Chapter 2
Two
“Uncle Mason, Aunt Syd is under the mistletoe!” Leo and Beck, Jules’s six-year-old twins, come crashing by, all limbs and energy.
Mason either doesn’t hear them over the roar of the football game or chooses not to.
No surprise there. Sweet mistletoe kisses are a thing of the past.
Ten Christmases in this cabin. A decade of laughter, of winter mornings spent drinking coffee with the scent of Margaret’s baking wafting from the kitchen, snow piling high outside while the fire roars in the hearth. Noisy, family-filled holidays that I could only ever imagine as a child.
The familiar scene unfolds like a well-loved story.
Jules and Margaret stand side by side in the kitchen, laughter bubbling between the sizzle of butter and clang of pots.
In the family room, the men huddle around the TV, Mason among them.
His feet propped, eyes glued to the screen.
The twins weave between them, more interested in snacks than football.
Bell, the family’s golden retriever, roams the chaos.
This is the holiday I used to dream about as a kid. And the reason why I’m still here.
“Oh, come on, Reynolds! Throw the ball!” Mason yells at the screen.
“Who’s Reynolds?” Beck asks.
Without looking away from the game, Mason replies, “New quarterback for San Francisco.”
“Uncle Mason, will you play Mario Kart with us later?” Leo looks up with hopeful eyes before tossing a small football to his brother.
Mason doesn’t even shift. “I’m not into video games, guys. Why don’t you sit and watch the game with us?”
But the twins are off, chasing the next adventure and leaving Mason and his dismissal behind.
My hand tightens around the banister as my eyes close and I breathe in the scents of rosemary and browning butter floating from the kitchen, willing them to settle the pit in my stomach.
This is fine. I’m fine.
“Syd?” Jules calls, and I open my eyes. She’s watching me from the kitchen, jaw set tight. “You good?”
I take a deep breath. “Yep, I’m fine.” The words come out automatically, a reflex I mastered as a little girl.
She studies me but doesn’t press. “Mom and I were chatting about books. Have you read Jennifer Hartmann’s Still Beating?”
“I haven’t. Is it another of your gushy romances?”
“Hardly. It’s right up your alley. A man abducts a woman and her sister’s fiancé. Forces them to witness, honestly, the worst. But through it, they develop this intense bond. Fuck, it’s so good. You have to read it.”
Mason strolls in, catching the tail end of her description. He gives me a quick arm squeeze. His usual I’ve-got-this signal. “Why the hell would anyone want to read that? Sounds disgusting.”
“Please, Mason, tell us what you think.” Jules rolls her eyes.
His smug face and pompous, holier-than-thou tone grate on my last nerve. The words spill out before I can stop them. “You do realize that not everyone grows up in a fairy tale? Stories like that matter. They show what it means to crawl through hell and find something on the other side.”
“If you want to see people suffer, watch the news.”
I take a slow breath, trying not to bite, trying not to think about my hell, my childhood I crawled through. But Jules beats me to it.
“The book is ultimately a love story. Just not the neat kind where people fall in love and ride off into the sunset. Love can be complicated, overwhelming, and even show up at the worst possible time. It can happen with the entirely wrong person. It’s not always sweet or safe. Sometimes it’s messy and painful.”
His blue eyes go distant for a beat as if considering Jules’s words. Maybe we’re about to have a real conversation. One with depth, for once.
“Is love code for sex in your novels?” His face lifts in triumph. “Anyway, I’m going to finish watching the game. Something real.”
The momentary hope deflates, as it always does. Ten years together, and his emotional depth is still that of a puddle.
Right, why bother with a real conversation when a game is on?
I step back, catching myself on the counter as a wave of dizziness hits. Shaking it off, I turn to Margaret, who’s been watching the back and forth with a furrow between her brows. “Do I have time for a quick run before dinner?”
“It’s freezing outside,” Mason interjects. “Why don't you run on the treadmill?”
Margaret studies me with unreadable eyes before speaking in her soft, lilting voice: “We’ve got at least an hour, Sydney. You’ll be fine. Have a good run.”
I don’t wait for more opinions, least of all my husband’s.
In our bedroom, I strip off my sweater and jeans, trade them for thermal leggings, a long-sleeved shirt, and a thick jacket.
Layer by layer, I shed the version of me that has to smile, to smooth things over.
Out there, I can just be. A runner. Alone with breath and motion.
I pop my phone in my Koala Clip and grab my headlamp.
Outside, the cold slaps me awake. My watch says fifteen degrees.
Perfect.
The night is clear and crisp, stinging the inside of my nose with each inhale.
My feet find their cadence quickly, crunching over the road as the world narrows with each step.
The burn in my quadriceps as I push up the first incline.
The way the dying light filters through pine boughs, casting long shadows across untouched snow.
At the ridge overlooking the valley, I pause, hands on my hips, chest heaving from the climb. Below, the village glows. Above, stars blink into the black velvet sky.
This moment, alone with the mountains and sky, feels more intimate than anything Mason and I have ever shared.
I had convinced myself, for a long while, that what we had was enough, and maybe it was then.
I remember standing in that bathroom, rationalizing away how it’s safer to settle.
The family I wanted was within reach; all I had to do was grab hold of it.
I didn’t need an earth-shattering connection; all that led to was hurt and heartbreak. I mean, look at my mother.
But something’s shifted.
Maybe it’s age. Or perhaps it’s the quiet, nagging realization that when it’s Mason and me in D.C., the silence stretches. Far too reminiscent of my childhood home.
Or maybe it’s realizing the word I always use to describe my life.
Fine.
The same word I used in childhood.
It’s fine that Mom and Dad left for a trip without saying goodbye. Sending me to boarding school in France? Fine. Missing my birthday, fine.
Fine is the lie I wrapped around my loneliness like armor.
My stride lengthens as I find my rhythm, that floating sensation when running becomes flying. The one thing I haven’t sacrificed or negotiated away.
The cabin comes into view. Candles line each window, and smoke curls from the chimney. The scene inside has probably changed little while I’ve been out. A picture of a life I thought I wanted.
I check my watch, just enough time to shower and reassemble my mask.
Tomorrow I’ll run farther. Push harder. Find that edge where there’s nothing but the burn in my lungs and the strength in my legs. Where I can outrun everything, including the gnawing awareness that maybe fine isn’t what I want from life anymore.
***
When dinner wraps up, my nephews bolt for their devices, thrilled to have free rein. Gary and Margaret settle on the sectional, queuing up a movie as they wait for Ivy and her boyfriend to arrive. Tom and Mason remain at the table, dissecting the earlier football game.
“Come on, let’s escape to the deck.” Jules grabs my hand.
The deck stretches the full length of the house, overlooking a forest dusted in snow.
Mount Mansfield rises in the distance as moonlight reflects off crystallized treetops.
The sky is unmoving, as if the world has gone still long enough to let something inside me unravel.
No wind. No distractions. Only the quiet weight of something I haven’t wanted to name pressing behind my ribs.
“You okay?” Jules asks, curling up in a throw blanket. A cozy interrogator ready to dig in. “And spare me the ‘I’m fine’ routine. You’ve been off since you walked through the door yesterday.”
“It’s just...”
The words snag somewhere between my chest and throat. Jules feels closer than family, but I’ve never told her the whole truth about Mason and me.
She leans forward. Her usual spark, bold and unfiltered, is softer now as if she senses what’s sitting beneath the surface.
“Sometimes I… we’re so different, Jules.”
“You don’t need to hold back, Syd. Talk to me.”
“Do you really want to hear this? I don’t want to make things uncomfortable. He’s your brother, after all, and I’m only a sister by marriage.” I let out a hollow, bitter laugh.
“Fuck him. You’re my sister. Period. Talk.”
Her amber eyes, the color of whiskey, flare to life. Like the drink itself, her gaze always loosens my tongue.
“In D.C., we’re so busy it’s easy to ignore the... disconnect. But here…” I pause, grasping for the right words. “Here, the country air clears away the fog, and I see everything clearly.”
She looks at me in that way she has, reading between the lines of what I don’t say. Her voice comes out soft, the tone you’d use not to frighten an animal. “Are you happy?”
The word no rises in my throat, immediate and unrelenting.
The truth I've spent a decade avoiding. Ten years of looking in the mirror, trying to convince myself that I’m fine.
Ten years of watching Tom and Jules. Margaret and Gary.
Seeing real intimacy, a connection that isn’t easily explained, and it’s a problem I didn’t even realize I had until I saw it so plainly.
Something I told myself my life was better without.
A cold shudder rolls through my body. I’m thirty-six years old and sometimes as lonely as I was as a ten-year-old. But I can’t answer her question because if I say it out loud, I’d have to do something about it.
Instead, I say, “You know our relationship is different from yours and Tom’s.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “I might be an OB, but it doesn’t take a therapist’s license to see that.”
I laugh dryly, tipping my head toward the stars. Once, I used to make wishes on them, believing the universe would save me. Now I know better. I watch, waiting for the next one to burn out.
A blast of cold air whips through the deck, cutting against any exposed skin. I gasp and move my chair closer to the flames. A storm is brewing.
“Fuck, that was cold.” Jules wraps her blanket tighter. “Do you want to keep talking about this, or should I distract you with some gossip about the hot guy Ivy’s bringing?”
“The latter, please.” I swallow down my unease for another day.
“He’s seriously hot. I’m talking Greek-god-meets-Roman-sculpture hot. And that’s before he even speaks.”
She collapses back in her chair, panting dramatically, fanning herself. Her strawberry-blonde hair glows against the firelight, the red catching flame.
“I do love looking at gorgeous men. Is this just another fling? She hasn’t been serious about someone before.”
“We met last month when I visited. Mason was there too. Didn’t he mention it?
” Jules asks as if this shouldn't be news. She shakes her head in disbelief. “James, her guy, he’s an accomplished architect, very smart, around our age. And honestly?” She tilts her head, thoughtful.
“He struck me as someone who enjoys a challenge. You should have seen him playing pool. Tom and Mason never stood a chance. I didn’t get him and Ivy as a couple, but I guess it works. ”
The mention of pool brings me back to the only time in my life I knew happiness, those carefree years in Europe.
While being sent away hurt, it also gave me freedom.
I could travel, explore, and truly be myself without fear of disappointing anyone.
The only time I get a glimmer of that feeling now is when I’m running or on the ice.
Bell’s eager bark alerts us to the new arrivals.
Ivy bursts in, radiant. She wears a charcoal pencil skirt and cream cashmere sweater, a far cry from her usual fairy-girl aesthetic. Her hair is straightened and pinned into a sleek updo, as if she’s auditioning for the role of perfect wife.
Behind her is a man. Ball cap pulled low, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. He greets the others inside before following Ivy to the deck.
“Jules! Syd! It’s been forever!” Ivy cries, pulling us into hugs.
He lingers a step behind, and when I finally face him, the first thing that hits me is his height. He’s so damn tall. The kind of tall that makes you recalibrate the space around you. He removes his cap and runs a hand through dark hair. A tendril falls over his eyes.
“I’m James,” he says, extending a hand.
“Sydney,” I reply. The moment our hands touch, it’s the same taut stillness I feel in the seconds before a starting gun. There’s no movement, no sound, only a buzz beneath my skin that says: pay attention.