Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
O ver the next couple of hours, as she and Gabe slow-danced to the Christmas music crackling out from the old record player, her head on his chest, his arms encircling her waist, the moon full and the snow swirling outside the window, and then made a batch of his mother’s famous hot cocoa, laughing like teenagers when she spilled the first sip all over her sweater… Natalie was having the time of her life.
On the outside, at least.
The inside was a very different story. The battle raging within her was intense, a true war between her head and her heart, the past she couldn’t escape and the future she wanted so desperately. It was right in front of her, there for the taking, reach out and she could grasp it in her hands and hold on for dear life.
She could make this place her home. She could embrace the Christmases of her childhood, the before , the time when the world was bright and shining and full of love instead of darkness and grief and an unbearable, unyielding, unshakeable sadness. She could live in this town, and be welcomed by this community, this family , and she could be happy.
Finally, she could be happy. She could move on.
But every time she opened her mouth to tell Gabe that maybe, possibly, she could stay, something stopped her. Sometimes it was a memory, once-happy but now sharp and painful, pulling her down beneath the surface as she gasped and struggled and begged for air. Sometimes it was a flashback to the day, the hour, the moment it all went terribly, horribly, permanently wrong.
“I think we’re almost finished here.” Gabe stepped back from the tree they had been decorating and cocked his head, assessing their handiwork. Like the Christmas tree of Natalie’s childhood, Gabe’s was a jumble of ornaments and lights, beautiful in its chaos, mismatched yet perfect all the same. It didn’t belong in a department store, or in the pages of a magazine.
It belonged in a home.
“Time for the star?” Natalie asked, approaching Gabe’s side, slipping an arm around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. There had been many stolen kisses over the course of the evening, each more thrilling than the next, each causing the warring portions of Natalie’s mind to pick up their arms and head into battle once more.
“Not yet.” Gabe held up a finger. “I always save my mother’s favorite ornament for last.” He bent down and began rummaging through the massive plastic container that held his ornaments and lights. “Ah! Here it is.” He lifted out a small cardboard box, plain, clearly not the ornament’s original home. “To tell you the truth, I never understood why this was her favorite,” he said to Natalie as he pried open the box with his fingertips and slid off the lid. “It’s a little plain for my taste, but maybe you’ll disagree…”
He held up the ornament, which rotated slowly on its string. A delicate glass ornament—an angel holding a sign that said Hallelujah . Nothing special, like he said. Nothing noteworthy. Just a regular ornament, the kind that hung on hundreds, maybe thousands, of Christmas trees all over the country. Mass-produced.
Natalie took one look at it and doubled over in pain, and heartbreak, and a deep, bottomless grief.
Then, ignoring the sound of Gabe calling after her, she was running—out the door and into the frigid winter night.