Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Andri
I can’t take it.
I watched them from afar up until Daphne let him slide the engagement ring back onto her finger. I don’t even know where I’m going, but I'm moving. I can’t bear to look at the love of my life falling back into her horrible ex’s arms.
I bolt down the sidewalk, tearing through the crowd. I shove through throngs of parkas and mittens, knocking hot chocolates out of at least three hands. People gasp, someone yells an indignant “Hey!” as a marshmallow bounces off my fur. But I barely register any of it.
My ears are hot as I run through the tinsel-string booths, past families taking photos in front of the holiday lights.
I head straight for the line of pines at the edge of town.
Past the hardware store and street of residential houses, I don’t stop running until, like some wild thing caught in a trap, I clip a tree trunk with my shoulder.
Cold air sears my lungs, and snow crushes under my feet. I fall to my knees. I’m far enough into the woods that the music and chatter have faded into nothing but the hollow hush of the woods.
Only then, when I’m far enough away that no one can hear or see me, do I let myself feel it.
The ring in my pocket is a lead weight, and it drags me further down my spiral of sadness. I reach down and grab it from the front of my shorts, snapping the small velvet box open.
I had it delivered to Jake’s thrift store, afraid that she would somehow find it before I was ready to ask her.
In a thin gold band sits a blue stone.
Small. Crooked. Sapphire.
I thought she would like it, knowing that she likes unusual and imperfect things, and you can just tell this ring had a history. I thought she’d smile down at it the way she smiles at me. Like I’m something worth keeping.
How could I have been so stupid, to think that she’d want me, want us?
I lean against the pine, chest heaving.
“I’m just a vacation fling, a footnote in her story,” I whisper to the empty woods. “A stupid”—my voice breaks—“snowman.”
The words said aloud tear something open inside of me, and before I can think, I pull my fist back and slam it into the tree.
The trunk shudders, the shockwave sends snow falling from its branches overhead in a sheet of white. Bark splinters beneath my knuckles.
“I’m such an idiot,” I choke. “Thinking I was something more to someone, thinking that I wasn’t alone—”
A sound breaks through my spiral of despair, and I freeze as I hear something crunch snow softly under its foot.
When I slowly lift my head, I see him.
There, between the pine trees heavy with snow, stands a white stag.
Tall, still, and nearly glowing. Its coat sparkles in the dimming light of the evening, almost as though it’s made of the snow itself with antlers carved of ice.
Its breath comes in small puffs that create gentle clouds in front of the deer’s pink nose.
It stares at me with those knowing, ancient eyes.
We look at each for a long moment, and I forget to breathe. There’s a silence between us, deep and sacred. Something inside me settles, a calm certainty flowing through my body.
The stag steps closer, the soft compression of snow the only noise in the forest, and dips his head.
“I’m falling apart,” I tell the animal, my voice raw. “I don’t know what to do.”
The stag blinks slowly as a sense of wordless reassurance settles into my bones. It’s like the forest itself has reached out its hand to steady me when I needed it the most.
Get a hold of yourself, the feeling says. Don’t let her see you break, not like this.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “I have to fight for what I want.”
I can’t hide, I can’t let the fear of losing her have me risk my shot at getting Daphne back. I have to face whatever’s coming my way head-on.
I have to be a snowman.
I hold my clasped hands up to the stag, as if to say thank you, and turn toward the lights of the town.
As I walk back to the ice rink, tourists with brown-stained jackets hold their fresh cocoa cups dramatically away from themselves. I grimace, throwing out a few “sorries” every twenty feet or so.
I do my best to keep my eyes toward my feet until I get closer to our little parade viewing spot. But when I finally look up, I don’t see the person I want most.
Daphne is nowhere to be seen on the street, nor are Gerald and his grandmother.
My heart plummets straight into my stomach, and I push through the crowd on the opposite side of the street, directly in front of Ted’s.
My chest tightens so hard that it hurts. She left.
She left with him—she chose him.
The realization hits me like a blast of snow to the face, and what hurts most is that even if she didn’t want me—she deserves so much more than that miserable ingrate of a man.
I sink to the nearest bench, my elbows on my knees, my hands tangled in my own fur.
The knot in my stomach tightens, and for a second, I’m afraid I’m going to throw up.
My ears buzz with the burning grief and I can’t hear anything but static.
My sorrow narrows all my senses down to just that terrible feeling of lonely despair.
“ANDRI?”
My head snaps up.
She’s there.
Daphne.
Her breath is visible in the cold, her cheeks are pink from the wind, and a hot cocoa cup rests in each mittened hand.
She stands alone, no ex, no grandmother—no reason for me to be dying inside.
She clocks my expression. The panic, the fear, the certainty of loss, and her brows knit in confusion.
“Andri? What’s going on?”
My throat is too tight to speak, and if I wasn't already blue, I’m sure I’d be turning it right now.
Worry blooms across her face as she kneels in front of me. “Hey…hey, breathe!”
“I thought—” I swallow hard. The words hurt as I force them out. “I thought you left.”
“Left?” She looks baffled. “I was just grabbing some cocoa from Ted’s after I dealt with dickwad and his grandma.”
I blink, lost for words.
She softens as she reads me, seeing all the cracks I’m now trying to hide. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open.
“Did you think I was getting back together with Gerald?”
“I thought…maybe I was just some snow in your hair, a vacation fling…” I realize as the words leave my mouth how much I might have just overreacted.
“What?” She almost laughs, the force of her voice surprising me. “You thought that I would…with Gerald?” She stares me down, eyes blazing. “Hell no.”
A gasp of air leaves my mouth with an embarrassing noise.
“I love you,” she says.
Time stops. My breath, the snow, the music…all of it freezes still as the words settle over my chest.
“You…love…me?” I repeat, because my brain isn’t functioning at full capacity, the adrenaline still flooding my system.
She laughs, warm and beautiful, and sets the cups of cocoa on the ground to cup my face with her mittened hands.
“Yes, you. The snowman who is always catching me when I fall. Who gave me a life after Gerald left me high and dry. The man who listens to my fears, who takes his time with me, who makes me feel safe. The man I want.”
The words, like a burst of sun, melt the ice of my heart. Suddenly I know this is it, this is the moment.
I slide off the bench, kneeling with her.
Reaching into my pocket, I grab the small black velvet box.
It’s funny how something so tiny can have all your hopes and dreams wrapped up in it.
I’m shaking so hard that it nearly slips from my fingers.
I crack the lid and present the love of my life with the question that will change the trajectory of my life forever.
“Oh,” she whispers as she looks at my trembling hands.
“It’s nothing like the ring you came here with.
It’s small, crooked, and probably not worth a whole lot more than that cocoa you just bought.
But I saw it and thought of you. You love imperfect things, like me.
This ring has history, and I hope we can continue its story.
And I love you, more than I know what to do with. ”
Tears gather at the corners of her eyes. My voice is trembling but sure.
“Daphne, will you marry me?”
There’s a beat of silence where my happiness hangs in the balance.
“Yes,” she whispers, and then louder, her voice singing with joy, “YES!”
The people around us turn, someone in the distance cheers, then another. A wave of hoots and hollers sweeps down the street as if the entire town has been waiting for this moment.
I slide the ring onto her finger, and it’s a damn near perfect fit. The chip in the top corner catches the last of the setting sun, sparkling like a piece of my soul set in gold.
She wraps her arms around my neck, and I kiss her hard. I’ve never felt more alive than at this very moment. Snow swirls around us like confetti as the time-operated Christmas lights of the stores all kick on in unison with the setting sun.
Her hands curl into the fur at my shoulders as I lift her up, cradling her gently in my arms.
I nuzzle my mouth against the hollow of her throat, and it takes everything inside me not to dig my teeth into her skin. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to help quell the bizarre urge. The urge I’ve been feeling for the longest time, now suddenly stronger than ever.
That's when I hear a grating voice cutting through my perfect moment.
“What’s going on here?”
Oh no, it’s him. Gerald stomps across the street, slipping a little with each step. The family matriarch power walks behind him, holding her cane in the air like a jousting weapon.
“Again?” Daphne sighs. “Oh my god! How many times do I have to tell you to leave?” she yells over her shoulder.
But the stuck-up thorn in my side doesn’t get any words out, despite opening his mouth to protest.
He slips dramatically on a patch of ice collecting right in front of the storm drain.
His feet go airborne, his arms windmill, and he lets out a strangled yelp before his back connects with the frozen blacktop of the road with a dull thud.
The entire crowd winces in unison, and his grandmother looks so embarrassed that she slowly backs up. People fill the space between us and Gerald, like a protective bubble of tourists. I think someone even helps him up—seemingly unhurt except for his pride.
Daphne squeezes my hand tightly and leans close, whispering in my ear. “What do you say we get out of here?”