“It’s all good,” I say, just like I did to Knox, and nudge her back.“Let’s go over to the others. I’m freezing my ass off on this bench. For real.”
We get up and stomp through the snow to the fire. The fireworks will be set off from one of the higher points of Aspen Mountain later on, and we have a great view from where we are. I put myself next to Knox. He stretches out his arm and pulls me into his puffy jacket in order to kiss my forehead.
“Everything good, Snow Queen?”
“Super. I just wanted to talk to Aria a second. We didn’t get a chance at the Christmas dinner.”
“Sure. Go for it. Look for her wherever Wyatt isn’t.”
Smiling, I bump him with my shoulder and go off to find Aria. She’s standing under a large fir tree, half-empty mug of mulled wine in her hands, looking like she’d rather hide.
I go stand next to her. “Hey.”
Her hair brushes her cheeks as she looks at me. “Oh, hey. Did you have a nice Christmas?” When I make a face, she laughs. “What? Not a friend of publicity?”
“Not at all,” I say, take a sip of my eggnog and look over at Kate, who’s grabbed her daughter and is dancing to Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe.” Gwen tries to escape, but Kate is as persistent as a whole tube of adhesive cream. “Up until the photo inUSA Today, everythingwas lovely. More than lovely. Really. I really like being here.”
Aria smiles. It looks sad. “Yeah, I understand you.”
“I know what you said on Christmas Eve, but suppose I were to ask you whether you missed Aspen and suppose you were to tell the truth, just between the two of us, what would your answer be?”
“You like to read between the lines, huh?”
“Oh, I’m a natural talent.”
She smiles and looks back out in front of her. The flames of the fire are reflecting in her eyes. “I would tell you that I miss itterribly.” She looks over at Wyatt. I follow her glance. He’s talking to Knox and keeps letting his eyes dart about.
“And him? Wyatt?”
Aria takes a sip of her mulled wine and clutches her cup. She’s wearing gloves with the Gryffindor emblematic animal. I resolve to like her a little bit more. “There is no expression for how much I miss him. But sometimes things happen; sometimes things really go to shit, Paisley, and there’s no going back. Doesn’t matter how much I’d like to. It just doesn’t work.”
The smell of roast apples drifts into my nose. Ruth, William, and Kate prepared them yesterday at the diner, and now all the red-gold apples are on the stones around the fire and bathing the cold winter air with a heavenly scent.
“How can you stand it?” I ask. My glance lingers on Knox. “Letting someone you love go?”
She pulls off a glove and scratches her cheek. Her white painted nails leave behind red weals. “At the beginning, not at all. It was bad. Worse than anything I’d ever felt. But at some point…” She scrapes an X in the snow with her winter boots. “At some point I simply let the pain in and thought:Let it hurt, Aria. Let it really hurt until no one and nothing can hurt you anymore.”
“I understand that.”
She looks at me, on her lips the hint of a smile. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“Why?”
“You have such a presence. Looking at you, the first thing you see is that you are way broken but also strong.” I want to say something, but Aria points to Knox. “Strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“I’ve never seen that expression on his face when he’s looking for someone.”
I look over at him. He is turning his head in all directions, clearly looking for me; when he sees me, his face brightens.
Aria’s smile is soft. “I’ve known Knox all my life and have never seen him look at someone as if only just now realizing that therereally is such a thing as love.” The speakers are now playing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
“Come on, go over there before he comes over here, bringing Wyatt along with him. I can’t handle that today.”
I hesitate. I don’t like leaving her alone beneath this sad fir tree. “Come with me.”
She tilts her head. Above us the snow is dripping off the pinecones and falling onto her cap. “In a sec. I need a moment to finish this wine and allow my body to accept being in the same radius as Wyatt.”
