Now I have to do it.

I move my churning guts toward the kitchen, but something stops me before I get there.

The pink Christmas tree next to the fireplace.

The one that belonged to the little girl of the family I bought this place from. The one Natalie set up before I was awake the first morning I was here. The one I snapped at her about. The one whose lights I’ve refused to turn on ever since.

What a wasted moment that was. Any moment that I was with her where we weren’t smiling or laughing or teasing or being naked with each other feels like a total waste of time now.

I run my fingers along one sparkly pink branch and over the ornament of a donkey wearing reindeer antlers that says “Warm Springs Donkey Sanctuary—We’ll Save Your Ass” on its side.

Despite the gut-wrenching, chest-aching awfulness of this situation, I can’t keep my lips from curling into a slight smile.

And I reach down to the socket and plug in the pink lights.

CHAPTER 31

GABE

I pull up down the street from the theater’s stage door, parking behind a large moving truck for cover. Natalie’s old Jeep Wrangler is way up ahead.

Now that I’m this close to her, I’m on the verge of vomiting. All I want to do is slam my vehicle into reverse, go back home and never have to have this conversation.

But I can’t do that to Natalie. She would never do that to me. She would sit me down and hold my hands and look into my eyes and explain everything. And I should give her the same respect.

That woman deserves the world, deserves someone with the time and space in their life to make her the center of it. And no matter how much I’d like to be that person, I am not.

And that’s exactly why I should have stuck to my plan to spend the holidays alone and get involved with nothing and no one. Maybe I should have just stayed in the city, where that’s easy to do.

But this place, this town… Jeez, how could I have predicted what it’s done to me?

My stomach feels like it’s climbing into my chest with the aid of ice picks. The dread of what I have to do sits like a lead weight across my shoulders.

I kill the engine, undo my seat belt, and my fingers pause, poised on the door handle, daring me to open it, when my phone buzzes.

Taking any excuse to delay the inevitable, I pull it from my pocket.

NATALIE

Did you still want to see me for something? I’m about to leave the theater. You can catch me at home in a bit if you like. Or come to the rehearsal at the pond tomorrow morning. Or call me?

I’m still trying to decide whether I’m relieved that I don’t have to do this right now or agitated that I can’t get it over with, when the stage door swings open.

Natalie steps out and my heart lurches.

She’s smiling and sharing a laugh with the woman and kid who’re with her.

The boy is one of the generic townsfolk in the play. He stuck in my mind because when he skated out onto the ice the other day it was like he’d been born with blades on his feet.

Natalie looks down at him while he tells her something with the seriousness of a scientist explaining a breakthrough that will kill all known diseases and bring world peace at the same time.

She gives him her undivided attention. She’s not evenpretending. Her eyes are fixed on him, hanging on his every word.

Just watching the magic she has with children feels like she’s pulling on the end of a string that’s attached to my chest.

She tugs her blue hat lower over her ears as the wind picks up her hair and blows it over her shoulder. Her jeans hug her thighs right below the hem of her winter coat, and all I can think about is the last time they were on either side of my face, then wrapped around my waist.

I will never have that again. It’s in the past. Gone.