Page 33 of A Season of Second Chances
We're both breathing hard now, the tension between us crackling like electricity. The sun is getting higher, the snow melting faster. The roads are clearing. Soon she really will leave, and this moment will be over.
"Before you go," I say, my voice breaking. "Before you get in that car and drive away, I need you to answer me one question. Honestly."
"What?"
I take a deep breath, knowing this is my last shot. "Do you love me?"
Her eyes widen, fresh tears spilling over. "Winter…"
"Do you love me, Joy? Yes or no. That's all I need to know."
She's shaking, her whole body trembling. For a moment, I think she's going to refuse to answer. That she's going to get in the car and drive away without giving me even that small truth.
But then she looks at me, really looks at me, and I see it in her eyes before she even says the words.
"Yes," she whispers. "Yes, I love you. I never stopped loving you."
The world tilts on its axis.
She loves me.
She never stopped loving me.
"Then stay," I plead, closing the distance between us one more time. "If you love me, if you want the life I described, if you're tired of being lonely and unfulfilled, then stay. Be with me. Be with us. Let yourself be happy, Joy. You deserve to be happy."
She's crying so hard now she can barely breathe. "I'm scared."
"I know. I'm scared too." I cup her face in my hands, wiping away her tears with my thumbs. "But I'd rather be scared together than safe and alone. Wouldn't you?"
Before she can answer, before she can talk herself out of it again, I pull her into my arms. She melts against me, and we stand there in the parking lot, holding each other like we're afraid to let go.
Because we are afraid. Both of us.
But sometimes the scariest thing is also the right thing.
We stand there as the snow melts around us, as the sun climbs higher, as the moment stretches into something that feels like forever.
And I wait.
I wait for her to make the choice that will determine the rest of our lives.
I wait for her to choose me the way I've been choosing her for ten years.
I wait, and I hope, and I pray that this time love will be enough.
Fifteen
Joy
I pull back from Winter's embrace just enough to look up at him, his face blurry through my tears. My heart is pounding so hard I can barely breathe, and every logical part of my brain is screaming at me to get in the car and drive away before I do something reckless.
But the rest of me—the part that's been buried for ten years, the part that's been slowly waking up over the past few days—is screaming even louder.
"I thought I had everything I needed," I hear myself say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. "My job, my apartment, some money in my bank account, my boss's approval. I worked so hard for all of it, Winter. So hard. I sacrificed relationships and experiences and time with the people I loved because I thought if I just worked hard enough, achieved enough, proved enough, then I'd finally feel successful. Finally feel like I'd made the right choice in leaving."
His hands are still on my face, his thumbs still wiping away tears that won't stop falling.
"But I was lying to myself," I continue, my voice getting stronger even as I'm shaking. "Every single day I was lying to myself, telling myself I was happy, that I was living the life I wanted. And then I got stuck here in the snow with you and Alana, and…"
