Page 50 of Born in the Spring

“This isn’t us,” I continue, my tone even stronger than her grip and more pointed than her movements. “We can’t be this.”

I think I see more flames of fear in her eyes before she blinks them away, making me question a brief moment now if that’s what I even saw.

“We’re talking, Jasper—”

“No,” I cut in before her argument can deny its way past her lips. “This—where I want you and I say things and you smile. Or you bring up my ex-girlfriend.” My face furrows with that last one. “We don’t talk about Robin.”

The fact that Elara’s even wanting to talk about her now shows she cares. She cares about howcloserwe seem to be getting again.

She says she wants nothing to change, but it already has. We’re both teetering on the last step over our own balancing acts.

“I just thought—”

“That you could distract me with a woman you know isn’t who you are to me?”

“That’s not fair,” she argues now, the lights from the tree reflected in her narrowed gaze, as her arms drop with the last dangling piece of ribbon.

I take the thing, bending to finish threading it through before I attach it to my cranked up emotions and feel anything butmerryat the sight of it. “And what you just said is fair to me?”To you?my head tells me to add, but I’m too aware that this is the wrong time to press the way that I am. The wrong time to talk about what’s fair.

Nothing’s beenfair for her or me.

And what’s not making that any better is being on the verge of another fight, reminiscent of the one before she left. Only nowI’mfighting for andshe’sfighting against.

I can’t have her leave again—even if it’s just this lodge, and especially if she makes the choice herself.

So, with a tempering sigh, I stand—to a stem of berries we missed, Elara holding them out to me like a peace offering, with a small puckered smile that breathes a laugh out of me.

“I wantyou, Elara,” I remind her, though I don’t have to, as I wrap my fingers around hers on the berries stem. “I could kiss another woman, and I could be with another woman, but I’m only thinking of you.Six years, I’ve loved no other woman but you,” I stress as a no contest declaration. “I want you,” I repeat, my yearning heady in my voice.

She slides her touch from mine, her eyes closing toward the floor, and I don’t blink and miss the shaking in her hand as she runs her fingers back through her hair. I don’t move a muscle and miss that same shaking in her breathing—and it was a fear I saw, my thoughts now warring over if she’s scared because she doesn’t want to hurt me, or if she’s scared to admit she wants me too.

My pulse spikes in her silence as I beg for her to give me something, something to lean my thoughts to one side.

“I’m here,” she finally says, those two words she tried to assure me with before she left, a pleading in her gaze that rivals the one in my head, asking for that to be enough,and I can’t have her leave again.

So, for tonight, her being here, us being here together, has to be enough.

I muster a nod, and her eyes dance between mine in question, needing a more decided answer, so I assure herback with those same words I should’ve said last time. “I’m here too.”

And with that, her eyes shine brighter than the lights, striking another match in my chest as I melt for her, as I burn for her soft smile.

She bends to another box as I add the berries to a branch, continuing what we both came here to do, and I let this night just be another that opens my eyes a bit wider.

My heart wants to take flight as I let myself be more certain that Elaradoesfeel something for me. And I’ll ruin any other night digging into how deep those feelings go until shehasto open to me.

That purpose for the future—for this moment—is enough.

“I want our Saturdays back too,” she tells me when she steps back up beside me with two more ornaments, sounding as sure as she did our first night in front of this fire, her eyes twinkling like stars.

And as I watch her place her next two ornaments onto the tree, my heart doesn’t just take flight, it soars. Because not only has she given us more quiet, secluded nights together,ournights, but she hangs my J and her E together on the tree too.

And my longing takes that move as a statement.

She passes me Shepherd’s S and Mom’s A, and I hang them right underneath.

When she leaves Dad’s G discarded in the box, I have to stop myself again from saying fuck it and kissing her, especially when her tongue darts out to wet her lips.

I have to stop myself from arguing that her being here, while still not being mine, isn't enough.

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