AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He hesitated. It was something he hadn’t done since he lost his dad. But he wanted every minute with her he could get, so he nodded. He followed her back to the room, where they bundled up and she put on her tall galoshes. She slid her hand into his, their fingers intertwining as they made their way out the back door. The sun was warm and the snow was still falling, though it was less of a brick wall and more of a gentle flurry, floating down to catch in their eyelashes.
They walked quietly for a while, making their way through the thick, slick snow. He didn't feel any awkwardness at the silence. It felt so full of something real and gentle. He squeezed her hand tighter.
She squeezed back and gave him a cautious smile. “Talk to me.”
“I—I don’t want to bum you out.”
“I can manage my own emotions. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
There was so much, it was overwhelming to even consider talking about. But she’d been right. There was a part of him that was pushing at the edges of his resistance, desperate to talk about it.
“Three years ago on Christmas morning, my dad passed away.” The memory was a painful blur of ambulances and tears. “His favorite day of the year. After that, my family just…stopped celebrating it.” He hesitated and she stood still, as if waiting for him to find his emotional footing. “After he was gone, my mom, she didn’t really want to deal with messy emotions. That’s just how she is. I love her and she’s a great mom. She and my dad were so good together, because he had the big emotions, she had the reason. But without him, she changed.” He stared at the ground. “She married someone less than a year after he passed away.”
“That must have been hard.”
“You would think not, since I’m a grown man, but it was hard. It felt like she betrayed him. Us. She and her new husband moved out of state. She didn’t want the house anymore. So I bought it. Then right after, my sister decided to move to Seattle.”
“Along with your niece.”
“Yeah. My dad died and then everyone else just walked away and started new lives.”
“Leaving you alone to pick up the pieces.”
“And I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard.” The food he’d eaten sat like a lump in his stomach. “I’ve tried to move on. I go to work. I come home to the house we grew up in and it’s empty and all I want is my family back. I want my Christmases back.” He took a shuddering breath. “My dad always loved to look at the sky. Especially when it snowed. And for three years, I’ve felt like I couldn’t look up at it.” He felt the sting of tears and he did everything he could to end that before it began.
“Gabriel, I know nothing can ever feel the same as what you had with your father. And grief has its own timetable. It can’t be rushed or brushed away. But I think…” She took a breath. “If he was even half the person you say he was, your dad would want you to feel your grief, but he’d also want you to find your joy again. You can do both. I promise you can.”
“I’m not sure I’m capable of that.”
“You are. But it starts here.” She gestured toward the sky. “Look up.”
He shook his head. It seemed small, but it was too much to ask.
“You deserve to live in this world, not just survive it. You gave me Christmas, but you need it too. Look up.”
Something cold and brittle fractured in his chest. He knew she was right. He’d been sleepwalking. Avoiding the holidays and relationships and anything that reminded him of loss, afraid to let his always outsized emotions run free.
It took so long, his eyes slowly moving across the horizon and up to the sky. The dazzling blue hurt to look at, but he looked anyway, tracing the clouds and the snowflakes and the rays of the sun beaming down.
“How does the sky make you feel?” she asked softly.
“It makes me feel…” He swallowed the pain and the love that flowed through him, remembering his father’s bold smile. His soft voice. Scalding tears flowed from Gabriel’s eyes and for the first time since the funeral, he let them go. “I feel broken. Like pieces of me are gone and I’ll never get them back.” A sob tore through him. “I miss my dad, Talia.”
She pressed her warm hands to his jaw. “It sucks that when you have the kind of heart that loves so big, like yours does, it means you hurt big, too,” she said softly. “But your dad was right. You’re blessed to feel so much. You truly are.” Then she quietly held him tight, while he cried his heart out for all that he didn’t have anymore. And the longer her arms were around him, the more aware he became of what he could have.
For three years he’d been holding his breath, but with her, he could release it. He could breathe out what was lost and breathe in something new.
She reached up and wiped away his tears with her gloved fingers and he kissed that hand, before pulling her closer and kissing her lips until they were both breathless.
Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her jacket and she pulled away. “Got a text. Sorry.”
“Go ahead.”
She stared at the screen and didn’t speak for a moment. Moving slowly, she slid it back in her pocket, but she didn’t look at him. Instead, her gaze seemed lost in the snow between her feet. “My flight’s been rescheduled,” she said finally.
He felt the weight of ice dropping from his chest to his stomach. He’d known it was coming. That this was temporary. Like a winter blooming flower that couldn’t help but wither when you plucked it from the snowy ground.
What could he say? He couldn’t ask her to stay there, in a strange city for someone she barely knew. To leave her life behind. And he couldn’t see himself leaving his own life behind. His family home. It hurt too much to consider.
