Chapter 15
Savannah
By the time Christmas night finally settles over Pineview, the town feels as though it has reached the end of something and set it gently down.
All around the square, windows shine with quiet life.
Families are tucked away inside, coats hung by doors, shoes kicked aside, tables crowded with half-cleared plates and cooling desserts.
Laughter presses softly against the glass in muted bursts, the sound of it contained but undeniably Christmas Day.
Wrapping paper lies folded or forgotten where it fell.
Gifts have been opened. Stories have been told.
Joy has been gathered and held close, sheltered from the cold.
Outside, the air sharpens, clean and biting, carrying the scent of snow and pine and the faint trace of woodsmoke drifting from chimneys farther up the hill.
Erik and I walk side by side through it all, close enough that our coats brush with every step, the contact constant and unintentional, a quiet awareness that settles into my body and stays there.
We do not touch in any way that could be called deliberate, and yet neither of us pulls away, neither of us widens the space, as if we are both conscious of how easily it might disappear.
Snow crunches beneath our boots, the sound startlingly loud in the hush, each step echoing farther than it should, a reminder of our presence in a town that has otherwise turned inward for the night.
“She used to make me walk this way,” I break the tension because the silence feels too consuming if I let it linger. “Every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day night. We would walk the square after dinner. She said we needed to get our steps in.”
Erik turns his head slightly. “Your mom?”
I nod. “She said Christmas didn’t end until the town went quiet. That joy needed somewhere to land.”
He exhales slowly, something like recognition passing through him. “My mom used to say the same thing. She said if you rushed the night, you forgot what you were grateful for.”
That stops me. I look at him then, really look at him, and for a moment I can see us as kids again. Two families circling the same traditions. The same truths and already intertwined long before either of us understood what that meant.
We pass the gazebo, its lights glowing soft and gold against the dark. I remember sitting on those steps at sixteen, knees pulled to my chest, Erik beside me, both of us pretending we were not terrified of what came next.
“You said once you would never leave,” I hush.
He smiles faintly. “You said you would never stay.”
“That feels like a lifetime ago.”
“It kind of was.”
We stop near his truck. Snow dusts the hood, untouched, the engine long cold. Erik leans back against it, hands in his pockets, shoulders squared like he is bracing for something he already knows is coming. He looks exactly the way he did as kids. It takes me back.
“I leave tomorrow morning,” the words come out almost as whisper. “Early. too. Six a.m.”
The words land between us, heavy and final.
“I know.”
That hurts more than if he had asked me to stay.
“I didn’t know my mom like that,” I continue, because now that I have started, I cannot stop. “Not the girl in Ruth’s photo. Not the woman who walked back into that toy store with an envelope and a plan. I had no idea Erik. I had no idea what she did for you, for your brothers, for your mom.”
“She never stopped being her,” he chokes back a tear, looking up to the sky, trying to locate her. “She just kept becoming more.”
My throat tightens. “I didn’t.”
He turns fully toward me. “We both know that’s not true.”
“I ran,” the shame creeping up my throat. “When she got sick, I ran. I chose distance because I did not know how to stay and watch her disappear. I couldn’t handle it.”
He does not interrupt. He never does.
“Your mom loved you,” he says softly. “She still does. I know she still does.”
That almost breaks me.
“She used to say you were brave,” he adds. “That it takes courage to want more than the place that made you. She was proud of you. Very proud, Sav. Don’t you ever for a second forget that.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. “She said that?”
“Any chance she got.”
I step closer without meaning to. My hands slide into the front of his coat, fingers curling there like I’m sixteen all over again.
Erik stills, then lifts one hand slowly, settling it at my lower back.
His fingers flex once against my back, betraying him.
I feel the tension, the restraint he’s fighting against building inside of him.
“I have no idea how to leave after today,” I whisper. “How do I go back to my life in New York like this did not happen.”
His chin lowers until it rests against my forehead. “You do not have to decide tonight.”
“But I do,” I’m sharp in my response, feeling the pressure and the overwhelm. “I have a boarding pass. A calendar. A life waiting for me.”
His hand tightens just slightly at my back. “I loved her,” he says quietly. “Your mom. Not like you did, but she mattered to me. A lot. She taught me how to stay. How to keep choosing the thing that needs you.”
I pull back enough to look at him. His eyes are icy like the snow around us, yet open, filled with years of wanting he never asked me to carry.
“And you, Erik?” I question him, because I don’t ever think I’ve asked him before. “Did you ever want to leave?”
He exhales slowly, then lifts his gaze to meet mine.
“There were moments,” he says, calmer now, “especially after my brothers moved away and started different lives, when I wondered if I should do the same.” He pauses, but there’s no hesitation in it.
“But every time the thought came up, I remembered what it felt like to be chosen, and what it felt like to keep building something that mattered.”
His voice doesn’t waver. “I didn’t want to walk away from that. This was too important to leave.”
His body language shifts suddenly, I step back. He walks around and reaches for the door handle to his truck, pulling it open. “Hang on. I almost forgot something.”
He reaches into the truck and pulls something free from the cab, hesitating for just a beat before pressing it into my hands. It’s a snow globe. Inside, a small town square glows beneath a slow fall of snow, a tiny rink and a gazebo lit warmly, light spilling everywhere.
“Erik, what are you doing? What is this?”
“My mom found it in a shop two towns over, years ago, right around the time Diane got sick,” he says, his gaze dropping to it with a steadiness. “She said your mom loved them. Said they made the world feel contained, like you could hold the magic without letting it slip away.”
My fingers tighten around the glass.
“We talked about giving it to Diane,” he says evenly.
“But I told my mom to keep it. I wanted her to have something at home that honored Diane, something that reminded us of her.” His gaze lifts to mine, unwavering.
“And then I knew it should be yours. This isn’t a gift.
It’s being returned to where it belongs. ”
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.