That night, when Simon has gone to bed and the house is quiet, Esben and I are on the sofa, looking out the window at the heavy flakes swirling as if we’re in a snow globe.
“I got you something,” I tell him hesitantly. My hand shakes a little when I reach behind me and take hold of the bag.
He smiles and puts the bag between us. “Why do you look so scared?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Just open it, and end my torture.”
Esben laughs and digs into the tissue paper. “Oh, Allison...” His voice softens when he holds up the silver sand timer. Engraved on the top are the wordsIt only takes 180 seconds.He flips it upside down, and we watch the sand pour from one side of the glass to the other. “This is so perfect.” He kisses me until the sand has finished pouring out.
Then he winks, flips it again, and keeps kissing me.
After a few more flips of the timer, he sits against the back cushion, and I lie with my head in his lap as he strokes my hair while I watch the winter sky. The wind howls, then calms, intermittently.
Esben puts a small box in my hand. “This is for you.”
“But you already gave me—”
“Shhhh. Just open it.”
Inside is a wide silver bracelet with brilliant stones, and Esben clasps it on me. It takes me a minute to understand what I’m looking at—what the orange, turquoise, citron, red, pink, and deep-blue stones pattern into—but then I see the shape that wraps around my wrist. And I know why he’s given this to me.
“It’s a phoenix,” I say breathlessly.
“Yes,” he says. “Because, just as the story goes, you have risen from the ashes.”
I sit so that I can gaze into his eyes. “You helped me do that. Esben, you helped me so much.” Looking at this gift that has so much heart and meaning, I am at a loss. “This is beautiful. Esben...I don’t know what to say.”
He looks at me for a long time, and there is a new level of emotion and intensity that emanates from him. “Just say that you love me. Please. Because I am so goddamn in love with you that I can hardly breathe when we’re apart. I know I said it when I was drunk, and I shouldn’t have, even though I meant it. But I’m telling you now that I love you.”
There’s no need for me to think over how to respond. “I do love you. I don’t remember what not being in love with you feels like.”
“Good. Because you don’t have to.”
Six days later, we ring in the New Year in downtown Boston. Amid horns and cheering and bitter temperatures, Esben tells me he loves me over and over again. Even in all the chaos of the celebration, I hear him as clearly as if we were the only two people there. And I tell him the same thing.
CHAPTER 23
YOU HAVE MY HEART
We might as well be in Alaska, given how cold January on campus is. We’re on day two of a heavy ice and snow storm, and they’re predicting that classes will be canceled tomorrow, something almost unheard of. Carmen and I decide that we are tough enough to brave the weather this afternoon, and we head to the union for hot chocolate, though, after, as I’m bundling up again to go back to the dorm, I look at her. “I really don’t want to go back out there. Maybe we can just sleep here?”
She yanks a thick hat down to just above her eyes. The giant pom-pom sticking off the top somehow suits her to a tee. “No way. Esben’s friend, that hottie Danny that you set me up with, is coming over in half an hour, and I need to be defrosted by then.”
“Fair enough.” My parka feels a million inches thick, and my gloves make my hands look like a giant’s, but I still froze on the way here. “Things are going well with Danny?”
I’m not sure what propelled me to set up Carmen and Danny, but they’ve both got their quirks, which I thought might match up well. Danny with his harmonica, Carmen with her ever-changing hair ... and it’s only been a few weeks, but, apparently, I was right. There’s something about connecting these two that makes me crazy happy.
“Things are going so well that I shaved my legs today.” She tosses her giant fuzzy hood over her hat and grins.
I cover my face with my scarf and brace myself. “Let’s do this!” My voice is muffled in a Darth Vader sound that makes us both giggle. “Esben is still in my room, because he hasn’t wanted to go outside. You and I are the tough ones.”
She nods. “You know it!”
We barrel through the icy mix that pelts us relentlessly across campus, and we crash into the warmth of the dorm entryway. Both of us start laughing, somehow invigorated from the rush of braving the weather, and I shake out my coat and scarf and stomp my feet before making my way down the hall. Esben is in my room, typing on the computer, but he tilts his head my way as soon as I walk in.
“Hey, Popsicle,” he says before kissing me.
“What’re you doing?” I hang up my coat and sit on the bed. It’s starting to get dark, and the screen is casting a glow on his face in a way I find endearing, so I don’t bother to turn on other lights.
