Page 55 of Her Holiday Arrangement
Riley took it slowly, her fingers brushing Elizabeth’s glove.
“Thanks,” she murmured.
Silence stretched between them, thin and taut.
Riley looked down into the cocoa. Tiny marshmallows floated on the surface, perfectly square. Of course.
Elizabeth glanced away, as if the snow beyond the trees was more interesting than this unbearable stillness between them.
“I wasn’t sure if you… wanted to be alone,” she said at last, her voice careful.
Riley’s lips parted in disbelief. She let out a quiet laugh, sharp and tired.
“Seriously?” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve been pretending I don’t exist all day.”
Elizabeth’s jaw tightened. “That’s not true.”
“It’s not?” Riley shot back. “Because from where I’m standing, it really felt like you couldn’t wait to make me disappear.”
A flicker of something passed through Elizabeth’s eyes, guilt, maybe. Or fear.
She looked down at her cocoa, held it like a shield.
“Last night…” Elizabeth began, then stopped. Her throat worked around the words. “It was… complicated.”
Riley stared at her. “It didn’t feel complicated. Not to me.”
Elizabeth took a slow breath. Her hands curled tighter around the mug.
“It was a lapse?—”
“In judgement? Yeah, you’ve used that one before.”
“It was. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened.”
Riley nodded slowly, like she was parsing it in real time. “Right. Of course. Just another mistake in your very tidy life.”
Elizabeth didn’t respond.
The snow swirled around them, thick and silent. The lights from the house glowed golden behind the frosted windows, but it felt like they were standing a world away.
Riley’s voice dropped, softer now. “You know, I don’t need you to be perfect.”
Elizabeth flinched.
“I just need you to behonest.” Riley’s eyes searched hers. “That’s all. Just… tell me the truth. About what this is. Whatweare. If it’s nothing, say that. If it’s too much, fine. But don’t lie to me with silence. That’s worse than anything you could say out loud.”
For a moment, Elizabeth didn’t move.
Her eyes were wide, unreadable. Her lips parted. Riley thought, hoped, she might say something, finally, something real.
But Elizabeth looked away.
And then, without a word, she turned and walked back into the house.
Riley stood there, cocoa cooling in her hands, watching the snow fall.
The den was dim, the fire in the grate reduced to a faint orange glow that threw shifting shadows over the walls. The old TV in the corner flickered with washed-out color, the kind you only got from too many years of cable and a screen slightly warped by time. The Christmas movie marathon was in full swing, third or fourth one of the night, and the actors’ voices warbled in that overly sentimental cadence only a holiday script could get away with.
