Page 74 of Seeds of Christmas
“Then Dom died. And I fell apart. Like, completely fell apart. Stopped going to classes, stopped going out, basically just existed and felt sorry for myself.”
Rhi’s quiet, listening.
“Kath tried, I guess. She’d text to check on me. Bring me food sometimes. But I think she thought grief was like... a phase. Like I’d be sad for a few weeks and then bounce back, and we’d go back to how things were.”
“But you didn’t bounce back.”
“No. I didn’t.” I study the puzzle piece in my hand. Blue. Sky or mountain shadow? I can’t tell. “And eventually she was like,‘I can’t do this. You’re not the person I started dating. You’re too sad all the time and it’s bringing me down.’”
“She said that?”
“More or less. She tried to be nice about it, but yeah, that was the gist.” I shrug. “And honestly? I don’t blame her. We weren’t serious enough for her to sign up for the level of mess I became. It wasn’t fair to expect her to.”
“Carter—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine about it.” I’m not fine about it, but I don’t need Rhi’s pity. “She wasn’t wrong. I was—am—a lot to handle. Grief makes you heavy. Who wants damaged goods?”
The words come out more bitter than I mean them to.
Rhi sets down her puzzle piece. “You’re not damaged goods.”
“I mean, I kind of am, though.”
“No.” Her voice is firm. “You’re grieving. That’s not the same thing as damaged. Grief isn’t a flaw.”
“Feels like one sometimes.”
“That doesn’t make it true.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I grab another puzzle piece and jam it somewhere. It doesn’t fit. Fuck this stupid fucking puzzle.
“For what it’s worth,” Rhi says quietly, “I don’t think you’re too much.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
I don’t.
We go back to the puzzle.
And I think maybe—just maybe—I’m allowed to want this.
Allowed to want her.
We’ve been workingon the puzzle for a couple hours when the idea hits me.
Rhi’s concentrating on a particularly tricky section—sky pieces, all the same shade of blue—and she’s got that little crease between her eyebrows that she gets when she’s focused. The cabin is warm from the fire, and there’s snow falling outside the windows, and it should feel like Christmas.
But it doesn’t.
Because there’s nothing festive about this place. No lights, no decorations, no tree. Just research equipment and field notebooks. I think about how Rhi admired the decorations when we drove in.
Because this is her first Christmas away from her family. And she’s stuck in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with me.
The least I can do is make it feel a little less depressing.
