I part my lips and my breath comes out all foggy and white and I bite my lip to compose myself. I bite my lip because he’s all frozen now.
Frozen and smooth and listening.
He’s listening to me, to my story. As if he’s riveted.
Or maybe I’m imagining things because I wanna make it easier for myself.
“But then, I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell you that I wasn’t cold. That you made my cold go away. And I couldn’t talk to you like I wanted to. So I started writing you letters. Every night I’d write you a letter and I’d fold it and put it in an orange envelope, and then I’d put that in a shoebox that I hid under my bed. When I moved to St. Mary’s, I brought that box with me. It’s a couple, more than a couple of shoeboxes actually because I’ve written you a lot of letters. And I had them with me the night I was running away too.”
I sniffle and rub my chilled nose with the back of my hand before straightening up my spine and beginning the awful, awful part of the story. “You asked me why I was running away that night and if there was a boy involved. There was and that boy is you.”
My confession wrings out a tiny reaction on his part.
A very tiny, one-syllable word that he says in a flat tone.
“Me.”
I jerk out a nod. “Yeah. I was running away because of you. Because you were gonna marry her. Because the day I saw you and you asked me if I was cold and I could never answer you? It was because Sarah came in that very moment and you looked at her and… you never looked away,” I whisper, thinking about all the times I wanted him to look at me but he’d stare at Sarah.
“I think you forgot I was there. A tiny, messy, blanket-wrapped ten-year-old. And then you never remembered me after that. Never really paid any attention to me, even when I was there.” I shake my head, wishing things could be different.
“Anyway, you used to be so fascinated with her, you know? I’d watch you watch her and I knew you were falling in love with her. And she was falling in love with you and I watched it all happen. And all the while… all the while I was falling in love with you too. With my sister’s boyfriend. I’ve spent years feeling terrible and awful about it. That’s why I kept myself away from you. That’s why I’d never look at you or talk to you or just leave the room when you were there, because I loved you. Because you were Sarah’s and what kind of a sister would I be if I did something to hurt your relationship. That’s why I was running away. I didn’t want to sully your wedding with my presence. I didn’t want to be there, the girl with a witchy heart, in love with her sister’s groom. But back then, I didn’t know something about myself. Something really important.”
“What?”
I fist my hands at my side and raise my chin. “That I’d never do anything to jeopardize what you had with her. I’d never do anything to come between you two. No matter how desperate I got. Because your happiness is my happiness. When you smile, I smile. When you hurt, I hurt. So if you love her, then you should be with her.”
When I stop, I make myself tight.
I clench my muscles and I flex my fists. I keep my eyes on him, unflinching.
If he wants to hate me for falling for him, for loving my sister’s ex-boyfriend while he was still with her, then he can do that.
I’ll take his hatred and whatever he has to say to me. Because as I said, I do regret it. I do regret that I fell in love with him when he was with Sarah.
But I refuse to regret the very act of loving him. I refuse to regret loving him to the point of misery and doom.
But all he does is blink and say, “And if I don’t?”
I shift on my feet, more ready than ever. “If you don’t what?”
“Love her.”
It takes me a few seconds to put together what he meant.
If I don’t love her…
That’s what he meant, right?
If he doesn’t love her then what?
Up until now, I felt like my breaths were frozen. I thought my body was chilled to the bone and I’d never be able to get any feeling back into it.
But everything comes rushing back. Everything comes hurtling back and punches me in the chest. It punches me in the gut, and I let out a shocked breath.
“Then I’d say…” I open my fists and loosen my body. “Choose me.”