Winter Wonderland

eleven: family time

"Sounds like a plan." I rub my hands together, trying to coax some semblance of sensation back into my fingertips. I didn't realize until way too late that I had no gloves, and it's somewhere in the high twenties out there. Cold. As. Fuck. "Let's go."

"There's just one more thing I need to do before we leave," she says, winding a thick yellow scarf around her neck, the sunny shade a perfect complement to her skin. She stretches up on her tiptoes, one hand on the back of my head, and kisses me tenderly. I lean into the moment, cherishing the minty taste of her tongue and the shea butter of her chapstick, and I grin when she drops her heels to the ground.

"I feel a lot more ready now," I say, taking her hand. Every moment that I spend with her feels more right, more natural, more perfect. Even more meant to be. Each day, a little more anxiety sheds itself from my shoulders and I can stand a little taller, because of her.

*

It takes the heating a while to kick in. It isn't until we've been to a drive-thru Starbucks and I have a venti mint hot chocolate in my hands that I start to warm up, relaxing into my seat with each sip. Storie's talking about work, and I am relishing every word that passes her lips; her words flow like honey, a confident ramble, the way she can easily talk for hours if she gets onto a subject that interests her.

If there's one thing I'm getting right now, it's that she loves her job. I may not understand the intricacies of the work she does – or rather, I understand the intricacies that she's talking about more than I understand the broader idea – but I can tell she is happy doing what she does. Although her main job is copyediting, it's her voluntary stuff that she talks about the most. She started a campaign a couple months back to help out with Christmas for the autistic kids she helps out at school, and each time I catch her eye when she glances away from the road for half a second, I see her excitement in her eyes.

"Anyway," she says with a laugh, after almost twenty minutes. "Sorry. That was a bit of a rant. I can't even remember what you asked me."

I chuckle. "I asked how work was today."

She laughs and groans. "Sorry. I went off on one a bit. How was your day?"

"Busy. A lot of kids wanted to see Santa at the last minute, though I'm pretty sure if the haven't sent in their lists by now, he's not gonna have enough time to sort out their wishes. I overheard at least three different kids asking for some toy that, according to Kaylani, sold out five weeks ago."

"Uh oh. There'll be some disappointed children on Christmas Day then."

"Quite possibly. But, yeah, my day was fine. I've realized Kaylani's actually pretty tolerable, and half decent company, so there's a chance I might have made a friend. It'll be nice to have one of those again."

I mean it to come out lighthearted but Storie pouts, her expression shifting from amusement to sadness. She's driving with one hand on the wheel; the other drops onto my knee and gently squeezes. I put my hand over hers and we stay like that for a while, until she has to switch lanes and we're coming off the I-90. We're almost there. It's really real. This is actually happening. My heart's in my throat but then her hand's on my knee again and I don't feel so sick. Not with her next to me.

I only came here a handful of times while we were together but I remember every road, every turning, so I know with startling clarity just how far her house is from the Welcome to Five Oaks sign, the one that still has one of the trees crossed out. The seconds tick down with every turn she makes, and then I see her house. It's decked out in glowing fairy lights, a handful of neon Christmas signs out front, and I spot her mom through a gap in the curtains.