"You didn't strike me as a jealous person" I said as I entered Sam's office. Luckily Mei had to leave early so I didn't even have to find an excuse for not going home with her.
"Hello to you too" she said confusedly, shifting her gaze from her laptop to me.
"That look you gave to Mei. This morning" I walked towards her chair.
"Oh. Yeah, that was fun" she moved to allow me to sit in my usual, by then, spot.
"Not really. I thought I was gonna blackout or something. Anyway, you're making her paranoid" I eased into her lap.
"Am I now?"
"She thinks you hate her, when you're just jealous because you know she kissed your girlfriend" I teased her. "Far before we were even together, I should add"
"Someone has an attitude today, huh?" she tilted her head. "But I'm not jealous. Don't be ridiculous"
"You don't sound so convinced" I laughed. I just liked to occasionally purposely piss her off because I liked it when she got moderately annoyed at me, and she probably knew it.
"Well, I know you're crushing too hard on me to cheat with her anyway"
"I mean...you have a point" I blushed at her confidence.
"I know I do" she lifted my chin with her index finger, briefly smirked and kissed me.
We only had another full day together, since I was going to leave for the holidays two days after.
It supposedly was going to snow the following day so I'd convinced Sam to go to Central Park to enjoy it. And I really appreciated her accepting it since she usually disliked both the cold weather and touristy spots.
I also usually got cold really easily, but I'd got used to dressing with an almost excessive amount of layers to stay warm.
"You look like you're going skiing" Sam laughed as we met before leaving.
"Look, I don't wanna get cold!"
"This was your idea" she observed.
"And I'm sure you'll love it" I said, getting on my tiptoes to kiss the tip of her nose.
She'd insisted on going by car, even though it literally would take the same amount of time with the subway because of the traffic. I admired her patience.
It'd been snowing during the night so the city was already covered, but it'd started again right when we were leaving, creating the perfect atmosphere.
"Okay, you're right. It's really pretty out here" Sam said, as we finally approached the main entrance. Hundreds of people had had our same idea.
"Right? This atmosphere is stunning!" I excitedly said, grabbing her glove clovered hand.
"You're so cute" she laughed, pressing a kiss on my cheek. "What do you wanna do?"
"Can we just walk through the park romantically watching the snow as it falls for now?"
"Sure" she chuckled, jokingly shaking her head.
Every spot was full of families with children, couples on dates, or just people enjoying the snow. Sam had the patience to watch me as I took maybe too many pictures and videos in every part of the park, also convincing her to be in a few shots. I was sad I couldn't really share them anywhere, though.
"Oh my god, we need to get hot cocoa from there" I pointed to a wooden stand with people waiting for their turn in front of it.
"I'm sure another kind of drink would be better for queueing with all of those people" she mumbled, probably not realizing what she'd just said.
"I-sorry. Didn't mean that" she added as I gave her a confused look. We hadn't really ever talked about that matter and I sensed it made her uncomfortable.
"No worries" I chuckled, hoping that was true.
We queued up and somehow ended up talking to two guys, supposedly a couple, standing in front of us. I felt a sense of extreme freedom as Sam casually mentioned us also being a couple and them just going on with the conversation, like she'd said any random piece of information.
I thought about my past-self, who thought that she was condemned to feeling judged and like she was always doing the wrong thing all her life. Like maybe she'd never feel like her true self. Or be able to say she's fully enjoying her life.
Soon Sam was the only one to be talking and I didn't even notice it when she ordered our drinks.
"Here you-" she handed one paper cup, but eventually saw the single tear that was running down my cheek. "What's wrong babe?" she concernedly asked.
"Nothing" I laughed at myself getting so emotional. "All good. You calling us a couple so openly had a weird effect on me"
"Oh" she smiled, handing me my cup so she could wipe the tear off my face with her free hand. "Is that a good thing?"
"Yeah, I'd say so" I sniffled, taking the cup closer to my lips, the heat of the beverage reaching my face.
"Come on, let's go see the frozen lake" she took my hand, apparently knowing exactly where to go. She seemed to know the park better than I thought.
Watching the snow fall so gently on the ice gave me a sense of peace, it looked as if it fell exactly where it was supposed to deposit.
"I'll never not manage to think about The Catcher in the Rye when seeing the frozen lake" Sam said.
"I was wondering which one of us would be the one to say that" I snickered. "Seems pretty legitimate as an English student and professor"
"True. Would have been surprised if none of us mentioned it" she turned towards me. "You have chocolate on your nose" she amusedly pointed out.
I'd always been a messy eater, so I wasn't that surprised. "Do you have a napkin?" I asked, realizing I was stupid enough to not have one in my pocket.
"Yeah, hang on" she said as she took a tissue packet out of her bag. She took one and carefully folded it before rubbing it against the tip of my nose before I could do it myself. "Here you go" she said, making sure she'd removed the stain. I guessed she really did like taking care of me.
We walked through the park long enough for the sky to start turning dark, Sam talking about how the snow reminded her first day in New York. It'd started snowing as soon as she landed, so her first glance of the city was a snow-covered one.
The cold weather gradually became a bit too much to stay out any longer, so we headed to the place the car was parked in.
We hadn't really talked about it but we'd both seemed to understand we were going to exchange Christmas gifts that evening, since it was our last together before the holidays. Technically. I knew I was going to end up packing my stuff last minute the following evening.
"I have something I wanna give you before you leave for the holidays" Sam said as she took her coat off, once we'd got back to her place after what seemed like an interminable car ride.
"Me too, let me just go upstairs real quick" I also said. I didn't take it with me just in case she'd notice it in my bag.
I re-entered the flat seeing Sam cautiously drying her hair with a towel. It had snowed on her head and her hood apparently wasn't enough.
"Told you wearing beanies is the best move in these cases" I snickered, sitting on the couch next to her.
"And I told you I look ridiculous with them" she scoffed.
"I doubt you'll ever look ridiculous wearing anything"
"That's because you haven't seen me wearing a beanie"
"I'll sometime get you to wear one. That's my new life purpose" I laughed.
"I guess you'll have to learn to accept failure then" she shrugged. "That'd better not be a beanie" she pointed towards the carefully decorated package in my hands.
"Luckily for you, it isn't. Open up" I said as I passed to her, as she set the towel aside.
"Here's yours" she also passed me a small paper bag from behind her.
The difference between the ways we'd wrapped our gifts was kind of funny, it perfectly reflected our personalities.
A small white box was inside the bag, and I opened it to see a pair of silver colored hoop-earrings.
"Oh my god..." I said, incredulous, as I took one out. "They're beautiful. You didn't have to-"
"I'm glad you like them" she squeezed my hand. "I had a feeling you would"
"Thank you" I added, feeling tears rise to my eyes. I still couldn't understand why Sam had suddenly made me such an emotional person, since I never used to cry so much, until I met her.
I watched her as she completely unwrapped her gift, as I felt like I'd bought her something really stupid compared to what she'd gotten for me. I suddenly felt embarrassed.
But her exclaiming "No way!" as she saw the mug made me feel as if maybe I was wrong. "I've been saying I need a new one for ages" she excitedly said.
"I know. I picked up on the clues" I laughed, feeling relieved.
"And it's my favorite color too. Now I'll think of you all the time I'm at work" she smiled, closing the space between us to kiss me.
"That doesn't already happen?" I joked.
"Well, I'll think of you even more. If I wanna be precise" she said, causing me to laugh.
I decided to go back to my place for the night because I had to get up early to pack my stuff the following day and didn't want to disturb Sam.
Me and Mei decided to do the journey home together, like for Thanksgiving, so we could also exchange gifts at my place before, it being nearer to the station than hers.
As I'd predicted, the first thing she said as she came in was that she hoped to "accidentally" bump into Sam as she arrived. She didn't, luckily. I felt like I was visibly failing to lie every time she started talking about her.
She also received my gift very enthusiastically, thanking me for how useful it'd be like Sam had the previous evening. I loved the feeling of giving actually useful gifts to people.
"I admit I asked for advice on this from my flatmates, since I'm not much of an expert in that matter." she said as I unwrapped my gift. " But they all said you'd love it after seeing you so enthusiastic while you did our make-up on Halloween night"
She was completely right, since I found myself with an amazing eyeshadow palette in my hands. And I'd always had a weakness for eyeshadow.
"Thank you so much, I love it!" I smiled, going in for a hug.
"No problem. Guess they were right" she chuckled. "They probably can't wait for you to try it on them"
"I'll make sure to take it for the next party we go to" I said, before realizing what had happened at that specific party.
And I could sense Mei had also realized because of the few seconds of silence that suddenly occurred.
"I didn't mean to bring up, you know-" she said, not facing me anymore but the floor.
"No, uhm, it's okay" I mumbled, trying to find a way to change the subject.
"Can I just ask you something?"
Apparently her intention was different from mine.
"Sure..." I already feared what the question would be.
"Did you ever have, like, second thoughts? On what you told me the day after?"
"Oh. Well, I mean..." I struggled to say as I wondered how some people could be so bold.
"Don't worry. Stupid question" she cut me off.
"No-"
"Yeah, pretend I didn't ask you anything in the first place. Also, we should get going" she said, checking the time on her phone.
As we headed to the station I tried to act as if nothing had happened, resuming our usual conversations, but I could still sense some tension, or awkwardness.
I really hoped Mei didn't think I'd consider her lesser of a friend because of what happened. I'd been lucky enough to not have a non reciprocated crush on someone in my life, but I knew people who'd had and I imagined how not pleasant it might feel.
She seemed to have returned to her usual radiant self during the trainride, which was a good sign. And we talked about meeting sometime during the holidays, since we only lived about half an hour apart. Maybe she could meet Vic.
I'd also already started to miss Sam, even if I hadn't seen her in less than a day. We'd been spending so much time together recently that I felt like something was missing when she wasn't with me.
So I texted her and tried not to start worrying about reasons why she might not have responded yet. She obviously couldn't always have her phone handy. She had other stuff to do.
But flashbacks from what Sam had done the last time we were apart started to come back to my mind. And I knew lots had changed since then. We weren't even officially together, so she really had no fault. Or not much fault. And she probably also realized that too. Hopefully.
I just didn't think it had affected me that much until that moment.
My hands started to get clammy as I realized I'd been intensely worrying about it for a while by then. I didn't have speaking to Mei as a distraction since she'd fallen asleep halfway through the journey.
Maybe I was just being extremely paranoid, and knowing me that wouldn't be unusual. But I didn't want to ruin my holidays by thinking about that too much. I could ask Vic advice on what to do once we got to see each other. She always knew what the best thing to do was.
My phone vibrated in my pocket just as I was leaving Mei at the bus stop.
"Happy holidays Ellie" she said, hugging me.
"Happy holidays to you too," I said. "See you in a few days, maybe"
"For sure" she smiled.
I greeted her one last time before walking towards my house's street, full of Christmas lights, as I grabbed my phone.
sam<3: Was at the airport to collect my sister. Do not recommend, too many people.
sam<3: What about you? How was the journey?
you: ugh i'm sorry about the too many people
you: everything's okay, the journey was fine:) already miss you though
sam<3: I already miss you too baby. Can't wait for you to be back
Hopefully someone I knew wouldn't see me smiling like an idiot at my phone while walking.