Couples in ski gear walk hand in hand.
Everything is postcard-perfect.
And I am a bruised heart trying to keep from bleeding all over this charming town.
I sigh, annoyed with myself for the indulgent self-pity I’m drowning in.
“Her age is the reason we didn’t work out.”
“She was twenty-five, inexperienced.”
Words like knives. Words that rewrote everything I thought we shared. Words that made me feel foolish and disposable.
Just a day ago, he asked if we could be friends. I considered it. Hoped because of it.
How ridiculous to pretend friendship is possible when the echo of him has haunted the past five years of my life! And my heart is locked in a box with his name etched into the lid.
So melodramatic, Ember.
I sip my coffee, staring aimlessly out the window, now replaying what he said in the orangerie—words I’ve ached to hear for years.
“I just wasn’t ready to fall in love with someone, and then I fell in love with you?—"
The irony of it is that after having him say the words I crave, I don’t believe him.
I don’t want his guilt. Or his regret. I want the truth—what I know he gave Calypso when he talked about me.
“I think you’re amazing.”
“Please, baby, don’t let it end like this.”
I press my fingers to my lips, as if I can physically hold back the pain. But it’s in me now, threaded through every nerve. This ache. This anger.
How dare he?
How dare he try to make me believe I was too much and then not enough, and nowmore thanenough?
A man walks by the window, bundled in navy and wearing ski goggles pushed up onto his forehead.
For a second, I think it's Ransom.
My stomach flips.
A second later, I can see it isn’t him.
I finish my coffee. Since the snow has stopped falling, I get back on the cobbled streets dusted with powdered snow.
Chamonix in winter is like a town out of a storybook. The rooftops wear frosted hats. Shop windows gleam with fairy lights and glossy ornaments. All things that make me smile. It’s like the town itself is trying to console me.
But I don’t want to be consoled. I want to be angry. I want to be over it. I want to feel powerful in my heartbreak.
Is that even possible?
After walking around for half an hour, I decide I need a drink, which is very apropos since I’m on Rue des Moulins, Chamonix’s most famous party street, where you can go from bar to bar, all evening long.
I duck into one of the après-ski bars, Bar’d Up, which sits just off the main drag, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tavern carved into a weathered chalet, its windows glowing gold against the snow-drenched day.
Inside, timber beams, ski memorabilia, and low-hung Edison bulbs welcome you.
