Page 9 of Cruel Winter with You

Until: “You can go now,” he said gently.

And so I left.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hey Marc,

It’s been such a long time! I didn’t get to see you during your junior year because you were doing that exchange to Singapore, and this year I was too busy with my internships to go back to Illinois for the holidays. Tabitha has been keeping me updated, and I wanted to congratulate you on your college acceptances. You’ll love Boston, I’m sure.

Hugs,

Jamie

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Thanks, Butt Paper. Hope you’re doing great.

Sent from my iPhone

The next time I saw Marc, I was twenty-one. It was during the winter holidays, two and a half years after our previous encounter. And I wasnotready.

I knew that he’d matured. He was, at last, all grown up, and not just because he waslegallyan adult.

CJ and I visited Marc in Boston and it was actually fun. We got to talking about some of the shit he did when we were younger and he apologized like, a million times???Tabitha had texted me the previous summer.It kind of worries me. I mean, who even am I, if you take away my hatred for my little brother? What will be the new core of my identity?

And:Why is he doing so well in his classes? God, I might be the black sheep of the family after all.

And:I had a fight with CJ and Marc offered to beat him up. It’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.

When Dad, his current girlfriend, and I walked up the Comptons’ snow-crusted driveway for their holiday party, I braced myself for a new and improved Marc.

I did not expect that my heart would stop and my knees wobble.

Because he was still Marc. Still the boy who used to burp the national anthem and leave toothpaste globs in the sink. But he was also the product of the last few years of his life, years in which I hadn’t seen him. That made him at once the sameanddifferent, and ...

“Hey, Butt Paper,” he said, nothing but fondness in his voice. Then I was in his arms, reaching up, and I couldn’t believe how tall and fully fleshed out he was, the scratch of his stubble against my cheek, his warm, enveloping hug.

“Wow,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

“‘Wow’?” His voice was deep in my ear. I felt him pull me even closer into him.

“Just ... I think I missed you?”

Soft laughter rolled out of him. It vibrated through my coat, right into my chest. Northern Illinois, in late December, and I was suddenly hot. “Why do you sound so surprised?” He pulled back. He’d never been nervous or insecure, but his newsmile seemed so sturdy, so solid and confident, I couldn’t look away.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. Collected myself. “I didn’t think I had it in me to miss someone who programmed my computer to writescrotumevery time I typed the wordhe.”

“Damn, that was such a good macro. I bet I still have it somewhere.” His gaze rested quietly on me. Turned into something a little more ... avid. “I missed you, too, Jamie.”

“Yeah?”

He hesitated, and by the time he opened his mouth again, Mrs. Compton was there, taking my coat, fussing over me, and I didn’t get another moment with Marc until dinner. It was a nice meal, but the tension in the air was obvious—some ongoing conversation in the Compton family that I wasn’t privy to, and I only started grasping bits and pieces of it toward the end.

“... not a good reason to drop out of college,” Mr. Compton was saying when I tuned in to the chatter at his end of the table.

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