“Go back to sleep, Colette.”
CHAPTER 34
Colette
The first thingI noticed was the silence.
The second was the cold.
Silas had always run warm — a furnace of a man — and the sheets felt like ice without him there. I reached out before I even opened my eyes, found nothing but empty space. My fingers closed around the spot he’d been, still faintly warm, and my heart sank.
“Silas?”
Nothing.
Just the pop of the old radiator and the sound of the snow melting off the roof.
I pushed up, clutching the blanket to my chest. His clothes were gone from the chair. The old leather duffel that had sat by the door since the storm began — gone too. The only thing he’d left was the wool sweater he’d given me to wear that first night, still draped over the back of the couch.
I pressed it to my face, inhaling deeply, and the ache hit me like a hammer. I’d wanted him here. Wanted him wrapped around me like a promise that didn’t need words.
The lump in my throat burned as I slid into it. It smelled likehim — cedar, smoke, something sharp and expensive that didn’t belong in this crooked little cabin.
On the kitchen counter, beside the half-empty mug of coffee he must’ve made before leaving, was a folded scrap of paper.
Didn’t want to wake you.
Your car should start — roads are clear.
Don’t let anyone convince you that the storm wasn’t real.
— S
The words blurred before I finished reading them. I pressed the note to my chest, sitting down hard on the stool.
I read it three times. Every word, carefully measured, left my chest raw. I pressed the note against my lips, wishing he’d kissed me one last time, wishing I could feel him again, even for a second.
I sank to the floor, the blanket wrapped tight around me, and let the silence wash over the room. Every surface still held traces of him — the faint scent of aftershave, the warmth lingering in the mattress, the echo of his laughter from the night before.
I wanted to scream. Wanted to curl up and vanish into the floorboards, wanted the world to stop moving so he’d come back. But I couldn’t. He was gone. And the snow outside had melted enough to show the roads again — showing that life would keep moving, even though mine had been paused in that little cabin.
My hands were shaking. I don’t know how long they’d been trembling, but I waspissedthat they were. Pissed at him for leaving. Pissed at myself for falling so quickly for someone that was alwaysgoingto leave.
I should have known better. It wasn’t even that I’d expected him to stay forever.
I just thought maybe — after everything — he might want to.
And yet, in that quiet morning light, everything about the cabin — the fire still smoldering, the mugs still warm, the note still foldedneatly on the counter — screamed at me that he had been here. That he hadmeantsomething to me.
And now he wasn’t.
Outside, the plows had carved the world back into something navigable. But it felt emptier now, as if the snow had taken something with it when it melted.
Epilogue
Months passed.
The winter chill crept away, and the March breezes lent themselves to new life.
