None of us said anything all the way through the mountains. Nothing. Absolutely nothing!

I'm usually quite talkative, but now even I didn't know how to start a conversation.

Yet, I decided to try. But just to say something and Oliver stopped the car abruptly. The momentum sent me forward. Thank God, I never forget to buckle up my seat belt!

I looked at Oliver startled. He had frowned again, so I turned my attention to where he was looking.

A policeman in a neon yellow vest was in front of us, waving his arms. He motioned for us to pull over.

Oliver followed the instructions and waited for him to come closer before lowering the window glass.

"Good afternoon. What's going on?", Oliver asked.

"You can't go up with the car", the policeman replied. He looked tired as if this was the hundredth time he had to say that and explain it further today. Well, probably it was.

"What is the problem?", Oliver insisted.

"There are a lot of tourists at the moment. We don't want a large congestion of cars, in the case of emergency. You have to park somewhere else. And if you want to get to the cabins, you'll have to take the lift", the policeman explained and walked away from the car, and us.

"It's ski season, it's normal to have more people", I noted, and Oliver nodded, "But then why he didn't let us pass?!"

Oliver shrugged.

"I don't know", he replied, and focused on moving the car.

And there was silence again.

***

10 minutes later we were walking to the lift.

"Okay. I can't do this anymore. It's painful", I stated, and he looked at me puzzled, "Look, I'm sorry, I really am sorry! This is the first time something like this has happened to me. Just yesterday..."

But I couldn't go on. I didn't want to share my personal problems with a perfect stranger.

"No need", he simply said, and added, "You don't have to apologize. It's my fault. I had to stay and wait to get the box right away. I could have made sure everything was okay yesterday, but I didn't do it."

"Yes, but I messed up everything. I was too absorbed in my own problems so to pay attention, and that wasn't right", I admitted.

"Yes, concentrating on ourselves is what took us here", he concluded and went silent. Again!

If I hadn't felt guilty, I would've yelled at him to keep talking, even if it was about how white the snow was. But instead...

I nodded and let the silence settle between us.

***

Maybe he's not that angry. Maybe he just doesn't like talking to strangers.

***

We reached the lift relatively quickly, considering how slow we were walking, because the snow had frozen in places and we had to be more careful.

In the lift ticket office there were no other customers so that was good.

"Two tickets, please!", I said to the woman behind the counter.

And I was just taking the money out of my wallet when Oliver reached over and slid a credit card toward her.

I turned and looked at him questioningly, and he just shrugged.

"Please enter your pin", the woman said.

Oliver stepped forward and quickly dialed the numbers. The woman behind the counter handed him the tickets smiling at him, and completely ignoring me. I didn't know why but that stung me a little bit.

On the way out Oliver handed me the tickets.

"You didn't have to pay. I got us involved, it was right for me to pay", I said a bit more roughly than I probably should have.

He shrugged, "I wouldn't be comfortable if I let you pay."

I pursed my lips. I didn't say anything. I wanted to, but I stopped myself. We could barely talk, I didn't want to argue with him about that. And even though something was tickling me from the inside, trying to get out, I suppressed it and let it pass away.

We got to the chairlift and settled on one seat. And we waited for it to start moving in what, could you guess?! Oh, yes, SILENCE. Silence again! And I was really REALLY getting sick of it! Pfff!

The lift finally started moving. And we headed up to the cabins in one of which was the person who potentially could have received the box with the ring.