MAX
Emma’s place smelled like laundry and lemon, like she’d cleaned up a little before I came over.
Pale January light filled the living room.
Her coffee table was huge, wide enough for two people who should have known better than to stand on it, but here we were – boots off, socks on, and both of us wobbling like baby deer.
The lamp looked like it belonged in a museum.
It was this wild, cracked ceramic globe with thin gold lines running through it like rivers.
If you squinted, you might have thought they were veins.
It was also heavy. I held it near the top while Emma fiddled with the ceiling attachment.
My arms burned a little, and I made a bit of a show of it.
“Okay, did your mom give you a lamp or a planet?” I said. “Because I’m pretty sure I’m holding Jupiter.”
Emma laughed, tilting her head back, causing her hair to come loose from whatever she had in it.
She looked so casual when she was at home.
I liked that about her. She reached up again, and her soft British accent slipped out.
“Yes, I know, it’s a little dramatic, but do you know how stubborn my mum can be?
She tries to learn something new every few months; right now, it’s kintsugi.
This lamp was her Christmas present. I had to drag it all the way from London because she insisted it would fit perfectly here.
So that’s why we’re standing on this coffee table, and I needed a strong Canadian to help me put this up. ”
“Well, you can call on these muscles anytime you like,” I said, grinning. Her eye roll only made me grin wider.
Her face was focused as she held tiny screws between her lips.
The ladder was folded up and ignored by the wall because the coffee table “felt safer,” which made no sense at all, but I didn’t argue.
I held the ornament as still as possible and tried not to think about how close we were.
I tried not to think about how off-limits she should be. Tried, and failed a little.
“So, your trip back home was nice?” I asked, just because I needed something to do with my brain other than count the freckles on her cheeks.
“Wonderful,” she said around a screw, then took it out and said it again, properly. “It was great to see my family again, catch up with everyone, and have Christmas dinner in London. But–” She glanced at me then, a quick look that hit and lingered. “I was looking forward to coming back to Toronto.”
That made me feel something that I didn’t usually acknowledge. A knot in my stomach came undone, and I couldn’t help but smile. I was learning it was the kind of smile I saved for her. A quieter one.
“Okay, let’s do this,” she said.
We shuffled closer together on the table, our socks sliding on the wood.
She was right in front of me, arms up, making her sweater ride up an inch, so I could see a little bit of her waist. It made me want to touch that spot.
But instead I concentrated on the cord and how the gold cracks of the lamp caught the light.
The kintsugi lines made the whole thing look mended and more beautiful for it.
I thought about how her mom’s hobby had snuck into our afternoon and how I didn’t mind being a part of it at all.
“There,” she said, finishing the last twist with the tiny screwdriver. “Moment of truth. Let go?”
“Okay, on three? One… two… three.”
I slowly let go. The lamp didn’t fall. We both held our breath for a beat or two, just to be sure it wouldn’t come crashing down and kill us both.
Emma let out a laugh that was all relief. “Excellent, it’s not falling down.”
“High bar,” I said, but I was relieved too. Emma leaned back to check the lamp from a different angle, not realizing how much table was behind her. Her heel slipped into nothing, and the sound she made – half gasp, half laugh – hit me a split second before instinct did.
“Emma!”
She wobbled and threw her arms out to keep her balance, but I was already moving.
I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her in before gravity could.
Her hands gripped my shoulders, soft but desperate, and everything went still.
The lamp swayed above us, the gold seams catching the light, but it held. And so did we.
Her sweater bunched up under my fingers, and she felt so warm. I could feel her breath brushing my jaw, quick and shaky from the adrenaline. I could feel the laugh inside her, waiting, stuck between relief and something else. And I wondered if she could feel how fast my heart was racing.
I steadied us by holding her firmly. She looked up to me, and her beautiful green eyes locked on mine, making it hard to remember what I was supposed to do next. I just knew I didn’t want to let go yet.
“You good?” I asked.
“Perfect,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Thank you. That would have been an embarrassing injury.”
“You know, if you’re gonna fall for someone, at least you picked a guy with good reflexes,” I said half laughing, which earned me another eye roll. I held her close for a moment longer, closer than I probably should have. I knew it. She knew it. The space between us was charged.
I should have let go right away.
Instead, I held on a bit longer before carefully guiding her off the table. I kept my hands on her just long enough to make myself nervous about it. I waited until she was on solid ground before I hopped down after her and took a deep breath.
“Okay, we’ve earned a cup of tea. I don’t have any coffee, so would you like some tea instead?”
“Sure,” I said. I could’ve gone for coffee, but I think tea was a better fit for the afternoon we were having. It also fit her. “I’ll, uh, have a seat?”
“Yes, sit,” she said, already heading into the kitchen. “Don’t touch the lamp.”
“I think I can manage,” I called back. “I’ve done enough heavy lifting for one day.”
Her place felt nice and warm. There were books stuffed into every nook and cranny.
It was so Emma. I noticed a framed picture on the shelf of her on a bench somewhere green, London maybe, with her parents on either side.
I didn’t stare, but I looked long enough to see she had the same smile as her dad and the same green eyes as her mom.
A few minutes later, she came back with two mugs. She put mine on a coaster, which of course she had, and asked if I wanted any milk.
“Yeah, thanks. And, uh, sugar?”
“Two?” she guessed.
“You trying to call me out?” I teased her, and she smiled and put in two.
She then folded herself into the corner of the couch.
I took a sip, while we sat in that calm, easy silence that didn’t feel like work.
The lamp cast a soft, warm circle over the table, with all those golden seams turning into molten threads.
“So,” she said, and the word carried a little weight to it, but not too much. “While my mum loves to learn something new every couple of months, my dad has always loved reading. And he loves to read everything, from poetry to non-fiction to romance. It’s something we have in common.”
“That means I was right from the beginning. When we met in that bookstore, I guessed you liked romance and crime.”
“True,” she nodded. “I like different kinds of genres.”
“Then why did you keep me wondering?” I asked.
“Because I didn’t want to make it too easy for you.
” Of course she did. She smiled, and her whole face lit up.
“My dad made me fall in love with books in the first place and that made me want to write them myself. I was still in primary school when I wrote my first short story. It was about Bernard, the dog, going on adventures.”
“Bernard, eh?” I said, drinking. “Strong name.”
“He wore a bow tie,” she said, mock-serious. “Very dignified. He wrote letters to other dogs.”
“Pen pals?”
“Paw pals,” she corrected, then shook her head at herself, like you do when you’re both embarrassed and proud of the kid you were.
“It sounds like you had a good childhood.”
“I did,” she simply said. She tilted her head and looked at me.
She didn’t ask the question, but I knew she wanted to know about mine.
She didn’t push though. It felt as if she wanted to make room for an answer if I wanted to give one.
And in some way, the quiet cracked open something in me that I thought would always stay closed.
I put the mug down on the table and rubbed my thumbs along my knees once, a habit from the bench, and then I looked at her.
I heard myself talk before I decided to.
“It wasn’t like that for me,” I said, and once it was out, there was no taking it back.
“We were fine, money-wise. More than fine. My father was a lawyer. Good at it, too. My mom stayed home. We had the big house, the backyard, family vacations. People looked at us and probably thought, ‘That’s a perfect family.’”
I glanced at Emma, expecting her to say something, but she just waited patiently.
“The first time he hit me, I was seven. I think. Yeah – seven. It wasn’t even a punch, not really, just the back of his hand.
The sound was worse than the pain. That crack.
I remember that more than anything. I remember thinking I’d broken something.
My head just… rang. The second time, I told myself it was my fault when he tripped over the toys I’d left on the floor.
The third time, I didn’t tell myself anything, because I knew better than to try to make sense of it.
Sometimes it was because I hadn’t turned in an assignment.
Sometimes because I left my shoes in the hall.
Sometimes because…” I stopped. Shook my head. “Most of the time I never even knew.”
My jaw tightened, but the words kept coming.
“He never touched Grace. Not once. She was safe from him. But me?” I laughed, except there was no humour in it.
“Whatever was bothering him, he took it out on me. I learned how to read the sound of his footsteps. The slam of the door when he came home. If his briefcase hit the floor a certain way, I knew I had to disappear upstairs, try and hide in my room, wait it out. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
Sometimes he came looking. Seven years old, and my own father thought the way to make himself feel better was to beat the hell out of his kid. ”
Emma didn’t look away. That steadiness made it both easier and harder to keep going.
“I got bigger and stronger, which helped a little. Not because I fought back – not at first – but because I could take more. Act like it didn’t hurt.
By the time I hit high school, I was tall, already training, already working toward hockey.
And he saw that I wasn’t easy to push around anymore, so he switched tactics.
He stopped using his fists and started using words.
Told me I was worthless, that I’d never live up to anything.
I still don’t know what hurt more – the hits or the things he said.
I used to think it was the bruises. Then I got older and realized I still hear his voice.
So maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s both. I don’t know. ”
I looked down at my hands, made fists, then slowly opened them again.
“I don’t talk about this. Not with teammates.
Not with women. I keep it hidden because I’m supposed to be tough – and I am – but not like that.
But with you, it just… comes out. I don’t know why.
Maybe because you asked without really asking.
Maybe because you didn’t give me that head tilt people do when they’re about to drown you in sympathy.
I can’t stand that look. I can’t stand pity. I can’t stand…”
I stopped talking, not because I was finished, but because I’d already said more than I meant to. The air felt safe somehow and I didn’t want to lose that by drowning it in too many words.
Emma’s eyes stayed steady on mine. “Thank you,” she said. “For telling me.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“I know,” she said, and something in her tone made it easy not to feel embarrassed about that. “If it helps… I won’t make it bigger than it already is.”
“It’s already big.”
“I know,” she agreed. “But it’s yours. You get to decide how it lives.”
I took a deep breath and picked up my tea again, staring at it and letting the heat soak into my hands.
We sat there in silence. The lamp hummed softly above us. Somewhere in the house, the furnace clicked on.
Emma edged a little closer. She didn’t reach out, just moved in enough that I could feel the warmth of her arm if I wanted to notice it. I did.
I didn’t feel exposed, which surprised me. I felt… safe, because she wasn’t trying to fix anything. “I should get going. I have a game tonight.” Much as I wanted to stay there with her, I also wanted to do the job that saved me.
I stood, and she got up as well. I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair and glanced at her. “Are you coming?”
“Of course. It’s been too long; I need to catch up.”
“Good,” I said, and my voice sounded lighter than I expected, almost relieved. “It’s home ice. You’ll like the energy.”
“I always do,” she said, which made me want to rub my thumb over her cheek. “Thanks for helping me hang the planet.”
“Anytime,” I told her. “Tell your mom it looks perfect.”
“She’ll be insufferable,” Emma said, smiling. She reached up and fixed my scarf like I was a kid, like I was hers. Then she took a step back and I already missed her being so close to me.
“I’ll see you later,” I said.
“Later.”
I headed to my truck, the cold sharp in my lungs.
I sat there for a minute with my hands on the wheel and thought about how she had looked at me – warm and unflinching.
She hadn’t called me brave, hadn’t told me I was strong, hadn’t dressed it up in words people use to make sense of things that don’t.
I wasn’t used to feeling this safe with someone and it made me not want to hide from her.
For the first time I could just let my past be part of who I was.
It felt heavy and a little strange. But just like the lamp, it was exactly right for the room.