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“Water’s cold,” he said as his lips pressed into my shoulder.
“I don’t care.”
“You will. Let me keep you warm.”
How could I say no to that?
We finished up quickly, and just as he turned off the water, the coolness seeped in.
After we dressed, we huddled in front of the fire. It was Christmas morning, and I should have been sad, but in the silence of the living room, with the fire going and the snow lying on the ground outside, it felt so cozy. Alden was stoking the fire, a flannel over his shoulders.
This was picturesque, and I knew I needed to remember this moment. I grabbed the Polaroid and held it up.
“Alden,” I called. He turned with a smile and I snapped the picture.
“What was that for?”
“It’s a good moment,” I said. “I like to remember those.”
It printed, and I waited for it to develop. When it was done, I took a glance, only for my breath to be stolen.
I’d seen Alden at his worst and at what I thought was his best. At every given moment, he had a sadness simmering under the surface of every smile he gave, and I always wished it wasn’t there.
But this time, I only saw joy. His eyes crinkled when he was happy and the shadow of his beard did nothing to hide the full stretch of his lips into a grin.
I’dneverseen this before.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Don’t tell me I was making a weird face,” he said.
“N-no. You look great.”
My heart was in a dangerous place, teetering on feelings that would break me if this ended the same way it had seven years ago.
I didn’t think I could come back from that kind of heartbreak.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. All traces of that perfect smile were gone from his face.
He wasconcerned,just like he had been when he saw how sad I was.
I sifted through my memories of us. He’d always been this way. He saw when I was sad and celebrated when I was happy. We had a real chance at working, and to this day, I didn’t know what went wrong and why he turned me down.
I always thought it was me, or that he just didn’t seeme that way, but the last day proved to me that he feltsomething,even if he was in denial about it.
“Stella,” he urged. “What’s going through your head?”
How did I ask him what the hell was going on when he seemed hell-bent on not talking about it? How did I tell him I was falling for him with the risk of getting heartbroken again?
I had no idea what to do.
But I didn’t get a chance to answer.
The lights flashed, electricity running through the house for all of a second before it flickered out again. Both of us looked up, bewildered. It flickered on again and stayed.
“Power,” I said. “We finally have power.”
The words felt wrong as they left my mouth. While we had electricity again, I realized thatIdidn’t have any power at all.