Page 89 of These Tears

Stillness. Just the fire cracking and pregnant silence between us.

Suddenly, the pot lid rattles. Foam spits over the edge and hisses violently on contact with the hotplate. Elias turns with a snap of the towel, grabs the pot with it, shifts it aside and wipes the ring down with quick strokes.

I stand. Exhale hard, the weight of the blanket falling off me like armour shed after surrender. My legs feel stiff and slow, my toes still ablaze, as if the heat hadn’t quite thawed me after all.

I make my way to the wood-fired range, eyeing the pile of split logs still stacked near the back door. A hatchet lies atop it.

My attention keeps to it a breath too long, and when a darker kind of chill passes through me, I wrench my gaze away.

I am not that person.

‘Would you mind getting more logs from outside?’ I ask in a small voice. ‘I… don’t want to go out again.’

The words hang in the space between us.

I keep my focus on the hotplate, take the cloth from his hands and wipe away the rest of the broth.

When he makes no move to leave, I take a deep breath. ‘My nan had one like this,’ I note, trying to get my mind off everything.

‘When you make soup,’ I start, easing the pot further from the hot ring until the boil lessens, ‘you want it to simmer, not rage.’

Reaching for a ladle hanging over the range, I drag it once through the soup. Steam rises in gentle tendrils, curling like breath through frost. It carries vegetables, pepper and herbs across the open space. The seasoning warms enough to make my stomach tighten despite everything.

‘Small bubbles. Not an uprising.’

Tipping the lid, I let it rest askew. The steam sighs through the gap, no longer battering the metal in protest. I wait a moment until it eases.

The skin at my neck and collarbone prickles from his gaze. My fingers hesitate on the handle, though he hasn’t moved.

Then, slowly, I shift the pot over the ring.

‘If you leave only a little space,’ I whisper, ‘it can breathe.’

There’s a pause. My throat closes around the next words before I force them out. ‘If you trap everything in, it’ll fight back. Boil over. Make a mess.’

At the edge of my vision, he is still, his attention still trained on my face. The quiet grows heavy.

‘It’s easier to keep it steady,’ I say finally, quieter. ‘Than to clean up every time it goes over.’

I risk a glance.

His eyes are on mine.

‘Thank you,’ he says softly. ‘I’ll remember that.’

For a moment he just stands there looking at me, as though he’s letting the moment exist rather than controlling it for a change. His mouth gives nothing away, his brow is smooth; nothing in his face is quite tight or soft.

Then, without another word, he turns away and walks towards the shadowed end of the house.

I hear the rustle of his jacket and the sound of the back door unlatching. A rush of wind whistles through the cabin like a living thing. Cold air spills across the floor and brushes past my ankles like a ghost trying to coax me into a run.

Several minutes later, I leave the soup to simmer. In this small pocket of privacy, I allow myself a breath to take in the space.

Despite the writhing bitterness inside me, my gaze travels over the rough lines of the sitting room.

It’s nothing short of a rustic dream – if rustic dreams came with slow drips of madness.

Heavy timber beams stretch overhead, their knots and grain darkened by age. The stone fireplace is so intricate it looks more like an altar to permanence than a source of warmth.