Chapter 7
Four Days Until Christmas
kelsey
The blankets had multiplied overnight. That, or I’d been too frozen to notice that I’d been cocooned in enough layers to survive an arctic expedition.
My body ached in new and creative ways, a symphony of complaints from the wreck, combined with the soreness of sleeping pressed against someone on a couch after two years of having a king-size bed to myself.
I sat up slowly, cataloging the damage. The cut on my head throbbed dully beneath the bandage, my ribs protested where the seatbelt had pinned me, and my neck had developed an interesting crick from using Teddy’s chest as a pillow.
But underneath all that, something else registered—something so foreign it took me a moment to identify.
I’d slept through the night.
Not the restless, broken sleep I’d grown accustomed to, where I’d wake every hour like clockwork, my body trained by grief to remain vigilant. Not the medicated unconsciousness that came from the sleeping pills I’d finally given up because they left me feeling sluggish and foggy the following day.
Real sleep.
The kind where you closed your eyes in one moment and opened them in another, with nothing but darkness in between.
Two years and seven months of nightmares I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy—dreams of beating my fists bloody on a heavy iron door while Levi screamed for me from the other side, never reaching him before his cries for help stopped.
In another, I raced down the hall to his room, only to find Teddy’s body instead.
But last night, wrapped in quilts and my ex-husband’s reluctant embrace, my body had apparently decided to take a night off from its regularly scheduled programming.
After confessing to the nonexistent state of my love life and being gently rejected, I’d fallen into an exhausted sleep. Teddy woke me some time after dark, his voice low as he coaxed me upright long enough to eat.
Bleary-eyed, I’d managed to choke down a few spoonfuls of sausage potato soup before pushing the bowl away. He’d pushed it right back, his brow lifting in challenge. “All of it. You need the protein.”
I’d been too tired to argue and let him spoon-feed me like I was one of the kids. Afterward, he’d handed me a mug of herbal tea that smelled like Mentholatum but had tasted surprisingly good.
Once every drop was gone, he’d tucked me back under the quilts before moving to the armchair near the fireplace. Of course, he’d choose to spend the night cramped and uncomfortable rather than risk the intimacy of lying beside me again.
“Cold,” I’d mumbled, the word slipping out before I could stop it. I patted the space beside me for good measure, refusing to dwell on the reasoning behind my need to have him close.
Teddy had hesitated for what felt like an eternity before climbing back under the quilts with me.
I’d curled into him the moment the couch dipped under his weight, my cheek finding its familiar place against his chest, his heartbeat steady and strong against my ear.
And for the first time in years, the darkness hadn’t felt so heavy.
Now, gray morning light filtered through ice-covered windows, but the space beside me was cold. Empty. The fire had been recently stoked. Which meant he was probably showering. Or maybe outside, checking on the damage from the storm.
The flannel shirt had twisted around me in my sleep, riding up to expose damn near everything to the morning chill. I tugged it down and padded from room to room, my voice still rough with sleep as I called out for Teddy with no response.
In the kitchen, a mug had been set out next to the coffee maker, just waiting to be filled. And propped against it like the world’s least romantic love note was a piece of paper torn from what appeared to be an envelope.
Had to run out.
-T
That was it. No explanation of where he’d gone or when he’d be back. No acknowledgment of last night—not the confession I’d made, not the way we’d slept tangled together like we used to.
Nothing.
I stared at each word, trying to decode hidden meaning from his familiar handwriting—still the same cramped scrawl that had signed thirty-two years’ worth of anniversary cards and grocery lists and excuse notes for school.
Had to run out where?
The hurt that bloomed in my chest was as familiar as it was unwelcome.
The worst part? I couldn’t even pretend to be surprised.
It was what we’d always done—circled each other in an endless dance of almosts and not-quites, getting close enough to remember why we’d fallen in love before pulling back and rebuilding our walls even higher.
Whatever softness had existed between us last night had evaporated with the storm, leaving behind an empty kitchen and a note that might as well have been signed by a stranger.
I mashed the button on the coffee maker, staring blankly out the window above the sink while the machine burbled to life.
Outside, the world had been transformed by feet of blinding white snow, reminding me of the snow globes Levi once collected.
Everything pristine. Perfect. Beautiful…
if you didn’t think too hard about being sealed inside it.
Before I could spiral too far into old resentments, my phone buzzed to life on the counter where it had been left to charge last night.
Teddy’s mother’s name flashed across the screen, and I groaned, wishing I could ignore it. But Lucy had raised four boys and could smell avoidance from two states away. If I didn’t answer, she’d reach out to Addie and Sky, and I was nowhere near ready to face their line of questioning.
I scrambled to clear my throat, forcing brightness into my voice as I answered. “Hey, good morning!”
“Good morning, sweetheart.” Her voice wrapped around me like one of her famous hugs.
“Girls said you made it there in the nick of time. Just wanted to check in, see how you’re holding up.
We’ve been watching the weather channel, and it just looks awful.
Lord knows Paul and I worry about you kids up there in all that snow. ”
Kids.
As if Teddy and I were still the teenagers she’d busted going at it on the pool table in their basement.
“I’m… good,” I said, which was true if ‘good’ meant ‘I crashed my rental into a tree, spent the night pressed against your son like a barnacle, and woke up to a note that suggested he’d rather brave a blizzard than stay in the same room with me.’ “I think the worst of it passed through overnight.”
“I’ve been trying to reach Teddy all morning to check in, but you know how he is.”
I did. The man would rather perform his own root canal than have an actual conversation, phone or otherwise.
“Hope he hasn’t left you to fend for yourself,” she added, as subtle as a freight train.
“Oh, no,” I said quickly, willing the coffee maker to brew faster. “I’m, uh, I’m actually riding it out at his place.”
“Good, good. Well, put him on.” The hopeful lift in her voice sent a pang of guilt through my chest.
“He’s actually outside,” I said quickly, the lie rolling off my tongue before I could stop it. “The drifts are pretty high, and he wanted to get them cleared.”
“In this weather?” Paul’s gravel-rough voice cut through the speaker, and I could practically see his and Lucy’s eyes narrowing the way they did anytime one of their boys tried to pull something over on them. “That boy never did have the sense God gave a goose. I hope you’re keeping him in line.”
“Trying to,” I managed with a weak laugh. I hadn’t been able to keep their son in line when we were married. The chances of doing it now were somewhere between zero and when hell froze over—which, given the view outside, might have happened.
“Well, I’m just glad you two are getting a chance to reconnect,” Lucy chimed in, like Teddy and I were star-crossed lovers in a romance novel instead of two people who’d signed divorce papers in separate rooms because we couldn’t stand to look at each other.
“We’re not,” I started, then stopped, aware my former mother-in-law’s bullshit detector was top of the line.
The coffee maker sputtered its last drops into the carafe, giving me something to focus on besides the fact that our families continued to treat our split as if it were a phase or a break, convinced we’d come to our senses eventually.
I poured myself a cup with shaking hands, adding a splash of the oat milk creamer I’d managed to snag during the pre-storm frenzy at the store while Paul rumbled something in the background about meddling.
She shushed him before continuing. “I’m just saying, Christmas has a way of working things out. And a blizzard forcing you two together? Sounds like a sign to me.”
“Lucy,” I warned, but it was too late. She was already off to the races, convinced she could fix whatever had broken between us with a few words of wisdom and a little holiday magic.
“What? You two were always better together than on your own. Whatever happened, whatever drove you two apart—it doesn’t have to be permanent. People who love each other the way you two do find their way back. Sometimes they just need a little push.”
Or a full-on shove off a cliff, apparently, which was what this felt like.
“It’s not that easy,” I protested weakly.
We’d been a lot of things together—young, reckless, passionate, broken—but better? That was debatable. Unless better meant perfecting the art of mutual destruction.
“Seems to me,” Lucy’s voice took on the thoughtful quality that usually preceded something I didn’t want to hear, “that you two oughta simplify things then. Life’s too short, sweetheart. Trust me, at our age, Paul and I know that better than most.”
“Speak for yourself, Luce,” he grumbled. “I’m at my peak.”
“Honey, Carter was still president when you were at your peak,” she teased.
Their gentle sparring continued, but I barely heard it.
Life’s too short.