Beautiful Creatures(116)

I stared at the rosemary in my hand. “That’s what I thought.”

“I think that was the one thing your mother and I disagreed on.”

“Can I borrow this book? Just for a few days?”

“Ethan, you don’t have to ask. Those are your mother’s things; there isn’t anything in this room she wouldn’t have wanted you to have.”

I wanted to ask Marian about the rosemary in the cookbook, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to show it to anyone else, or to part with it. Even though I had never and probably would never fry a tomato in my entire life. I stuck the book under my arm as Marian walked me to the door.

“If you need me, I’m here for you. You and Lena. You know that. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” She pushed the hair out of my eyes and gave me a smile. It wasn’t my mother’s smile, but it was one of my mother’s favorite smiles.

Marian hugged me, and wrinkled her nose. “Do you smell rosemary?”

I shrugged and slipped out the door, into the gray day. Maybe Julius Caesar was right. Maybe it was time to confront my fate, and Lena’s fate. Whether it was up to us or the stars, I couldn’t just sit around and wait to find out.

When I walked outside, it was snowing. I couldn’t believe it. I looked up into the sky and let snow fall on my freezing face. The thick, white powdery flakes were drifting down with no particular purpose. It wasn’t a storm, not at all. It was a gift, maybe even a miracle: a white Christmas, just like the song.

When I walked up to my front porch, there she was, sitting bareheaded on my front steps with her hood down. The moment I saw her, I recognized the snow for what it really was. A peace offering.

Lena smiled at me. In that second, the pieces of my life that had been falling apart fell back in place.

Everything that was wrong just righted itself; maybe not everything, but enough.

I sat down next to her on the step. “Thanks, L.”

She leaned against me. “I just wanted to make you feel better. I’m so confused, Ethan. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

I ran my hand through her damp hair. “Don’t push me away, please. I can’t stand to lose anyone else I care about.” I unzipped her parka, slipping my arm around her waist, inside her jacket, and pulled her toward me. I kissed her as she pressed into me, until I felt like we would melt the whole front yard if we didn’t stop.

“What was that?” she asked, catching her breath. I kissed her again, until I couldn’t take it any longer, and pulled back.

“I think that’s called fate. I’ve been waiting to do that since the winter formal, and I’m not going to wait any longer.”

“You’re not?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait a little longer. I’m still grounded. Uncle M thinks I’m at the library.”

“I don’t care if you’re grounded. I’m not. I’ll move into your house if I have to, and sleep with Boo in his dog bed.”

“He has a bedroom. He sleeps in a four-poster bed.”

“Even better.”

She smiled and held onto my hand. The snowflakes melted as they landed on our warm skin.

“I’ve missed you, Ethan Wate.” She kissed me back. The snow fell harder, dripping off us. We were practically radioactive. “Maybe you were right. We should spend as much time together as we can before—” she stopped, but I knew what she was thinking.

“We’re gonna figure something out, L. I promise.”

She nodded half-heartedly, and snuggled inside my arms. I could feel the calm beginning to spread between us. “I don’t want to think about that today.” She pushed me away, playfully, back among the living.

“Yeah? What do you want to think about, then?”

“Snow angels. I’ve never made one.”

“Really? You guys don’t do angels?”

“It’s not the angels. We only moved to Virginia for a few months, so I’ve never lived anywhere it snows.”

An hour later, we were soggy and wet and sitting around the kitchen table. Amma had gone to the Stop & Steal, and we were drinking the sorry hot chocolate I had attempted to make myself.

“I’m not sure this is the way you make hot chocolate,” Lena teased me as I scraped a microwaved bowl of chocolate chips into hot milk. The result was brown and white and lumpy. It looked great to me.

“Yeah? How would you know? ‘Kitchen, hot chocolate, please.’” I mimicked her high voice with my low one and the result was a strange cracking falsetto. She smiled. I had missed that smile, even though it had only been days; I missed it even when it had only been minutes.

“Speaking of Kitchen, I have to go. I told my uncle I was at the library, and it’s closed by now.”

I pulled her onto my lap, sitting at the kitchen table. I was having trouble not touching her every second, now that I could again. I found myself making excuses to tickle her, anything to touch her hair, her hands, her knees. The pull between us was like a magnet. She leaned against my chest and we just sat there until I heard feet padding across the floor upstairs. She bolted out of my lap like a frightened cat.

“Don’t worry, that’s my dad. He’s just taking a shower. It’s the only time he comes out of his study anymore.”