Page 93 of Merry Me
“That was intentional,” I said, lifting my chin. “I like a little drama with my sugar.”
He laughed, and the sound of it, familiar, unguarded, laced with something wistful…it wrapped around me like one of the flannel blankets strewn across the benches. “Fuck. I’ve missed this. I don’t know how I’ve survived without it.”
“What? The threat of third-degree sugar burns?”
“No,” he said, his smile softening. “Just…sitting next to you. Sharing the fire. Talking about nothing. You…you weren’t just the love of my life. You were my best friend.”
The words lodged somewhere tight in my lungs.
I didn’t respond right away. My throat felt tight, like something unspoken was pushing its way up through all the defenses I’d carefully rebuilt. The ones that used to hold steady. The ones that had started to crumble the second I saw him again.
“I missed this, too,” I finally whispered, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
His eyes searched mine like he could hear everything I wasn’t saying. And maybe he could.
He took the stick from my hand with gentle fingers, the graze of his skin electric, then speared a marshmallow onto it with practiced ease. “You know,” he said, his voice low and warm, “you used to always do this thing—burn a marshmallow beyond recognition on purpose, take one dramatic bite, and then hand it to me like you were doingmethe favor.”
I smiled despite myself. “Still a valid strategy.”
“I fell for it every time.”
“You liked it,” I said, nudging his knee with mine.
He gave me a look. “I liked you.”
The words slipped out so easily, so confidently, like they weren’t holding the weight of years between us.
I looked down at the fire, the orange glow flickering across the snow-dusted ground. My heart thudded against my chest in slow, careful beats, like it was trying to decide whether or not to believe him.
Maybe it was the cocoa I’d had earlier. Maybe it was the stars or the way his shoulder kept brushing against mine like he couldn’t stop reaching for me in these small, unconscious ways.
But for the first time, I didn’t want to dodge the feeling.
I wanted to lean in to it. Let it warm me. Let it burn…even if it only lasted the night.
“Hey, Nat,” he said, brushing a marshmallow onto a graham cracker and handing it to me like an offering. “Do you ever regret it?”
The question hit like a gust of cold air, unexpected and sharp.
I stared down at the s’more in my hand. My fingers clenched around it too tightly.
“Regret what?” I asked, but we both knew the answer. He didn’t have to say it.
He didn’t look away. “Ending it.”
For a moment, all I could hear was thesnapof the firewood and thethudof my heart behind my ribs.
I stared into the flames like they held the answer, the flickering light catching on the edges of the chocolate bar still unopened in my hand. I turned it slowly, unthinking. Stalling.
“You know, it all happened so fast,” I whispered finally, my voice barely audible above the crackle.
“I know,” he said.
“I was eighteen. You were going to L.A. I knew enough about Hollywood to understand what happens there. I didn’t want tobe the girl waiting by the phone. I didn’t want to hold you back. I didn’t want to tie you down.”
He was quiet for a moment before saying, “I wasn’t asking for strings, Natalie. I was asking foryou.”
His voice wasn’t angry. Just quiet. Honest. Like he was gently picking at the stitches of an old wound, not to reopen it, but to understand how it had ever needed closing in the first place.
