Krystal
DO NOT ANSWER keeps calling me. I should have blocked his number, and I hadn’t because there was a pathetic part of me that hoped he’d call shortly after we broke up. He never did. His contact has been sitting in my phone, untouched, and not heard from for the past two years…until this morning.
Now, what would prompt him to call me a couple of days after he asked another woman to marry him?
My skin burns with anger, but something else twists inside me.
A sick sense of satisfaction that, after all this time, he’s still thinking about me.
I hope he thinks about me for the rest of his life.
I hope when he’s with her, he’s thinking about how perfect I was for him — how I changed parts of myself to fit into his world. Something I bet she refuses to do.
I blink away from my phone and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
This is foolish.
Feeling like this after all this time is foolish.
My gaze drifts to the gentle flurries of snow floating to the ground. Eleven months out of the year, I’m fine. Happy, even. Then December comes, and it’s like someone’s stuck their fingers in a barely healed wound. The soreness of it lasts all month, and when it’s finally over, I can breathe again.
Nicholas wades into my vision, picking his knees up high as he trudges deeper into the small hills of snow in the backyard.
He’s dressed in all black, from the beanie covering the short crop of curls on his head to the snow boots protecting his feet.
I drink up his silhouette. He’s handsome in the face, but damn, that body is fit.
He crouches, raising the camera to his eye and watching…something.
My skin burns for another reason as I find myself wanting to be the center of his attention — wondering what it feels like to have him trained on me so intently, as something worthy of freezing time for.
I swallow, forcing my gaze away as I finish getting ready for the day’s activity. He has no idea how much I need this, whatever this is between us. For the remaining nine days, I get to feel at least an echo of the way Christmas used to feel. A talent, it seems, unique to him.
I head over to the barista and order my usual, a mocha latte with their homemade cookie butter syrup and extra chocolate drizzle.
“Ahh,” Nick says, sounding like he’s on the brink of laughter.
He knocks the snow off his boots before entering.
When I turn to face him, determined not to let a smile take over the glare on my face, I’m hit with something warm and sticky blooming in my stomach.
His eyes seem to change colors when they connect with mine, brightening just the tiniest bit with a smile.
My cheeks flush, and I take an eager sip of my coffee to help me keep my cool.
“Came to get your daily dose of pre-diabetes?” His energy has this ability to snuff out everything else in a room.
My mouth betrays me, letting the tiniest smile slip as I blink up at him.
“Let me get a hot chocolate,” he nods to the barista. “Please.”
“Wow. Leaving your psychopathy behind?” I tease.
“What can I say?” He responds dryly. “You’ve inspired me.” He looks down at me, a smirk on his lips begging to be chased away with a kiss.
Who would willingly leave this man?
Who would willingly leave you?
The voice in my head rings like an alarm. I turn away, walking to the table and sitting at the end farthest from him. It’s like, I can’t escape.
I sigh. How far gone must I be to want to escape from myself?
“Excited for today?” He asks, approaching me cautiously as if he can sense the sudden shift in my energy.
I rest my head in my hand as I look over at him. His presence is oddly comforting. “I haven’t been ice skating in years, so…yes.”
His eyebrows jump as he nods his acknowledgment.
“Shocked?” I ask, taking another sip of my latte.
“A little, yeah,” he chuckles.
I offer him a curious smile. “Why?”
His shoulders rise and fall casually as he mirrors my smile, almost as though he can’t help himself. My pulse flutters. “You kind of have this Scrooge vibe going. I know you say you used to love Christmas, but it seems like you’re just waiting for it to end.” He says.
I smile a frown into my coffee, not knowing where to begin in response to that.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m kind of into it,” he adds.
My attention bounces back to him, piqued. “How’s that?
He leans forward, and now I can smell the white musk and cedar notes of his cologne.
I pull the sleeves of my shirt over my wrists to hide the goosebumps that flourish across my skin.
“It makes earning your smiles more worth it,” he says, his dark eyes falling to my lips.
Instinctively, and before I can stop myself, I tuck my lower lip beneath my teeth.
I bring the coffee cup to my lips, but it’s too late.
His deep skin warms, his eyes shining with desire.
My latte went cold a while ago, but heat still spreads across my core.
Then, my phone vibrates in my back pocket and all the blood in my body rushes to my head. DO NOT ANSWER glows behind the screen. Wrapped in the embrace of Nick’s awareness, I forgot all about Jeremy. “It’s my ex,” I say, sending the call to voicemail.
“I thought he just got engaged?” Nick reminds me.
I roll my eyes. “Exactly.”
“Let me see her,” he says, nodding to the phone.
I scoff. “What?”
“Let me see the new girl,” he repeats.
Reluctantly, I unlock my phone and go looking for a picture of them together. My heart hammers behind my ribs as I slide the device over to him.
He holds it up to his face, his eyes scanning the photo.
“I mean,” he sighs, dispassionate. “She’s a’ight.”
I smirk. “Just a’ight.”
He huffs a laugh at my attempt to imitate the deep timbre of his voice. “She’s gorgeous,” I shrug. It doesn’t bother me that she’s pretty. It doesn’t even bother me that he chose her over me.
Okay. Maybe it bothers me a little bit.
What actually hurts the most is realizing how much I lost myself being with him, and how, at thirty, I’m having to learn what it’s like just to be me again…the fact that when I ask myself that question, I have no clue what the answer is.
“She’s okay,” he affirms. “But, she’s no Krystal,”
I snort a laugh. “You barely know me.”
“True,” he follows, not missing a beat, “but that only proves my point. I don’t know you…
yet.” He smiles, and I have no choice but to smile back.
“But what I do know is that your voice sounds the way home feels. I’ve already told you that when you smile, I feel like a champion, but your laugh?
If your smile is a trophy, your laugh is an Olympic medal.
And you’re kind. You don’t have to entertain me or anyone else here, but you do. ”
He continues, and with each compliment, I feel the backs of my eyes burn with unshed tears.
It feels good to be seen. What does it say about me that I settled for anything less when this man, who just met me, seems to see me so clearly?
I lengthen my neck, clinging to the remnants of my confidence instead of letting him catch me in yet another vulnerable moment.
He ends by saying, “I think you should give yourself more credit.”
Once again, curiosity gets the best of me. “Why?” I ask.
His chest expands with the deep breath he takes.
He shakes his head with its release. “When Marie left, I spiraled so hard,” he says, smiling at an invisible spot on the table.
“Binge drinking, feeling like I could barely sleep, even though I was sleeping all the damn time, ignoring my responsibilities. I was convinced God was punishing me for something I did in a past life. Taking my son and then…” His voice trails off, catching on the emotion clogging his throat.
He looks away briefly, only for a second, before turning those dark, glassy eyes right on me.
“I learned,” he says, “it’s okay to lose who you think you are if you end up finding out who you’re meant to be in the end.”
Those words hit home. I stare up at the ceiling.
“I lost the faith I thought I had and got real with God. I stopped running from grief and faced it head-on, ended up making a film that changed my life. I took accountability for the part I played in destroying my marriage, and I realized that anything lost can be found again.”
Even though his spirit stirs my soul, and his attention arrests me, his words disarming — I allow my eyes to make four with his again, this time, unmasking all the layers of protection I put up. I let him see the raw emotion living inside me.
He scans my face with earnest eyes. “Are you mourning what was, or what could have been?” He juts his chin at my phone screen.
The more I look at them, the less hard of a pill the truth becomes to swallow.
As much as I hate seeing them together, living the life I thought was owed to me, I don’t wish it were me in the photo. I don’t want him anymore.
“I think I’m mourning the version of myself I abandoned to be with him. It was all for nothing in the end. And now,” I shrug, swiping the photo away. “I guess I’m trying to find her again.”
A comfortable silence falls over us as more guests fill the room and the aroma of pancakes permeates the air. “She used to love Christmas,” I announce, a wistful smile blooming on my lips.
“It would be my honor to help her start loving it again,” he replies, leaning forward. I follow, craving more of his essence in my aura. Our faces are just an inch apart, and I wonder if he’s feeling the urge crawling up the length of his spine to close the distance and put his lips on mine.
“I think she would appreciate that,” I say, my voice a soft whisper.
“No holds barred?” He confirms, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
I sit back, my smile becoming playful as a spike of anticipation sends my heart into overdrive. I shake my head. “Take me to the moon, Santa.”