Page 306 of These Tears

I square my shoulders.

Exhaling, he tries to collect himself. ‘I left you a—’

‘—a fucking letter,’ I cut in, trying to reel myself back together before every part of me spills across the hot car park.

I pull the damn page out of my pocket, crumple it in both hands and throw it at him. He catches it, squeezing it further in his hand that slowly lowers to his side.

But as the glacial blue holds me, my outrage begins to ease. I can’t keep it. Not when my demon is standing in front of me.

Within reach.

Again.

No glass or chains between us, no locked doors, uniforms or ghosts of the past to drag him away.

It takes the last of my strength not to throw myself into his arms and clutch him until our bodies melt into one.

‘I didn’t think I was coming back, Leah,’ he whispers.

The words strip something from him no sealed room ever managed to reach.

They almost make him look small, even if his frame could blot out half the sun if he shifted another step towards me.

But his shoulders draw in, his fingers close around the clear bag until the plastic complains.

The sound travels.

Anger punches through the grief in the last wave of desperation, but I push it back down.

I pull the ring from my pocket. His eyes follow it as he stuffs the balled letter into his own and holds out his hand. I drop the silver band into his palm, and his fingers close around it once, trapping it as though someone might snatch it away from us.

I distribute my weight evenly between both feet as if feeling more ground beneath me might help steady me.

‘If you want me to wear it, you’ll ask me properly, and put it on me by your damn self, Elias Crane. Jakob Halvorsen… Scruffy Bear.’

His pupils spread. Immediately after, his posture loosens, as though some unseen restraint has finally come undone.

The ring gleams like the promise of a maybe as his hand reopens. A promise with tall trees, silvered winter paths and crowded family gatherings – when the snow allows. A promise with animals, traps, laughter beside a fire, and moans in the dark, followed by the soft, decadent snap of a camera shutter.

He searches my face, hunting through every line for an explanation I haven’t given him. Waiting has never come easily to him without the worst creeping in to fill the silence, and the thought draws my ribs tight.

When I don’t raise my hand for him to fit the ring, the light catches the doubt on his brow before he can break it into small pieces and hide them.

My camera cries out indignantly to catch the exact instant hope begins to die.

‘You can do it properly when we’re home,’ I say.

He holds his breath.

‘At the cabin,’ I add, softer. ‘Where we belong.’

The tension first leaves his fingers – just enough to make the ring shift in his palm.

Then his chest expands beneath the grey T-shirt, but the breath that caught inside him never makes it out.

His throat moves. For the first time ever, nothing in his face retreats behind the ice.

There’s just a man looking at something he never thought he’d have. Never thought he’d see again: me. Waiting for him. Choosing him.