Winter Wonderland

five: release

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There's a lot going on in my head. The main thing spinning round and round is the screaming thought that I just told Storie everything, I just laid my heart down on the ground for her to stomp on, but she's holding my hand. She's sitting so close to me that I swear I can hear her heartbeat, and her fingers are wrapped around mine and she smells so good, and she doesn't want me to go.

I don't want to go. Being stuck in the elevator isn't ideal, but I'm stuck with her, and I'd stay here forever if it meant I never had to go another day without seeing her face. Four years is too long. Four weeks is too long. Four days is too long. I can still feel the ache of those first moments after she walked away, when I wished that I could just slither to the floor and never get up.

She was probably wishing the exact same thing. I don't blame her.

"I'm sorry for dumping all of that on you," I say when neither of us have spoken for a few minutes. She doesn't reply. She's breathing fast. I squeeze her hand and she squeezes it back, like we're passing a code. "That wasn't fair of me."

"It's ok," she says after a moment. "Want to know something funny?"

"Always," I say, though I'm pretty sure whatever she's about to say isn't going to be as funny as it will be devastating. Something about the tone of her voice doesn't match the word.

"Even after everything that happened with us," she says, and I know my instinct was right, because nothing was funny about that, "when Gray and Navya got engaged, all I could think was that could have been Liam and me. I mean, of course, my main thought was that I was thrilled for them, but it just drove it home in a way."

She pauses. Her hand doesn't loosen on mine. I don't want her to ever let go.

"You and I got together before they did, and I thought we were the real deal, so when they told me that they were getting married, it made me think of you. If we hadn't broken up, I thought that maybe that would have been us," she says. I can't tell her how many times I've wondered the same thing.

A few people I knew in college have got married or engaged or had kids since we graduated, and each time I read one of those nauseating life updates, I can't shake the vision of Storie and me. We weren't together long, but those months felt more like years, in the best way. I felt like I had known her forever by the time we broke up, which only made it more devastating.

"There were times that I thought about reaching out to you," she says, and it's only then that I realize I still haven't responded. I don't know what to say when everything she's saying is only fueling my hopes, and I know that they'll be dashed eventually.

"Why didn't you?"

She sighs. "I didn't know what to say," she says. "I was embarrassed, I guess. I didn't know how I could just randomly send you a message, like, two years after we broke up, just to see how things were going." She turns to face me, and I can only just make out the glint of her eyes in the darkness.

"Anyway," she says, "none of that is the funny thing. It's not even funny."

"What is it?"

She takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. The sound is torture. Every sound she makes is torture, but I'd subject myself to it every minute of the day if I had to. I'd rather hear that heavy sigh than nothing at all.

"Despite how it ended with us," she says, treading so carefully around her words that it makes it even more obvious what she's trying not to say, and guilt stabs my heart like a scorching dagger, "you actually gave me the boost I needed."