Page 32 of Holiday Interference
I snort. “Less beer. More bridezillas.”
He smiles, and I feel it like a warmth under my ribs. I want to keep it there. Want to keephimthere, in this softer light where the world isn’t closing in.
We toss a few more back and forth.
What if you could live anywhere?
What if you could have a do-over day?
What if you could stop time for one hour—what would you do?
His answers are short, clipped, always with an edge.
Mine are longer, breezier, half truths wrapped in sarcasm.
But the rhythm returns. We fall into it—laughter, banter, the lightness of two people building something without calling it that.
And then I ask the one I shouldn’t. Not because it’s a bad question. But because it’shis.
“What if you weren’t afraid of being seen?”
It comes out too quiet. Like I already regret it.
And I do. The second his body stills beside me. The second his smile vanishes, slow and final.
The silence stretches.
Too long.
Long enough for me to wish I could take it back.
He doesn’t look at me when he finally answers. Just exhales once, slow and careful.
“Then I wouldn’t be me.”
That’s all.
I don’t push.
I just sit there, eyes on the muted screen, heart thudding soft and stupid under my ribs.
But part of me can’t help it. Can’t help wondering what he’d look like withnothingheld back.
No shadows.
No deflection.
No walls.
Just Cal.
All of him.
And the terrifying part?
I don’t think I’d survive it.
He unmutes the TV and nods to it with his chin. “We’re missing how she escaped the cult.”
