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“Fuck.What do I even do if we lose power?”
“Amma has a fireplace, right?”
“It’s a stove, but yes. And thanks to Alden, we have logs.”
“There you go,” she said. “Stay calm, and focus on staying warm. This isn’t about who you’re with. This is about getting out of this in one piece.”
“Couldn’t it have been with anyone else?”
“Not really. Nick wouldn’t know how to handle this, and neither would I. This could be a good thing.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “I don’t want to depend on him.”
“Stella,” Winnie said. “Put your pride away.”
My mouth zipped shut. IfWinniewas telling me to put my pride away, then it was serious.
“This isn’t going to be fun,” she continued, “but this is the hand you’ve been dealt. I wish you were at home but?—”
“I don’t have a home. Reed and I broke up.”
“Oh. So you’rereallynot okay.”
“It’s for the best. He was an ass.”
“He was. You know how I felt about him. The way he talked to you was unacceptable.”
“I know, and though it took me way too long to see it, I finally did. But the point is, I’m not okay, and I don’t want Alden to see that. At least not more than he already has.”
“I know. I would be in the same boat as you, but like I said, this isn’t about pride. It’s about surviving.”
I let out a sigh. I’d already put some of it away when I’d huddled up to him in the eerie sounds of the wind. I didn’t even think twice about it—I’d found the nearest person and ran to them. It didn’t matter that Alden had broken my heart once, he was there.
But he wasn’t going to be there for me any more than he had to be. The second he got a call, he was gone andaway from me. I needed to remember what we were now—not what we’d once been.
Now that I was on the phone with someone else, I saw how dumb it was to look tohimof all people for support. While he’d never said it, I knew he saw me as his best friend’s annoying sister. It was why he sent that text after his post-nut high was gone.
“I don’t want to do this,” I whispered to Winnie. “Being around him is bringing up all of those things that happened seven years ago. And I don’t want to rehash the past right now. I can’t.”
“Then don’t,” she said. “You know what happened. You don’t have to talk to him about it. The only thing you have to do is survive.”
I sniffled and nodded. As much as I’d love more insight into his decision, she was right. I didn’t need it. Definitely not now when we had nowhere to go. “Okay,” I said. “God, I’ll miss you. We won’t even get to do our Christmas Eve dinner.”
“We’ll make up for it, I promise. And when we do, you can tell me everything that happened with Reed and I can kick his ass.”
I laughed despite my misery. “I can’t wait.”
“And if Alden hurts you again, I’ll kick his ass too.”
“I think it’s inevitable at this point. Everything hurts right now. I don’t feel like myself.”
Winnie was silent for a long moment, and I wondered if she was about to give me one of her patented lectures to get me off of my ass and back to my old self. As muchas I loved her ferocity, I didn’t think it would work this time.
“We’ll get you feeling better once this is over, okay?” she said instead, and I couldn’t fight the relief I felt.
“Okay.”
“And stay safe. That’s the most important thing to me. Everything else going on can be fixed later, but not if you freeze in this storm. I need to make a few other calls, so I’ll talk to you later, okay?”