and if I were being honest, I was a bit nervous about being out and exposed like this.
But as time had gone by and my dreams hadn’t gotten any clearer, I’d begun to wonder if maybe I had been imagining that people were after me. Maybe I really was safe out here. Or maybe I just felt safe with Holden.
Either way, I was glad we’d come.
A large family with three squealing toddlers blocked the sidewalk as we made our way around the square. Holden veered to the left to go around them. I glanced in that direction and saw the first unlit storefront I’d seen around the square. It was dark and gloomy, and two indistinct figures leaned against it. It gave me the creeps.
I tugged Holden in the other direction, and he looked down, a silent question in his eyes. I felt a little foolish, not wanting to explain the sudden, irrational stab of fear I felt.
“Roasted chestnuts,” I said, nodding in the direction of a cart at the edge of the central green. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had them before, but they smell delicious. Can we get some?”
He shrugged, so I led the way over to the cart, not quite able to relax until I’d lost sight of the two shadowy figures in the crowd. Something about them made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Holden waited a safe distance away, re-shrouded in his scarf and ear-flapped hat, while I bought a pack of chestnuts, and he laughed as I tried to eat them without burning my tongue.
“Oh God, I would definitely remember these if I’d had them before,” I said when I finally managed to eat one. “This is literally the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.”
Holden arched an eyebrow and I waited, but he didn’t say anything.
“Seriously? I have to make all the ‘that’s what he said’ jokes around here?” I grumbled.
“I wouldn’t want to take that away from you,” Holden said. “I know how much joy you get out of sexual innuendo.”
“Fair point.”
We made our way around the rest of the square slowly, stopping to get mulled cider and watch people make s’mores over a bonfire—I resisted the urge to ask Holden if he thought the lube and condoms Hadley had sent would taste better or worse—and eventually, we came to a used book store with a menorah in the front window. I stopped, transfixed.
“You want to go in?”
I thought about it. Part of me did, because getting lost in a warren of bookshelves and old paper sounded delightful. But Holden might feel weird about being inside somewhere brightly lit. And anyway, things were kind of perfect right now—snow underfoot, his arm in mine, the stars above, and I didn’t think it could really get any better than this.
You could build a life here, whispered that little voice in the back of my mind, and for once, I didn’t try to push it away.
I didn’t know my past, but I knew enough to build a future. With Holden. If only he would let me. If only he wanted me the way I wanted him.
Because, sure, I teased him about sex. I knew he was attracted to me. But for me, it was about way more than that.
It was about the way he made me feel safe. Cared for. The way he laughed at my dumb jokes, the way he hung around while I cooked dinner, asking if he could help. The way he was interested in what I was doing in the library. The way that he was slowly opening up, sharing more of himself.
As much as I complained about Holden’s stupid principles, it was about them too. It was about the way he wanted to do the right thing. His desire to help. His concern for other people. It all made me love him more.
Love.
I blinked when I heard the word in my head. Did I love Holden?
Was it possible to fall in love with someone after only knowing them a few weeks? Could you fall in love with someone when you didn’t even know who you were? It didn’t seem like it should be possible, but I was surer about my feelings for him than I was about anything else in my life.
But Holden was convinced that we couldn’t be anything serious. Convinced he didn’t deserve happiness. Ultimately, he wanted me to leave.
It wasn’t fair. But asking him to think differently would be asking him