On my back, with my leggings and jeans pulled down just enough for him to gain access, he slips inside me. The heat generated by our bodies is enough to warm me, but Gabriel worries about me anyway.
“Are you cold? Should we stop?” His lips press to my neck as he questions me.
“No, no, don’t stop,” I whisper. “I’m perfect.”
Gabriel looks into my eyes. The tip of his nose nuzzles mine. His weight is balanced on one forearm, and with the other he strokes my cheek.
Somewhere above us, birds emerge from their shelters, and begin to call to one another. Between parted clouds the sun peeks out, sending its rays across the snow and creating a smattering of sparkle across everything.
Without warning, tears form in my eyes.
Gabriel stills inside me. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s just…I didn’t spend much time reflecting over our relationship before because it was over, and it hurt too much.” My fingers move across his cheekbones as I speak. “Everything I pushed away back then is coming up now. And I was looking up, and seeing you and all this beauty surrounding us, and feeling you inside me, and it hit me.”
Gabriel places a soft peck at the corner of my mouth. “What hit you?”
“When we were together before, I wanted to be pretty for you. All the time. Not just physically, but every other way too. I wanted a life that was shiny, that looked good. And in doing so, I created a world where you could not be ugly with me.”
Gabriel’s lips twist and purse. He hasn’t moved, but still he fills me. I wait for him to deny my words, because that would be typical for Gabriel. He never has allowed me any wrongdoing.
The more I think about it all, the more I need to be in the wrong. I need to be in the space where mistakes are made, where humanness is allowed. I need to shoulder this burden with Gabriel. I need him to allow me to sit in the dark with him.
I breathe the same air as Gabriel, watching him absorb what I’ve said. His expression changes, micro movements in his cheeks and the pull of his eyebrows. Finally, he says a single word. “Yes.”
I kiss him. “I’m sorry. So sorry for not leaving space in our relationship for ugliness.”
Gabriel kisses me back. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. And it’s not ugliness. All the mistakes that make us human, they’re not ugly. They’re as beautiful as all the pretty things we do.”
He resumes movement. Filling me, leaving me empty, filling me again. The entirety of my brain and my body and my heartfocuses on what’s building in my center. Gabriel must know this, and he does what he did before, when I was his and he was mine. A tuck of his hips, as if he could lift me off the ground, and I shatter, arcing up to the snow-stacked treetops and plummeting spectacularly back to earth. I’m recovering from my high when Gabriel jerks, groaning my name against my neck.
I smile up at the sky. “Snow sex is definitely going in my book.”
We eatchips and salsa for dinner. Apple slices for dessert. Gabriel locates packets of hot chocolate in the pantry, left behind by a previous guest. He heats milk on the stove and pours in the mixture. He kisses me after my first sip, swiping his tongue in my mouth and telling me I taste like chocolate.
Gabriel builds a new fire. He sits on the couch, motioning me over. I pick up a blanket as I round the couch, then crawl on his lap and drape it over us.
Gabriel cradles me, and says, “Should we address the elephant in the room?”
I look up at the side of his neck. “Which one?”
My head bumps against his chest with the movement of his laughter. “My sobriety.”
I’d wanted to ask, but how does a person ask a stark question like that? I guess you just say the words. So I do. “Are you sober now?”
“I’m sober forever.”
I focus on his five o’clock shadow and push back against memories I wish I could erase. I don’t want to have them now. I want to live here, in the present moment. “I’m proud of you.”
He grunts. “You shouldn’t be.”
I shift, sitting up and looking down at him. How I wish I could snap my fingers and remove the shame from his eyes. “I’ve never been addicted to anything.”Except you. “I don’t know what it’s like. But I’ve watched someone I loved suffer from the disease, and it looked very, very painful.”
Gabriel reaches for a lock of my hair, slowly letting it slip through his fingers. The second time he picks it up, he says, “Loved?”
His eyes search mine. His one-word question is a reservoir, containing so many more.
I can’t answer him, because I don’t know how. Capturing his face in my hands, I tell him, “You are not the sum of your mistakes. You need to give yourself a little credit.”
