Chapter 16
KAIRO
Martin takes his time driving the road between New York and the cozy town Devon lives in as the snow continues to thicken around us.
With the heaters on full blast, Devon and I relax together trying to shake off the judgmental weight my mother leaves behind.
“When did you move to L.A.?”
I ask carefully, acutely aware that she’s just spent three hours being interrogated and I don’t want to add to that, despite my curiosity.
“I was a teenager,” she replies, gazing out the window and walking her fingers gently through the condensation built up from the heat in here.
“I was arrogant. Thought I knew more about the world than I actually did and that I didn’t need my parents.
I was tired of small towns and small-town people. ”
“What made you come home?”
Her fingertips pause and her head tilts, then she withdraws from the window and begins unpinning her braid from where it lies across her head.
“I got tired of L.A. and L.A. people.” She chuckles softly. “And I missed the small town life.”
It’s an answer that tells me nothing about her other than her ability to dodge a question she really doesn’t want to answer.
I can make an educated guess, given her parents’ financial situation and the stress of running the bakery.
“Would you go back?”
“To L.A.?” Her gaze locks with mine as her braid unfurls deftly between her fingers and rows of waves gradually frame her beautiful face. “No. I never want to go back there.”
“Why?”
I’m pushing too hard, like trying to catch the edge of a peelable lid that’s teasing me with release.
“Like I said, I missed the small town life. Particularly at Christmas.”
“Is it quiet or something?”
Her brows furrow together as confusion flashes in her eyes.
“No, of course not. If anything, it’s the busiest time of all. Don’t you also get swamped at Christmas?”
Thinking about Christmas makes my stomach churn.
My hand moves to my thigh, and my fingers briefly dig into the old scars hidden under my clothing as my leg threatens to bounce and betray my anxiety about anything related to this time of year. “I can’t say I’ve really done anything around this time of year.”
The last of her braid falls loose, and Devon tousles her hair with her fingertips while gaping at me.
“You’re kidding me, right? You have all the money in the world! Surely, you’ve experienced everything there is to experience in the magic of this time of year.”
“Meetings and boring dinners in fancy restaurants, sure.”
“You poor soul,” Devon groans. “Maybe it’s the city life because L.A.
was the same. But back home?” Her eyes sparkle with a sudden childlike wonder.
“We have a fair that takes up the entire street filled with everything you could possibly want to eat, lights on every lamp post and tree that turn the world so beautifully sparkly! The ice rink opens, the school puts on a play that everyone attends, there are dances and candy cane catching competitions. People dress up and go door to door singing to one another, you send an obnoxious number of Christmas cards, build gingerbread houses, and play find the candied walnut. Have you never done any of that?”
I shake my head, much to her astonishment. “Nope.”
“Okay, well… What about just enjoying the season?” She taps the glass with her fingers. “Making snowmen or snow angels, walking in the snow and leaving a story behind you until your ears and nose are about to freeze off?”
Again, I shake my head and her eyes widen further.
“Do you ever stop with your meetings and busy life to just take in the world?”
“No… not since my father died. Although I can’t say I ever did before that. Maybe when I was a child. Christmas was with the nanny until I was about seven, then it was time to learn how to be a man. This time of year is more about…”
Wincing, I fall silent while unsure whether I should admit how my world works.
Given how often she’s had to talk about herself tonight, I give in. “My world sees this time of year as the perfect time to apply pressure and force people into agreements they would otherwise avoid. Either through financial threats or anything that keeps them away from their family.”
“Wow.” She gives me a deadpan look and then laughs softly.
“You really need to take a step back and enjoy the world more.”
Suddenly, she unbuckles her seatbelt and as I surge forward with a spike of worry, she only crawls across the next two seats and starts murmuring in Martin’s ear.
After a brief conversation I’m denied any hint of, she slips back into her seat with a knowing smirk.
“What was all that about?”
“You’ll see, Mr. Stuffy No Time for the World.”
“I have time, it’s just work is—”
“Blah, blah.” Devon cuts me off gently. “If we’re going to be married and you’re giving me all this money to help me, the least I can do is remind you not to take things so seriously. Think of it as part of your therapy to step out of your father’s shadow.”
Before long, the car pulls to a stop and I climb out expecting to see Devon’s home.
Instead, we’re parked on a small stone bridge with snow blanketing the bridge barriers.
There are trees as far as I look in every direction, and thick, fat snowflakes lazily drift past me as Devon appears at my side.
The wind is sharp enough to seep directly through my coat, so I huddle inside it and follow her to the edge of the bridge.
“Where are we?”
She leans her elbows against the railing and peers down to a small stream that’s completely frozen over, but lights woven around the underside of the bridge and several nearby bushes light the ice up like glittering crystals.
“We’re on the other side of my town, where the forest is the thickest. I used to come here and race sticks with my dad. I always lost.”
Devon chuckles. “This stream is nothing like the rivers you have in the city. It’s small, but it means a lot to a lot of people.
I caught my first fish here, lost more races than I care to count.
Just upstream, there’s a perfectly flat stone you can use to cross, and I sprained my ankle when I slipped on it.
People come here for all sorts of reasons, which is why the lights get set up.
Solar-powered to help guide people home if they get lost.”
She paints an idyllic picture of a thousand memories being formed on this single bridge.
Leaning on the snow-covered stone rail next to her, I gaze down and follow the fat snowflakes up to the surrounding trees.
Above us, grey clouds shut out the starlight and blanket us with a softness that echoes in the snowy landscape lit up by the car’s headlights and the solar-powered lights down below.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Isn’t it?” She turns to face me. “I bet you’ve even driven past here before and not even realized because you’ve never stopped to look.
Never stopped to enjoy things. Even something as simple as this.
In the spring, it’s a picnic and fishing spot, in the summer it’s a place to escape the heat, and right now, it’s a crystal palace where kids will come to race their handmade sleds.
It’s good for your health to slow down, y’know. ”
Snow lands gently in her hair and clings briefly to her lashes before melting away with the heat of her skin.
Her eyes reflect the light, making them sparkle like amber gemstones, and her smile thaws all the cold that rises from my poorly warmed shoes.
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple,” she says gently. “It took me a long time to realize this is what I want to live for. The sweet, little things. And you can have that too.”
“Can I?”
Devon fixes me with a look that’s so soft, it feels like she’s found the zipper to my soul and she’s very slowly peeling me apart.
Her body angles toward me and her head tilts so that her hair slips and reveals the simple gemstone earring.
“What happened that closed off your hope?”
Such a gentle question leads to such a heavy answer.
An answer I’ve only ever spoken out loud to an overpaid therapist.
“My father.” The words cut out of me like cracks in ice and Devon watches me intently.
“Two years ago, almost three now this year, I came home to find my dad had taken his own life and no one had found him for three days. I walked into my old apartment after being out of the city on business for a week. My mother was busy with her dinners and her banquets and charity auctions and she didn’t notice his absence.
No one did. I came home, and he was just in the chair like he was asleep.
I started talking to him but he never said a word.
Until I tried to wake him up and I realized he was stone cold. ”
Utter sadness fills Devon’s eyes as she intently listens to me.
“He was a cruel man. I won’t hide that fact. He didn’t care about anyone or anything other than money and sometimes, my mother. Sometimes, I think he chose my apartment to do it because he wanted to remind me that I’m a disappointment one last time.”
The words pour out of me with depth I’ve never managed in front of my therapist before.
It’s like the rising blizzard and Devon’s presence have created this soft, safe bubble where I can say absolutely anything and it won’t matter.
“I stood there and I stared at him for ages. I was so angry that he sent me away on some long trip to fix one of his messes, and then he chose to ruin my favorite chair. But what hurt the most, once I’d had a chance to process everything, was that no one noticed.
For three days, he was there and no one came looking for him.
Not even Mom. He was this great tyrant of a man but in the end, there was no one who cared about him enough to check on him during any of those days.
He never left a reason, just a note saying that he had done all he wanted to do.
And I—” The words catch in my throat and I have to look away from Devon.
“I’m terrified of having a life as empty as his, to end up in a place where no one will notice if I leave.
So I threw myself into honoring his memory to try and impress people, doing everything I could to make sure everyone saw me as great as they saw him but better than they saw him.
And somehow, I’ve ended up in a life as empty as his and it took a trip to your bakery to make me realize it. ”
Suddenly, Devon reaches forward and places her hand on top of mine.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Kairo,” she says with more gentleness than I could ever deserve.
“I’m sorry you lost your father, but more than that, I’m sorry he did it in such a cruel way.
There’s no world in which you deserve to be treated like that.
And you have time. There’s more to life than money and business, I promise you. You’ll see.”
I’m frozen, not from the cold, but from the very brief contact Devon grants me with her hand atop mine.
“You’re saying I should stop and look at more bridges?”
She gently removes her hand and steps closer to me, smiling despite the sorrow in her eyes.
“I’m saying it sounds like you’ve spent the last two years punishing yourself when you should be caring for yourself.
Honoring your father’s memory is a decent thing to do to an extent, but not at the loss of yourself or the pain he left you.
You’re not his disappointment or your mother’s scolding bag.
You are your own person and you deserve to care for and nurture that person. And…”
Her smile brightens softly and she briefly touches my forearm. “If it warms you any, I would definitely notice if you vanished. Two days, max.”
A soft, unexpected laugh bubbles up inside me and gets carried in the wind as swiftly as the snow. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I am sorry, though. I can’t imagine going through what you went through.”
“Sometimes, I feel guilty that I wasn’t sad at his passing, but yet I work so hard for his memory.”
“I won’t pretend to understand your relationship, but I know we get implanted with a strange instinct to protect those who hurt us.”
I get the strangest impression that Devon understands me more than she’s letting on.
We remain together on the bridge for a few long minutes with her standing close enough to me that her floral scent warms my soul with each breath I take.
Never in my life have I felt as safe as I do in this moment.
We linger until the blizzard turns fierce, and after one last look at the beautiful river that will forever hold my secret like a lingering snow globe, we return to the car.
Martin drives us home while Devon and I sit in an amicable silence, which is broken when she explains to me that candy cane catching is when several candy canes are attached to a string and held aloft for people with bound hands to catch with their mouths while the string wobbles—a sticky yet hilarious endeavor, by her description.
By the time we pull up to her house, the snow is falling so thickly that I can’t see beyond my own nose and my umbrella does little to protect Devon from the pelting flakes.
“You should stay,” Devon says as we huddle under my umbrella and make it two steps toward her door. “There’s no way it’s safe for you and Martin to drive back in this in the dark!”
“Are you sure?”
I ask but end up laughing as Martin, who overheard, is already hurrying past us toward her home.
“I’m sure!” he calls in between mouthfuls of snow.
“Yes.” Devon laughs. “I refuse to let you drive back to the city in this!” The wind almost steals her words from her, and as I fight to keep the umbrella over her, I nod.
“Okay. That would be lovely, thank you.”