After kissing and dancing for almost a solid two hours, we exchange numbers. Everything is exactly how it was before, except he’s discovering his love for the first time and I’m being reunited with mine.
I grudgingly leave the bar at closing, fighting every desire in me to go home with Aiden. I’m so terrified to change the course we followed before. I’m petrified to do anything that could alter the path of our trajectory.
I wouldn’t survive losing Aiden twice. I simply wouldn’t. There is only so much the human body can take.
I trudge through the now two feet of snow that has fallen.
When I get back to my hotel room, my legs and feet are soaked and frozen. I strip off my clothes to find my skin red, stinging with coldness.
I turn on the shower and step into the hot spray. It burns my n
