An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(68)

She’s speaking to me.

She’s hugging me.

She’s with me.

“It’s freezing out here.”

Cal’s voice has me spinning around in the few inches of snow, almost slipping. A beanie is pulled over his ears, a winter coat zipped halfway up his torso. His eyes are also aimed skyward, hands in his pockets, and he stands as still as a millpond a few feet away from me. “I’m not cold,” I answer back. It’s the truth. The air is cold, but I am not.

He glances at me. “I liked your song.”

“It looked like it made you sad,” I say softly, quirking a smile to counter the mood.

A plume of breath hits the icy air as he exhales, eyes narrowing at the sky. “Yeah,” he agrees. “But in a good way. Sort of like you do.”

“I make you sad in a good way?” My nose crinkles at the opposition of it.

“Something like that.”

I’m not sure what to make of the sentiment, but it doesn’t sound like an insult, so I nod my head and follow his gaze toward the darkened skyline. Silence stretches between us, both of us lost in the stillness of the night. It feels good to just be still sometimes.

I close my eyes, blackening my vision until all I can do is be still.

No sound, no sight, no taste.

Just the earthy aroma of terpene-scented snowfall, and the feel of a crisp November freezing my ears and turning my nose pink.

“The last time it snowed on Thanksgiving was that final year with them,” Cal murmurs, sounding a foot closer than he once was. “It’s been a decade since my dad was bundled up in the garage watching a football game after sneaking Mom’s appetizers from the fridge.”

I keep my eyes closed, but I feel the warm prickle of tears try to break free, nonetheless. A watery smile blooms as I recall that Thanksgiving ten years ago. We celebrated at Cal and Emma’s house, and his mother was livid when she noticed the charcuterie board was half eaten by the time we’d arrived. Alan Bishop had been banished to the garage. It was a good-natured punishment, mostly, and eventually, we all sat together at their grand dining room table to feast. The table was the one grand thing in their small house—now my house—taking up the entire space.

It was the one grand thing, aside from the love I felt there.

Before I can add my thoughts, Cal speaks first.

“I had no idea that six months later, the sound of my dad cheering on the game would be replaced with discovering him slumped over the wheel in that same garage, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Sound comes careening back like a ten-car pileup. It’s a collision of screams and wails, shattering glass, squealing tires, and crushing metal.

My eyes pop open, balance teetering in the snow. A sharp breath escapes me like an airbag just deployed, puncturing my chest. “Cal…” All I can say is his name, and nothing more.

His expression doesn’t wilt as he continues to stare blankly at the sky that now looks more black than blue. “I’m glad you brought me here today.”

Is he, though?

All it seems to have done is remind him of everything he’s lost.

I shake my head, pivoting toward him. “I didn’t mean to trigger bad memories. I just…I wanted…”

“You wanted to make me happy, and I am.”

“You don’t look happy,” I note gravely, stepping closer to him.

He shrugs a little, not with defeat but with a semblance of certainty. “What does happiness look like to you?”

I go to speak, then seal my lips. What does it look like? What does happiness look like after inconceivable loss? It doesn’t look the same as it used to, that’s for sure.

Cal finally looks away from the sky to face me, a smile cresting. It’s faint, but it’s not forced. It looks genuine. It looks as happy as it can be.

And then, in a blink, before I even know what’s happening, he falls backward in the snow.

I move forward. “Cal…?”

“We made snow angels that night,” he tells me, extending his arms and widening his legs. “Emma pulled me down into the snow, laughing in the way only she could laugh. So fucking honest, like her joy was a tangible thing.”

I choke out my own laugh, recalling how annoyed Cal was to get his clothes wet. “You hated it. You were miserable,” I tease gently, wanting to join him but unable to move. I’m frozen to the ground like the winter frost.

“I hated it until I couldn’t hate it anymore. She had that way about her, you know?” His arms move up and down, legs side to side, leaving a giant angel-shaped imprint underneath him. “Just like you do.”

Finally, I urge my legs to move, to carry me toward him until I fall beside him in the snow. A startled laugh-cry falls out of me when my hair dampens with snowflakes. I move my arms and legs in tandem with his, and I wonder what we look like right now, two grown adults playing in the snow like children. Heartbreak entangled with innocence. A meshing of pain and hope.

We glance at each other at the same time. We’re far enough apart that our arms don’t knock together, but close enough that I can see his eyes shimmering with all the same things I’m feeling. I laugh when he kicks a chunk of snow at me, and he laughs when I retaliate. We’re smiling, joyful, reminiscing but moving forward all at once.

And then he rolls over until he’s looming above me.