Snowbound with you

The Quiet between storms

The week after Liam’s message passed in a strange, suspended calm.

Nothing dramatic happened at first—and somehow, that was the hardest part.

Emma noticed it on Tuesday morning, standing in line for coffee before work. The city was moving as it always did: people rushing, phones buzzing, buses hissing at the curb. Yet inside her chest, everything felt… paused. Like she was waiting for something she couldn’t name.

Liam had been quieter.

Not absent—never absent—but quieter. Shorter messages. Calls that ended sooner than usual. When they did speak, his voice carried a tightness she hadn’t heard before, as though he were holding something back.

She didn’t push. Not yet.

Love had taught her patience.

That evening, Emma sat curled on her couch, laptop open but untouched. Snow had started to fall outside—slow, deliberate flakes drifting past the window, softening the city’s sharp edges. It made everything feel intimate, hushed, as though the world itself were holding its breath.

Her phone buzzed.

Liam: Can we talk? Properly. Not rushed.

Her heart skipped, but she answered immediately.

Yes. I’m here.

The call connected.

Liam’s face filled the screen, the familiar curve of his smile absent. He looked tired—not just physically, but emotionally. The kind of tired that sleep couldn’t fix.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey,” Emma replied, her voice gentle. “Talk to me.”

He exhaled slowly. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this without worrying you.”

That sentence alone tightened something in her chest.

“Just say it,” she said. “We promised honesty.”

He nodded. “The project I told you about? It’s… grown. Bigger than expected. They want me to lead the next phase.”

Emma listened carefully, steadying her breathing.

“That sounds like good news,” she said.

“It is,” he admitted. “Professionally. But it means more time here. More responsibility. Less flexibility.”

Silence stretched between them—not empty, but heavy.

“How much more time?” she asked.

Liam hesitated. “I don’t know yet. Months. Maybe longer.”

The word longer landed quietly, but its weight echoed.

Emma didn’t speak right away. She looked out the window at the falling snow, at the way it covered everything evenly, without judgment.

“I need you to know something,” Liam continued, his voice low. “I’m not pulling away because I want to. I’m overwhelmed. And I’m scared that one day you’ll wake up and decide this is too much.”

Emma finally met his gaze.

“I won’t,” she said, without hesitation.

He searched her face, as if trying to find doubt there. “People always say that.”

“I’m not people,” she replied. “I’m me. And I chose you knowing this wouldn’t be easy.”

Another quiet moment passed.

“I just don’t want to lose you in the middle of chasing something else,” he said.

Emma’s voice softened. “Then don’t chase it alone. Let me be part of it—even from here.”

His shoulders relaxed slightly, like he’d been carrying a weight too long.

“I don’t deserve you sometimes,” he murmured.

She smiled faintly. “Good. Then don’t take me for granted.”

That earned a small laugh—the first of the night.

Later, after the call ended, Emma stayed where she was, wrapped in silence and snowfall. She didn’t feel broken. She didn’t feel abandoned.

She felt… tested.

And surprisingly, steady.

She thought about everything they had survived already—the sudden distance, the missed calls, the long nights, the quiet fears neither of them said out loud. Love hadn’t been loud or dramatic. It had been deliberate. Chosen again and again.

Her phone buzzed one last time before she slept.

Liam: Thank you for staying. Even when it’s hard.

She typed back without overthinking.

I’m not going anywhere. We’re snowbound together—whether the snow is real or not.

She smiled to herself as she set the phone down.

Outside, the city continued to fall silent under the snow.

Inside, Emma felt the calm that comes not from certainty—but from commitment.The snow had stopped falling sometime before dawn, leaving the world wrapped in a silence that felt almost sacred. Emma noticed it the moment she woke—not the quiet of emptiness, but the quiet of something holding its breath.

She lay still beneath the thick hotel duvet, staring at the pale ceiling as weak winter light slipped through the curtains. For a few seconds, she forgot where she was. Forgot the city. Forgot the reason she had flown thousands of miles in the dead of winter.

Then she felt it.

The warmth beside her.

Liam’s arm was draped loosely across her waist, heavy with sleep, anchoring her in place. His breathing was slow and even, his chest rising against her back in a rhythm she had memorized long before distance complicated everything.

Her throat tightened.

Last night replayed in fragments—unfinished conversations, snow melting into their hair, words hovering just short of confession. They hadn’t crossed any lines, yet somehow everything felt changed.

Emma shifted carefully, afraid that even the smallest movement would break whatever fragile peace had settled between them. But Liam stirred anyway, his fingers flexing against her coat-less hip as if instinctively confirming she was still there.

“Morning,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep.

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she turned slowly to face him. His eyes were still closed, lashes dark against tired skin, his expression unguarded in a way she rarely saw anymore.

“Did I wake you?” she asked softly.

“No,” he said, opening one eye. “You did something worse.”

She smiled faintly. “What’s that?”

“You made me want to stay.”

The words landed heavier than he intended. Emma felt them settle somewhere deep in her chest, where everything complicated lived.

Liam seemed to realize it too. He propped himself up on one elbow, studying her face with an intensity that made her want to look away—but she didn’t.

“I didn’t mean—” he began.

“I know what you meant,” she interrupted gently. “And I feel it too.”

That was the problem.

They lay there, inches apart, snow-lit silence pressing in around them. Outside, the city was waking slowly—car engines muted by ice, footsteps crunching faintly on frozen sidewalks. Inside, the air felt thick with everything they hadn’t said yet.

Liam exhaled. “You leave tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“And after that?”

Emma swallowed. She had rehearsed answers to that question in airports, in boardrooms, in sleepless nights alone. None of them felt right now.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I really don’t.”

He nodded, jaw tightening. “That’s what scares me.”

She reached out before she could stop herself, brushing her thumb along the faint crease between his brows. He stilled at her touch, eyes darkening.

“I didn’t come here to hurt you,” she said. “I came because… because pretending you weren’t still part of me was worse.”

Liam caught her wrist gently, pressing his forehead against hers. “Do you know how hard it’s been,” he said quietly, “to love you from a distance that doesn’t care how much it hurts?”

Her eyes burned. “Do you think it’s been easy for me?”

“No,” he said. “But I think you’re better at surviving it.”

That one struck deeper.

Emma pulled her hand back, sitting up slowly. The room felt colder without his touch. She wrapped the duvet tighter around herself, grounding herself in the present.

“I learned how,” she said. “Not because I wanted to—but because I had to.”

Liam watched her, something raw flickering across his face. “Is that what this is now? Survival?”

She shook her head. “No. This is me finally admitting that surviving without you isn’t the same as living.”

Silence stretched again, heavier now. Honest.

Liam swung his legs over the side of the bed, running a hand through his hair. “Then stay.”

The word fell between them, simple and devastating.

Emma stood too, pacing toward the window. She parted the curtain just enough to see the city blanketed in white. The world looked paused, as if time itself had agreed to wait.

“I can’t just stay,” she said. “You know that.”

“I know you think you can’t.”

She turned to face him. “My life isn’t something I can abandon on impulse.”

“And what about us?” he asked. “Are we just something you visit when the snow falls?”

That hurt. And he knew it.

Emma crossed the room in three strides. “Don’t do that,” she said fiercely. “Don’t reduce what we have to convenience.”

“Then tell me what it is,” he challenged. “Because I need to know if I’m still fighting for something real—or just a memory you refuse to let go of.”

Her breath caught. This was the edge they always circled, the place where truth waited without mercy.

“I’m scared,” she said finally. “Scared that if I choose you, I’ll lose myself. And scared that if I don’t, I’ll lose you forever.”

Liam’s expression softened—not with relief, but recognition.

“Maybe,” he said quietly, “we’ve been losing each other slowly because we’re both afraid to leap.”

Emma closed her eyes.

Outside, the snow began to fall again—soft, steady, relentless.

And somewhere between the past they shared and the future neither of them could see, a decision waited.