Page 28 of Remain

“I eat,” I promise. “Just not right now.”

She hums, unconvinced, but her eyes are soft, with pride, with sadness and with everything all at once. We don’t need to speak the words to know what we share between us.

Across the table, my uncle tells the same story he tells every year about the Christmas his car wouldn’t start and how he had to hitch a ride with a neighbor he barely liked. Everyone groans on cue. Lucy throws a napkin at him to try to get him to stop.

After dinner, plates get stacked haphazardly in the sink, leftovers wrapped in foil no one labels. The living room fills up fast, family settling into couches, onto the floor, wherever there’s space. The movie starts halfway through because no one can agree on when to press play.

We put on mom’s favorite movie in her honor.

I curl up at the end of the couch, knees tucked under me, blanket pulled up to my chest. The glow from the TV washes over the room, softening faces, turning everyone into silhouettes and familiar shapes. This used to be my mom’s favorite part of Christmas night, right after we would finish our walk to break up dinner. She loved the quiet that came after the chaos, especially the way everyone stayed put, like no one was in a hurry to leave.

Lucy leans over, whispering conspiratorially. She’s older now, in college and way too observant in a way that makes me feel seen and exposed all at once. Her transformation is the one that catches me off guard the most, the way she is unrecognizable from nine to nineteen it feels less like growing up and more like a clean break from the child she used to be.

“So,” she murmurs, eyes flicking toward Aunt Carol’s kitchen. “You and Erik, huh?”

I stiffen just a little. “What about Erik?”

Lucy grins like she’s just been handed classified information. “I saw you two earlier,” she says, already vibrating with it, then leans in way too close and lowers her voice like this is a crime scene. “And listen. He’s been around. Like… aggressively around. Those Beaumont brothers? All of them.” She gathers her fingertips together, presses them briefly to her lips, then flicks them outward in a dramatic chef’s kiss. “I’m just saying.”

I give her a look that should, in theory, shut this conversation down entirely. Sadly, it does not work.

Aunt Carol clears her throat from across the room, sharp and practiced. “Lucy.”

Mothers, and women who’ve raised entire families, really do have eyes in the backs of their heads.

“What?” Lucy says innocently as a snowflake. “I’m just making an observation.”

“Movie,” Aunt Carol demands, pointing at the screen like she’s issuing a cease-and-desist.

Lucy smirks but leans back with an exaggerated sigh, defeated but far from finished.

“Tell me later?” She mouths the words to me.

“Maybe.” I mouth back.

I stare at the television without really seeing it, my thoughts drifting backward to Erik’s hand warm and anchored around mine and the way his thumb brushed my knuckles as if it wasn’t a decision at all, just memory. I think about the solid press of his chest when I leaned into him, how my cheek fit there with an ease that felt earned. As if we once knew how to hold each other without thinking, and some quiet part of us never forgot.

My phone buzzed while I was standing beside him. Jack’s name lit up the screen, bringing with it another life, anothercity, another version of me. Erik saw it. I know he did. I can still feel the weight of that moment.

I find myself wondering who else Erik has slid into a booth beside over the years, who has known his quiet steadiness and chivalrous charm. I wonder who has seen him when he isn’t holding himself back, who has felt his passion fully. I wonder how many of those women are thinking about him tonight, on Christmas Eve.

I wonder where he is now, and who he’s thinking of.

12

Savannah

The truck smellslike pine needles and Erik’s unfairly intoxicating cologne, while the cold air settles in with the kind of determination that ignores logic, optimism, and coats. All of which would be fine if I hadn’t once again dressed for a weather forecast that exists only in my imagination.

I climb into the passenger seat, tugging Erik’s coat tighter around me because mine never stood a chance against a Pineview Christmas morning, and he’d handed it over without comment, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. The engine turns over and he pulls out of the community center lot while I balance the clipboard on my knees.

The bed of the truck is stacked high with wrapped toys, bright paper, curling ribbon, and tags taped on with practiced precision. The Christmas Kindness Drive moving quietly through town before anyone else is awake enough to notice.

We don’t talk much this morning, not because there’snothing to say but because tomorrow is already pressing in, and neither of us wants to give it too much thought. So we stay here, in the hum of the truck heater, the faint sound of Christmas music on the radio and in the rhythm of stopping and starting.

In the work.

Our first house is small and sagging at one corner, lights strung unevenly across the porch. I read the name off the clipboard and nod to Erik. He parks. We both place our ridiculously oversized Santa hats on top of our heads as per tradition and I hop out first, boots crunching in the snow. He swings around to the back to gather the gifts.