“I see those wheels turning,” Abby says quietly. “You don’t owe him anything, and he’s not trying to sweep in and play superhero. That’s not who Aiden is, or why he’s there.”
I glance down at my camera and fidget with the buttons so I don’t have to look at her.
“I know that... it just feels like a handout.” I hate admitting that out loud, but it does. It feels like he saw me at my most vulnerable and felt bad for me, so he swept in to save the day. Iknowthat’s not true, but feelings don’t check facts. “I can take care of Phoebe—I don’t need help.”
“Oh, honey.” Abby frowns. “You’ve done an amazing job, and no one could argue otherwise. But it’s okay to accept help. Especially right now with everything you’re juggling.”
I manage a nod because I don’t trust myself not to cry again.
He already told me that, but in different words.
If I didn’t feel like my world was crumbling, I doubt I’d have these same feelings. Aiden isn’t programmed to do something and expect anything in return. He’s just kind, and at one point, he loved me.
It scares me how easy it is to remember. Even scarier to want it again, because I can feel it. I canseeit in my kitchen right now—a possibility that he could not only love me again, but loveus.
“Chloe.” Her tone is quiet, but also very direct. “Go out there. Make somegoodmemories in the middle of all this muck. We’ll pack up your place tomorrow, and we can have an extended slumber party until the apartment is fixed. But for tonight—let it all go.” Her smile spreads into something a little suggestive, and I roll my eyes. “Enjoy baking cookies with Phoebe and that gorgeous lumberjack.”
“Please stop calling him that,” I whisper conspiratorially. “I’ll never get that image out of my head.”
“That’s the point,” she says, grinning bigger. “Love you!”
I sigh. “Love you.”
And the screen goes dark.
I head back to the kitchen, adjusting my settings for the evening light streaming through the west-facing windows—my favorite feature in the whole space. I wish they were bigger, but either way, it means I’m privy to sunsets no matter where I am in the apartment.
Aiden and Phoebe face each other while she joyfully presses cookie cutters into rolled-out dough, and he pries the safety plastic off the sprinkle container lids.
“Mr. Wheeler—what do snowmen eat for breakfast?”
“Snow ice cream?”
“No! Frosted flakes.” She lets out a peal of laughter that he chases with a deep rumble of his own.
Both hit me square in the chest.
I swallow the lump in my throat and press the shutter, quietly circling them as I capture every memory I want to hold tight forever.
A full frame of the two of them, working in tandem.
A close-up of Phoebe’s hands as she sprinkles a handful of red sugar crystals on a cookie, her fingers spread in a delicate splay. She thinks you get better coverage if you do it this way,and I want to remember this phase. Next year, she may want to “be a grownup”.
An off-center shot of her wide grin that captures parts of her baby face that’s slowly disappearing.
And then there’s Aiden. I swivel to capture details about him like it’s second nature, because I suppose it is. A close-up of his large hands deftly sprinkling flour and rolling like a pro.
A wider shot as he flicks a pinch at Phoebe, who giggles and stamps the cutter.
A second shot where I frame the emotion in his face—the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the laugh lines, the beard along a strong jaw, the lips mouthing the words to a Christmas song as he works—a soundtrack to this small magic in my kitchen.
I’m not looking for this. And yet somehow, the memories I dreamed up and yearned for with mywhole hearta decade ago are playing out in front of me.
I’ve only ever dated casually, and I have a strict rule that Phoebe won’t ever meet someone I’m not serious about.
But somehow I know, no matter how hard I try to stop it, Aiden and I are barreling in that direction. We always were. I don’t know what we are now, or how this will go. But when his eyes meet mine in my lens, my heart confirms it.
And it thrills and terrifies me equally.
