He finished the last line on the diagram and set the pencil aside.The kettle clicked off a second later.A simple domestic sound, a tiny miracle.Everyday noise still felt like a gift.
Gabe crossed to me, bare feet silent on the worn wood floor, faded T-shirt hanging loose over scarred skin.His hair had grown longer than when we met.A faint curl brushed his forehead, more boyish than he liked.A few threads of silver had appeared near his temples during the last year.Every one of those strands felt earned.
“Get any work done?”he asked.
“Trying.”I took a sip and let the heat burn my tongue.“The gallery wants the restoration finished by next month.I keep staring at varnish like it will move itself.”
He brushed his thumb along my jaw in absent affection, then reached over my shoulder to pull two mugs from the cabinet.“You always finish.You just like to complain first.”
“That sounds fake.”
“Realistic,” he said, and bumped his shoulder gently against mine.
The small yellow kitchen barely held both of us, but we moved through the space like people who had learned each other’s rhythms.Two years of learning when to touch and when to give distance.Two years of waking to the same heartbeat beside mine and still not taking that sound for granted.
Steam curled from his mug as he poured hot water over the tea bag.The scent of peppermint filled the room, sharp and clean.He preferred coffee but cut back after the nightmares worsened last winter.
“Forecast says more snow tonight,” he said.
“Of course it does.Canada likes to prove a point.”
His smile came easier now, reached his eyes more often.“You wanted the ocean.”
“I wanted a fresh passport and no one trying to shoot me.The ocean came with the package.”
He leaned back against the counter, watching me over the rim of his mug.The room fell quiet, just the soft hum of the refrigerator and the faint tick of the old wall clock above the stove.My pulse slowed into those sounds.Peace never stayed, not completely, but moments like this gave us something close.
“You were doing the thing again,” he said.
“Which thing?”
“The look-out-the-window-and-slide-into-the-past thing.”
I rolled my eyes but could not deny it.“Hard to forget Christmas.”
“Trying to forget hurt more,” he said, voice low.“Remembering at least tells the truth.”
He believed that, so I tried.Some days remembering worked.Other days memories clamped onto my throat until breathing took effort.The therapist in town kept explaining that healing did not follow straight lines.I wanted a map.Life refused to give one.
Snow started again while we spoke, thin flakes at first, then a thicker curtain that blurred the line between water and sky.Boats in the harbor turned to smudges of color.Winter hid the world the way shock once hid details I had not been ready to see.
Gabe pushed away from the counter.“Walk?”
“Now?”
“We promised ourselves fresh air every day we could still feel our toes,” he said.
“That rule sounded better in September.”
He reached for my free hand, palm warm, fingers callused from honest work instead of gun grips.“Come on, Mia.Before the dock freezes over.”
I let him pull me toward the coat rack.The heavy parka went on first, then gloves, then the thick scarf he claimed made me look like a bundled seal.He shrugged into his own jacket, movements slower on cold mornings when his body stiffened.The old wound along his ribs sometimes protested any sharp twist.That last fight had left more than external scars.
He grabbed the keys from the bowl by the door, then paused.
“You good?”he asked.
The question meant more than weather.He never left the house without checking where my head had gone.Sometimes the answer came easy.Other times I lied.Today I told the truth.
