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I’m cold again. I feel perpetually cold. No matter what, I feel it seep into my bones. It was only when Ryan was around that I actually felt warm.
I look over at the clock on the wall, and groan, leaning forward to bang my head on the table. It’s only eight in the morning.
Letting out a frustrated sigh, I drain the rest of my coffee and pour myself another cup before wandering into the living room. Scanning his bookshelves, I find he has a lot of classics, both literature and poetry. There’s Austen, Hardy, Brontë, Dickens, Eliot, Keats, Yeats, Emerson, Whitman, and Wordsworth. Wow, and that’s just this shelf.
Ryan’s a collector, and very well-read. I’m impressed.
Running my fingers across the spines of the beautiful old books, I pull out one with a dark green spine and gold script–a collection of Keats’ poetry. When I was in college, I took an elective that was strictly his work, and I loved it. But I haven’t read anything of his since.
Placing my mug down on the coffee table, I take a seat in one of the big armchairs, folding my feet under me, and pulling the blanket from behind me to drape it over my legs.
I remember having to read more than just Keats’ poems. We read letters he wrote to fellow poets and his love letters to Fanny Brawne. It was in those that I fell in love with Keats’ work. I think humanizing him, and seeing a peek into his real-life romance, made everything he wrote relevant and pack a better punch to the heart for me.
Sipping my coffee, I get lost in his words. And when I get to one of my favorites, I smile, thinking about how it must feel to be so in love like that. Keats writes of choosing three perfect days of love and bliss over a lifetime of mundane and common love. It makes me think. Would I rather have those three days of true love? Or have a lifetime of a lesser love?
I would like to think that I’d choose the three days, but then I’d have to spend the rest of my life feeling lonely. Or, I could have a lifetime of safe love, and never know that I was missing something better–passion and fire.
Closing the book, I stare at the bookshelves and shake my head. I don’t know why it matters. It’s not like I’d ever have to make that choice, or be faced with those options.
I only want burning passion for my entire life. I want a love so deep, that’s it’s in me forever. I want my soul branded by that kind of love.
Sighing, I stand up and stretch. I need tonotread this. Now my mind is all over the place, thinking about love and shit.
“Aarrgg,” I grumble, heading upstairs to find my phone. But when I pull it out of my purse, I forgot that it was still dead. Digging my charger out of my bag, I go back downstairs and plug it into an outlet in the kitchen.
When it turns on, a crap ton of messages from Ally pop up asking if I’m okay, and if I’m surviving the storm. But there’s even more messages from our friend group chat asking me where I am and why I haven’t been texting them.
Shit.
I never told Ellie and Mel that I was coming here. I only called Ally, and then packed my bags and left. We’ve always told each other everything. I just happened to not tell them this particular series of events.
Sighing, I type out a message, explaining myself.
Hey guys, I’m sorry I’ve been MIA, but I’m in Pine Cove right now. I needed to leave ASAP, and I forgot to tell you…
A minute later, I get an influx of texts from them.
WHAT?!!!?Mel texts.
YOU’RE IN FREAKING MAINE??!!Ellie adds.
Yes, calm down. I quit my job Thursday because my boss is a dick, and then I came here to clear my head. But it’s anything but clear.
Why?Mel asks.
Because Ryan brought me back to his house this morning, and now he’s at work and I’m alone in his house while there’s a blizzard currently in progress.
WHAATTTT??!! You and Ryan?? Jake’s older brother?
Yes. I have a confession to make to you…I press send and pause, wondering how to say this without causing a freak out.We had sex at the BBQ last summer, and I haven’t been able to get him out of my head. And now I’m fucking staying at his house because Dottie’s lost power and his house still has it.
My phone starts ringing a couple minutes later, and I see Ellie’s name flash on my screen.
“Hey,” I say when I swipe to answer the call.
“Yeah, hey, bitch. What the fuck?”
Laughing, I lean forward on the counter. “I’m in his house right now while he’s at work.”
