Page 37 of Remain

I shake it once, gently. Snow swirls and settles. The world inside goes quiet again.“Thank you,” the words feel like too small a thing to say.

“Now it’s a little piece of Pineview for you to take home.”

Snow begins to fall around us, light and unhurried, catching in his hair, melting against his collar. Erik lifts his hand and brushes a flake from my cheek, his thumb lingering there. He stares down at my lips, his lips parting, hungry, insatiable.

I know he wants to kiss me in this moment.

I want it too. More than I’ve wanted anything, but I’m also afraid.

“What are you doing tonight?” he inquires, gently, non-assuming. “It is Christmas after all.”

I already know what he is offering before he finishes his thought. The combination of warmth and history could unravel us both.

“You could come over,” he adds. “We could just… sit. Eat something. Let the night pass.”

I close my eyes for a brief second. I want to say yes.

God, I want to say yes.

“I can’t,” betraying my body. “Not yet.”

He nods immediately, without disappointment, his gaze still volleying between my eyes and my lips. “I understand.”

“I just need to leave without breaking,” I clarify, feeling the need to defend myself despite how safe I feel. “I need to know I chose this with clear eyes.”

His thumb drops from my cheek, but his gaze never leaves mine. “I’m really glad you came home, Savannah.”

“So am I, Erik.” The truth of it aches as it leaves me.

I lean in and press a slow, deliberate kiss to his cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. His stubble grazes my lips, his skin cold from the night air and strangely sweet all the same. His breath stutters, his chest lifting as if my presence has unsettled something he wasn’t prepared to name, and my body responds instinctively, as though it has always remembered how to meet him here.

For a moment, we sway in the same breath, pulled by something familiar and dangerous, until I step back, retreating just before the invisible line between us becomes real.

“Goodnight, Erik. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Sav. Goodnight.”

I walk away without looking back, clutching the snow globe to my chest as if it’s something fragile and holy. Tomorrow morning, I’ll leave Pineview again, and tonight, the weight of that knowing hurts more than I was prepared for.

16

Savannah

Just checking in to make sure you’re okay and not being slowly absorbed into small-town life via casseroles and unresolved feelings.

Also, if there’s a man involved, I require updates.

I stareat the chaotic text from Lena until the screen dims.

It’s 4:11 a.m. It’s too early to function.

Aunt Carol’s house is quiet in that deep, sleeping way that only happens after family has filled it and then slowly disappeared again. The guest room smells faintly like lavender, clean sheets and something more; home in a way I forgot how to recognize.

My suitcase sits open on the floor, half-packed, because finishing it felt too final.

I type back before I can talk myself out of it.

Alive. Barely. Christmas happened.