Page 6 of Winter Break Up

My parents took off just after they had me, and I’m not even sure they lasted together much longer than that. Honestly, neither Grandpa nor I know much about their whereabouts or lives. They got pregnant with me when they were nineteen, were into a pretty hard and fast lifestyle, and neither wanted to hit pause to raise a kid.

According to him, and the rare family relative who’d been around during my childhood, it had been a no-brainer for my grandpa to step up. I’m so lucky he did, as I don’t know where I’d be if he hadn’t. But still, the fantasy of what my biological mother and father would have been like if we were a real family flits through my head every so often. Not as much as it used to when I was a naive child, thinking that one day they might return, but it’s a thought in the back of my mind.

Our conversation has gone cold, with Emily avoiding eye contact over the rim of her mug as we drink in silence. One of us should leave this little break room; this interaction is growing more awkward by the second, but I can’t bring myself to.

“Your hair, it’s shorter than when I last saw you.” I circle back to the comment I made when I walked in.

She’s always had this kind of hair that draws you in. It’s the first thing I ever noticed about her. All of those mocha brown, almost black, wavy curls cascading down her back. It would whip up on the playground, surrounding her like this dark halo. When we were together, I used to run my fingers through it constantly. It’s gorgeous still, but she’s cut it to her shoulders, the edgier angles of it giving her this intimidating presence that only makes me want to come closer. Wrap it around my fist when I—

“Uh, yeah, I needed a change.” She says the sentence like she’s rolling it around in her mouth, testing out how it feels.

And because I’m still in a fog of remembering what it was like to be with her, no clothes between us and my hands on her body, I don’t realize what I’m saying.

“Isn’t that one of those breakup things girls do?”

The words fall out without me thinking of them very much, but my heart lurches the moment it registers. The very thought of her with someone else has my veins going colder than they were all day while I stood in inches of snow.

Of course, in reality, I know that we’ve both been with other people since we’ve been apart. I’m not a saint, and I wouldn’t expect that she’d carry a torch for me. After all, Emily is the one who proposed our breakup.

Still, it feels like a tiny knife slicing through my ventricles to realize she’s lived so many other lives, with other people, since we had our time together.

“How very cliché and sexist of you, Mercer.” Her voice drips sweet venom, but then she blanches. “But yeah, technically, I did it after a breakup.”

That delivery of that news packs an emotional punch. My throat goes dry, my insides cringe. A million thoughts start running through my head.

“When did the breakup happen?” That’s the first question that leaves my mouth.

Why I’m even getting into this with her, sitting here in this room when I should be at home, is lost on me. Emily is the one who didn’t want me, and she’s the one who left for college like my broken heart meant nothing. Yet I always want more when it comes to her. I want to be close to her, hear her voice, learn about what’s on her mind. This addiction of mine hasn’t faded with time or distance, and it would be concerning … if I wasn’t actively denying to myself that it was happening.

“In October. We hadn’t been—” She cuts herself off and slants those hazel eyes at me skeptically. “Do you really care about this? Why are you still here, Mercer? It’s way past time you went home.”

I’ve gotten under her skin; I see it in the telltale flush of her cheeks, and now I’m the enemy again. After she spent the day trying her hardest to give me that polite fucking smile I hate.

“Sorry, why are you all huffy with me?” Her frustration at my presence is starting to tick me off.

Her cheeks are now as red as a cherry, and it matches the shade of her nose bitten from the cold. “I’m not being huffy at all. I just don’t understand why you’re working here. I mean, isn’t it not good for athletes to do strenuous work outside of their sport for fear of injury? Or well, re-injury. And it’s not like you need the money, not that my parents pay much for hauling trees.”

Damn, she really doesn’t want me here. On top of all the stuff she’s assuming about me, it’s clear that my working here makes her uncomfortable. I’m just not sure why.

“Last I checked, you’re the one who didn’t want to be together anymore. And that was three years ago, so I assumed it was water under the bridge? There is no reason I can’t come help your family out for the season.”

It wasn’t subtle of me to throw our breakup out there, but it’s not fair of her to throw false accusations in my face either, so I guess we’re even.

“I’m not … you don’t …” Emily takes what looks to be a centering breath, then pastes that stupid fucking smile back on. “There isn’t any reason you can’t be here. I just find it odd, after all these years away. But if it makes you happy and it makes Charlie happy, who am I to complain.”

Thing is, I want her to complain. Her annoyance and frustration are better than this polite facade. I’ll take reactive emotion over nonchalance any day of the week when it comes to her. And because I feel the need to dispel some of the untruths she accused me of, I tell her the real reason I’m here. Well, part of it.

“I’m balancing on what feels like the last page of this chapter of my life. Come graduation, life is going to get complicated. I don’t know; I wanted one more Christmas at home doing the same things I’ve always done.”

Her lashes flutter shut, then open, and the raw look she hits me with slams into my chest. I shouldn’t be so interested in what she has to say about my life or why she might understand it so well. And yet …

“I get that,” she says quietly, and suddenly, we’re much closer than we were mere seconds ago.

My body invades her space, her sweater nearly touching my flannel long sleeve. Emily isn’t a short girl, but I tower over her, and the effect of her eyes batting up at me as she realizes how little space exists between us sends lust shooting down my spine. If I were to shuffle just a centimeter forward, her breasts would be pressed against me. Those round, perky tits with nipples the color of roses, so perfect and budded whenever I sucked them between my teeth.

Long lashes flutter onto her cheeks, and I realize Emily is inhaling deeply as if to get herself under control. Lord knows I’m a handbreadth away from snapping, and that torturous devil on my shoulder wonders what she’d do if I claimed her mouth right now. As cold as I was when I walked in here, the air in the room has reached a boiling point. I wouldn’t be surprised to see steam coming off my skin with how worked up I’m getting.

And she hasn’t even touched me. I haven’t laid a finger on her. I was foolish to think I could come back here and not feel this insane, intense chemistry between us. It’s always existed, this magnetic spark that draws us together. Isn’t that overwhelming feeling, that endgame attraction, the reason Emily broke us in the first place? We weren’t ready for it, isn’t that what she said?

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