Winter Wonderland

fifteen: homeward bound

*

It's been three days of bliss.

My family can be pretty intense and as much as I love them, they can be a bit much after a few days of my brothers ribbing me and my sisters bugging me, but Storie takes the edge off. I thought she was going to leave on the 26th, but she didn't. And she didn't leave on the 27th, either. Or the 28th, when she borrowed clothes from Mom.

Now, two days before New Year's Eve, the clock on our time in this family bubble has run down, and I'm about to break a promise.

I told Mom I'd be staying here until the new year, but I wasn't expecting Storie to turn up on the doorstep and spend three whole days with me and my family, and I can't let her go back to her family alone. So I'm going to be her passenger for the nearly three hundred mile trip to the other end of Ohio. Five Oaks is almost as north as you can go, nestled right on the coast of Lake Erie, and it's where I'm going to spend the next few days.

"Have you got gas?" I ask as I dig out a week's worth of underwear, just in case. Mom brought in a basket of freshly laundered clothes this morning and I felt like a teenager again.

Storie, brushing her hair, meets my eye in the mirror. "Enough to get to a gas station," she says. "I don't want to leave any later than six, in case we hit traffic."

I check my phone. Five thirty. "That can be arranged," I say, getting up off my bed to plant a kiss on her cheek. She smells insatiable, her skin warm to the touch, and I count my lucky stars to know her again. "I'm gonna put our things in the car."

She gives me her key and I sling our bags over my shoulder, and my heart grows heavy with the realization that I have to break it to Daria that I'm leaving again. She's spent the last few days all over me, making up for lost time, and I hate to see her sad. I manage to slip out of the house without her noticing, but she hears the slam of the trunk and then the click of the front door, and when I come back inside, she's standing in the hallway.

"Liam."

"Hey, Dar." I give her my biggest grin. She doesn't return it. Instead, she folds her skinny arms and pouts at me, the kind of look only a kid her age can pull off.

"Are you leaving?"

"Storie and I are getting ready to head to her parents' place," I try, in an attempt to soften the yes. "She came here for a few days, and I'm gonna go with her for a few days."

Her pout deepens, the corners of her mouth dipping down further, and she dips her head so blonde waves fall forwards. "But you only just got here, Willy. I don't want you to go. I like when everyone's here."

"I know, Dar. It's really awesome being home," I say, and I hold out my arms as I walk towards her, like I'm approaching a scared animal. She lets me hug her, and after a moment of reluctance, she wraps her arms tight around my waist. "But I can't stay forever. I need to go back to my place eventually."

And then I remember – my place isn't that shitty little studio anymore. Not after the first of January, anyway. My plans for New Year's Day, aside from starting a new year with the love of my life, are to empty my apartment of the few belongings I keep there, and move into Storie's place.

Our place.

I still can't believe it. Can't quite fathom how different my life is now from what it was just a couple weeks ago. Somehow I've gone from ugly, lonely despair to love and bliss and all things good, all the things I've been missing out on. All because I fell asleep on the red line and found an ad in a random Starbucks, and took on a weird ass job in a weird ass Winter Wonderland.