
His chest hurt. Breathing felt hard. He didn’t want to feel that. He didn’t want to be that.
He wanted to prove them wrong.
He wanted to shut them up.
He wanted them to see him do something big.
That was the ugly truth of that moment:
He didn’t go after her out of kindness.
Not out of love.
Not out of real worry.
He went because he was tired of being called a coward.
Because he wanted that sticky shame wrapped around his ribs to finally go away.
Because he wanted—just once in his life—to be seen as someone who could do something right.
The pressure inside him exploded.
He stood up so fast his chair slammed backward.
The classroom fell silent.
Everyone stared, stunned, as if coward Zeke had just broken some forbidden rule: standing up.
He didn’t say a word.
Not one.
He grabbed his coat, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway.
He walked fast.
Then faster.
Then he ran.
The principal shouted something from her office, but he didn’t hear.
Or didn’t want to.
His boots thudded against the floor like war drums. Tears blurred his vision but he didn’t stop.
He pushed open the front door and leapt outside into the cutting cold.
The wind slapped him.
The snow stung his face.
The forest loomed far away—huge, dark, endless.
And even so, he put one foot forward.
Then the other.
Not because he was brave.
Because he was desperate to stop being a coward.
The forest greeted him like a giant, freezing mouth. The tall trees, weighed down with snow, leaned forward as if trying to block his path. The wind slapped his face with tiny icy needles that made his eyes water, though he preferred to think he wasn’t crying. He wasn’t. It was the wind. Just the wind.
Zeke clutched the flashlight against his chest. It had stopped working ten steps ago, but he still held it like a shield against everything unknown. He flicked it on, shook it, pointed it at the ground. Nothing. Still dead, just like the little fake courage he’d carried out of the school.
He took a step.
Then another.
Every crunch beneath his boots sounded like a bone snapping.
“D-Dawn…” he whispered, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him from this far. He didn’t even know why he said it. Maybe just to not feel completely alone.
His plan—if you could even call it that—fell apart a minute and a half after entering the woods. He’d thought it would be as simple as walking in a straight line, calling her name, finding her, and walking back. Like in cartoons. But the forest had other plans: curves, sunken paths buried under snow, shadows that seemed to move whenever he blinked.
A branch cracked to his left and Zeke nearly jumped out of his skin.
His heart hammered in his chest like it wanted to escape.
“It was a rabbit… or… or a bird… or something tiny…” he muttered, trembling.
But he didn’t believe his own voice.
Fear climbed up his throat, thick and freezing. It felt like a balloon swelling inside him, ready to burst. He wanted to turn back. Right now. Go to school, go home, go anywhere with walls and light and adults.
He thought about doing it.
He just needed to turn around.
Walk fast.
Say he couldn’t find the way. That he got lost. That he got scared.
They’d call him a coward. Yes.
But at least he’d be alive. He’d be safe.
A gust of wind hit him so hard he had to cover his face with both hands.
The cold seeped into his gloves, down his sleeves, into his mouth.
“What am I doing here…?” he thought, choking on a shiver he couldn’t hide anymore.
“What am I doing? I can’t do this. I’m not good at this.”
Then the ugly truth hit him:
He didn’t come here for Dawn.
He came because they pushed him.
Because they insulted him.
Because he wanted them to stop treating him like he was nothing.
And now he was paying the price, buried in snow up to his ankles, shaking like a leaf, with no idea where he was going.
Fear chewed at his chest.
The forest felt endless.
The darkness, heavier.
He stood still. Completely still.
So still he could hear his own breathing bounce between the trees.
He could turn back.
He could give up.
He could admit he wasn’t brave, that he never had been.
He leaned slightly backward, as if his feet were already preparing to retreat.
Then he thought of Dawn.
Not of her saying kind things.
Not of the calm smile she always gave him.
Not of how she made him feel seen.
He thought of her small and alone in this same forest.
He thought of her trembling, hugging her knees to stay warm.
He thought of her soft voice cracking with fear.
He thought that if he was this terrified even being older, she must be suffering a thousand times more.
And that hit harder than any insult.
It knocked the air out of him.
It rang through his chest like a giant bell.
He imagined her calling him.
“Zeke…”
He imagined her crying.
He imagined her hiding just to keep from freezing.
And something inside him—small but stubborn—lit up.
“I can’t leave her alone.”
His own voice shook.
“I can’t… I can’t leave her like this.”
It wasn’t courage.
It was clumsy, childish love.
Pure, raw worry.
The first time in his life he thought about someone else before his own fear.
His feet stopped backing up.
He bent forward slightly, like he was bracing for a jump.
He adjusted his hat with trembling hands.
Pulled it tight over his ears, like a soldier settling his helmet.
He took a deep breath.
A long one.
Long enough for the cold air to burn inside his lungs.
“For her…” he whispered.
“Just for her.”
And he stepped forward.
The forest didn’t get any less dark.
The wind didn’t stop hitting him.
The cold didn’t fade.
But something in him changed.
The fear was still there—huge, sticky, gripping his ribs.
But now he wasn’t walking because of what others would say.
Not out of anger.
Not out of shame.
He walked because Dawn was somewhere in that endless white.
Because she had never laughed at him.
Never made him feel small.
Never doubted him.
She was the only person who had never called him a coward.
And even if his legs trembled, even if he wanted to cry, even if he wanted to run all the way home…
He kept going.
One step.
Another.
And another.
And so he went deeper into the woods.
Lost.
Terrified.
Small.
But moving forward for the only person in the world who ever looked at him and saw something good.
The snow swallowed him, and he kept walking.
Because if Dawn was out there alone, then he had to reach her.
Zeke had no idea how long he’d been walking. It could have been ten minutes or a full hour. In the woods, time bent, stretched, hid between the branches. Every tree looked the same as the last, every trunk taller than him, every shadow more threatening. But he kept going, clothes damp, hands frozen, heart pounding as if it wanted to burst out of his chest.
Then the dead flashlight gave off a tiny flicker. A faint reflection, as if something had glinted in front of him. It wasn’t its own light: it was the snow, shifting softly in the wind. Or… something in the snow.
Zeke stepped closer, stumbling a little, and saw her.
Dawn was curled at the base of a massive tree—one of the ones she always pointed at, saying it had “a kind spirit.” Her head rested on her knees, eyes closed, her small body tucked in tight like a little bird trying to keep warm. Her breaths trembled.
“Dawn…” Zeke whispered, his voice breaking as he said it. This time it wasn’t fear. It was relief, and the painful twist of seeing her like that.
She opened her eyes slowly. Looked at him. And smiled. A tiny, weak smile, but real—like seeing Zeke made the world make sense again.
He dropped to his knees beside her. He didn’t know what to say, how to warm her, how to do anything. He just knew he had to be there.
He held out his hand.
A simple gesture. A huge one.
Dawn took it without hesitation. Her fingers were icy cold, but when they wrapped around his, Zeke felt something warm rush up his arms. She stood slowly, leaning on him, keeping her hand locked around his as if it were a lifeline.
“Are you okay?” he asked, voice trembling.
Dawn nodded, but as soon as they took their first steps, the truth began leaking through the cracks. Her hand tightened. Her breathing sped up. Her eyes shimmered, and it wasn’t from the wind.
Zeke saw her bite her lower lip, trying not to fall apart.
For a while, neither of them spoke. They just walked, stumbling through the deep snow, following the messy footprints he’d made on his way in.
Dawn was the first to break the silence. Her voice was tiny, thin.
“I thought… maybe I wouldn’t be able to go back.”
Zeke swallowed hard.
He had thought the same thing.
But he didn’t say that.
“I’m here,” he murmured.
And they kept going.
The storm had eased a little. Between the trees, a lighter shade began to appear—a softer gray. Zeke knew it was the edge of the forest. The exit. Salvation.
Dawn walked with small steps, nearly little hops. Her hand never let go of his. And suddenly, as if she couldn’t hold it in anymore, two tears slid down her cheeks.
Zeke saw them.
He didn’t say anything.
He just squeezed her hand tighter.
She lowered her head.
“I was scared…” she confessed at last, her voice snapping like a thin twig.
“Really scared.”
Zeke stopped. He didn’t know whether to say something, hug her, or just let her cry. He felt the same knot in his throat he’d felt the first time he cried in front of her at the barn. The same knot that no longer embarrassed him.
And in the stillness of the forest, with snow falling softly around them, their hands joined, Dawn looked at him again.
Right in the eyes.
With that look she had—the one that took everything apart.
“Zeke…” she whispered, her voice like a warm breath on the air.
“You’re very brave.”
Zeke’s heart exploded inside him, expanding until it filled his whole chest. But this time, the words didn’t feel too big for him. They didn’t feel like a disguise or a gentle lie. He didn’t feel the urge to argue or deny them.
He took a deep breath.
Looked toward where the forest opened.
Looked at Dawn—tiny, shaking, but safe because he’d been there.
And with the smallest, proudest, most childlike lift of his chin, he answered:
“Yeah… I really am, eh?”
Dawn smiled, eyes still wet.
And together, hand in hand, they walked out of the snowy forest.
No applause waited for them.
No glory.
No amazed children, no celebrating adults.
Just two small figures walking toward the gray light of town.
A boy who, for the first time in his life, understood what courage truly was.
And the girl who, without knowing it, helped him find it inside himself.