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Smoke puffs up from chimneys and an overlapping medley of holiday music filters out to the road. At my favorite home on this street—an ivy-covered stone building that feels like a gnome’s house in the woods—I stop, looking up to the wide bay window facing the street from inside. Two shadowed bodies move around in the front room, near the brightly lit Christmas tree. Another is busy in the kitchen. Even out here I smell roasting turkey and the buttery salt of pies cooling, mingled with the sharp clean scent of cold pine trees. If I’d thought to bring my sketchbook with me, I would draw this scene, right here.
If I’m so happy here in the snow, I think, why don’t I live somewhere it snows? It’s a sudden mental realignment, the realization that I don’t need to stay in California, and I don’t have to try to shoehorn my life into the current template. I can move. I can dig around in the tunnels of my thoughts to imagine my dream job. I can figure out who the hell Maelyn Jones really is. I took my shot with Andrew, and it’s out of my hands now, but it doesn’t mean I have to let the other threads of bravery fall away.
• • •
My mood, bright from epiphany, dips as soon as I walk back inside the cabin and realize Andrew’s is not one of the bodies in the living room.
“Hey, guys,” I say.
The boisterous chatter comes to an abrupt stop at my entrance. Miles bolts upright. “Hi, Mae.”
Everyone stares at me expectantly. I was not anticipating my return to be so carefully clocked. “Hi . . .”
Zachary rolls over facedown onto the rug, giggling.
“What’s up? Do I have a bird’s nest on my head?”
Aaron runs his fingers through his black-hole hair, saying, “No. You don’t,” like I might have been asking seriously.
Finally, Lisa asks, “Did you come in through the mudroom?”
I shake my head. “The front door. Why?”
They continue to stare at me like they’re waiting for me to say something else.
“Okay. Um . . . is Andrew still out in the Boathouse?”
“He’s—” Kennedy begins at the same time Ricky blurts, “Was it cold outside?”
Blinking in confusion, I give him a drawn out “Yes?”
I look down at my new watch and realize I was gone for nearly two hours and didn’t look to see if Andrew’s car was still in the driveway. I’d ask if he’s here, but I’m not sure I want to know.
I turn awkwardly in place, unsure what to do with myself. “Well, you’re all acting like weirdos, so I’ll be down in the basement for a bit. Let me know when I can help with dinner.”
“You should go upstairs,” Zachary sings into the floor.
“I should?”
Every head in the room bobs in agreement.
I stare at them quizzically for a beat before saying, “Okaaaay. I’ll do that.” At least it gives me an excuse to escape. I shuffle down the hall, rounding the banister to begin climbing the stairs, but my foot lands on something and it crunches beneath the sole of my sock. I lift my foot, pick the item off the bottom, and study the silver object.
It’s a flattened peppermint kiss. I’m lost in bewilderment for a breath, but then my eyes focus back on the floor, and I realize there’s another one only a foot away in either direction: one leading upstairs, and one leading back to the kitchen, where I would normally come in from a walk.
Hope glimmers silvery at the edges of my thoughts. I jog up the stairs and follow the trail of candy down the hall and around the corner. It leads directly to Andrew’s bedroom, and stops just outside his closet.
My heart is an absolute maniac in my rib cage as I pull open the door, and Andrew squints into the light.
“That was a monster walk, Maisie. I’ve been waiting to hide for like a half hour.”
I’m nearly too stunned to speak, but apparently not too stunned to burst into tears. “Andrew?”
From the base of the stairs comes a burst of applause and cheers.
“I told you to go upstairs!” Zachary shouts before it sounds like someone claps a hand over his mouth and carries him out of yelling range.
With a raspy laugh, Andrew pulls me forward into the closet.
I wonder if I’m shouting, but my heartbeat is so loud in my ears it’s thunderous. “What’s going on?”
His voice is gentle, and the tiniest bit suggestive: “What does it look like?”
It looks like he’s sweetly lured me here, like he’s staring at my mouth, like he’s about to kiss me. But given my fragile, blown-sugar emotional state, it would probably be a very bad idea to assume anything right now.
“Well.” I bite my lip and look around the small, dim space. Stating the facts seems like a safe place to start. “It looks like you left a trail of my favorite candy so I’d find you in this closet.”
