Page 107 of Back to December
“Power flickered a few minutes ago, so let’s wrap this up. She built a pillow wall? Or were you joking? It’s hard to tell with you sometimes.” McKenna says.
“Literal wall of pillows.”
The screen glitches for a second, then McKenna’s voice filters through. “She loves you, Holden, you know that, right?”
“I know,” I swallow hard. “I just don’t think she trusts it yet.”
The picture comes back, and Logan is sitting there with his typical game face on.
“Then keep showing her, Holden. Don’t let her talk herself out of it.”
“That’s the plan,” I say, though my throat feels tight. If faith is a muscle, I’m using every ounce I’ve got.
McKenna waves. “We love you, but I don’t want to lose the whole battery. We’ll check in later.”
“Yeah,” I tell her and end the call.
For a while, I just stand there in the kitchen, listening to the hum of the heater and the steady tick of the clock over the mantle. It’s quiet, hopefully only temporary.
I turn the coin in my palm, tracing the engravings until they blur with warmth. I don’t know what she dreams about when she whispersmistletoein her sleep, but I know this—whatever she’s reaching for, I want to be the one she finds when she wakes.
thirty-eight
LAILA
“Laila… honey?”
Holden’s voice filters through the fog of sleep—the ghosts of my future,ourfuture, whispering at the edges of my dream.
My heart pounds in my chest.
I don’t want to open my eyes and find I’m somewhere else, anywhere other than back at Wanderlust Refuge with him.
Cautiously, I open one eye and then the other.
Worry lines his forehead and eyes, his usual smile turned down at the edges.
“You’re okay,” he whispers. “You were talking in your sleep. Sobbing. Something about ‘tell me I can change it’.” He drags a hand down his face. “Honey, you scared me.”
He’s purposefully holding himself back, the lines in his body tense and almost trembling. I think I need the physical reminder that he’s actually here—that I can touch him—as much as he needs the comfort, so I push myselfupright and scoot closer until our legs touch, plaid against plaid, warmth against warmth.
When I wrap my arms around him, he exhales a shaky breath and gathers me up, like he’s been waiting to breathe again.
It’s like my entire body weeps and sighs all at once.
He’s real. He’s here.
After a moment, he shifts me easily onto his lap, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I was having a bad dream. If itwasa dream.”
The desperation to break through the invisible wall still vibrates inside me, and I cling to him a little tighter.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks, his breath hot puffs of air against my neck.
I don’t, but I probably should.
We can’t start a new chapter if I don’t do the things that make me uncomfortable, and that starts with being completely unfiltered. No pretending I’m fine or that things aren’t worse than they are. No shouldering everything by myself.
