Chapter20
Charlie
Iwoke to the kind of light I hadn’t known I missed—soft, filtered through frosted glass, painting the room in pale gold.Usually mornings like this pressed down on me with their silence, heavy and hollow.But not today.Today the quiet didn’t feel like emptiness.It felt like peace.
I turned onto my side, and there she was.Belle, curled against me as though she’d always belonged here, her hair spilling wild across the pillow, catching the light in strands of gold and chestnut.Her breathing was steady, soft, each rise and fall a rhythm that steadied me too.I let myself look at her—really look—and my chest ached, but not with the grief I’d carried for years.This ache was something sharper and sweeter, something I almost didn’t recognize.Gratitude.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe around it.The years I’d spent in shadow, punishing myself, locking the world out—it all seemed like wasted time compared to this.One night of her warmth, her laughter, her stubborn insistence that I wasn’t the monster they all believed, and I felt more human than I had in decades.
My first thought, unbidden and terrifying in its simplicity, was this:This is what home feels like.Not the walls of my house, not the fortress of books I’d guarded like treasure, but this—her, beside me, her presence filling the cracks I’d never thought could be mended.
I closed my eyes for just a second, memorizing the feel of it, because some part of me still feared it couldn’t last.But when I opened them again, she was still there.Breathing.Real.Mine, at least for this moment.And for the first time in years, that was enough.
The faint sound of music reached me first, a carol drifting from the old record player downstairs.Belle must’ve set it on repeat before we’d gone to bed.Normally, mornings meant my usual ritual: get up, check the locks, put on coffee, brace myself for another day of silence.But this time, I didn’t move right away.
Her hand was resting on my chest, light but steady, her fingers curled slightly like she’d anchored herself there without meaning to.And maybe that was what undid me most—because I felt anchored too.Not floating, not drifting in the wreckage of ghosts, but tethered to something alive and real.Proof that I wasn’t alone anymore.
I lay there longer than I should’ve, memorizing the weight of her beside me, the cadence of her breathing, the warmth she brought into a life I’d thought was beyond saving.Then, when she stirred and looked at me with that sleepy, unguarded smile, I found myself doing something I hadn’t in years: lingering.
We wandered downstairs together, her steps light, mine slow and deliberate.And for the first time, my house didn’t feel like a mausoleum.
The fireplace crackled to life; the flames reaching outward like a welcome instead of a warning.The air smelled faintly of cinnamon and pine—her stubborn insistence on hanging garlands, lighting candles, weaving cheer into the corners I’d left empty.
Where shadows once pooled in the corners, strings of lights now glowed softly, chasing them back.Where dust had collected untouched for years, there was warmth instead—warmth I hadn’t realized I’d been starving for until it was right in front of me.
And then the library.
The room I’d spent years guarding like a dragon with his hoard now looked… alive.She’d decorated it late last night, after we’d come back from town, her laughter still echoing in my memory as she insisted on “just one more touch.”Wreaths hung gently on the shelves, ribbons draped across old ladders I’d once used to reach the high stacks.And in the corner, the tree she’d insisted we bring in glowed with soft light, its ornaments catching and scattering the fire’s reflection until the whole space felt transformed.
It was no longer just a room of memories.It was something sacred.A place breathing again, stitched back together by her hands and her belief that it was worth saving.
I stood in the doorway, her at my side, and for once didn’t see ruin or regret.I saw a home.Our home, if I was brave enough to let it be.And in that moment, I thought maybe—just maybe—I could be.
She appeared in the doorway of the library, cheeks flushed from the fire’s warmth, hands tucked behind her back like she was hiding something.I was already undone by the way the garlands and the tree made the place look alive again, but the shy smile on her lips just about finished me.
“I, um… got you something,” she said softly, stepping closer.She held out a small package wrapped in plain brown paper, tied with a bit of red ribbon that looked like it had come from one of the wreaths she’d hung.
I took it, my hands rough against the neat bow, and unwrapped it carefully.Inside was a journal, leatherbound, dark and simple, but embossed in the corner were my initials.C.A.My throat tightened.
“For the stories you haven’t told yet,” Belle murmured, her eyes steady on mine.
For a moment, all I could do was stare.A journal.Something meant not for the ghosts I’d catalogued, but for me—for whatever scraps of truth or hope or memory I hadn’t yet managed to put down.It was a gift that said she believed I still had more to give, more to live.I swallowed hard, unable to speak around the lump in my throat.
I cleared my voice and reached for the only thing I had that might measure up.Crossing to the shelves, I pulled down one of my most beloved volumes—edges frayed, spine softened by years of handling.I opened the front cover and, with a hand that trembled slightly, wrote a few words before pressing it into her hands.
She read the inscription silently, tears springing bright in her eyes.Then she hugged the book to her chest like it was something holy.“You let me into your heart,” she whispered, her voice breaking.“That’s the greatest gift.”
I looked at her then, at the tears on her cheeks and the firelight dancing in her hair, and I thought—for the first time in too many years—that maybe she was right.Maybe letting her in was the one gift I had left worth giving.
The fire snapped and hissed, throwing sparks up the chimney as we sat shoulder to shoulder on the rug.Our mugs of cocoa steamed in our hands, the sweetness curling through the air, mingling with the pine and cinnamon Belle had insisted on bringing into this old place.Outside, the snow kept falling, steady and soft, as if the whole world had decided to hush for us.
There were no grand speeches, no heavy words—just the kind of quiet conversation I hadn’t known I could still have.She told me about the crooked angel topper her grandmother always put on their Christmas tree, how it leaned so far to the side they joked it was ready to fly away.I shared the story of a barracks Christmas, where a few of us had carved a tree out of scrap wood and decorated it with candy wrappers and string.We laughed at the small, silly things, and in those moments, it didn’t feel like shadows were pressing in.It felt like maybe there was still time to write new stories.
Belle’s eyes glowed in the firelight as she leaned closer, her shoulder warm against mine.She spoke of new traditions—baking cookies together, reading stories by the fire, taking long walks in the snow to see the lights.She spun them out like threads, weaving a tapestry of tomorrows I’d never dared picture.
I stared into the flames for a long moment, my chest tight, before the words slipped out low and halting, “I never thought I’d see another Christmas morning worth remembering.”
She turned, her fingers finding mine, warm and sure.Her hand squeezed gently, grounding me in the way only she could.“Then let’s make this the first of many,” she said, her voice soft but certain.
