I would choose you

Baby, it's cold outside

I nodded at Nicole and tilted my head toward the hallway. She met my gaze with the smallest smile and followed me out without a word. The door clicked shut behind us, muting the off-key chaos of Arthur and August’s duet as it crescendoed into a ridiculous, theatrical howl.

The corridor outside was dim and quiet. Candles in glass holders flickered along the ledge of the window, and the world beyond was white and still again. A few flakes were drifting down, just enough to make the stone steps shimmer like sugar.

We walked a little down the hallway until the voices from the boys’ room faded into a soft hum. Then I stopped.

“I have something for you,” I said.

I pulled the small box from my pocket. It was made of cardstock and hand-folded, painted with a little green-and-gold flower on the lid. My hands were cold.

Nicole took it gently, her fingers brushing mine.

She opened it, and gasped softly.

Inside were the silver earrings. Long ovals, glazed on the inner side with green and yellow enamel. The green was deep, a forest shade that shimmered dark in shadow and bright in light, just like her eyes. The yellow was soft, like sunlight through lace.

“I made them for you,” I said, my voice quieter now. “Thank you for being my friend. Merry Christmas.”

Nicole didn’t say anything at first. She just looked at them, then at me, with a soft smile on her face. Then she reached up and pulled the earrings from the box.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, almost reverently. “Truly. I’ve never seen anything like them.”

She took off the earrings she was wearing before and put new earrings in.

I watched as they caught the light. They looked like they’d always belonged to her.

“I have something for you too,” she said, reaching into the pocket of her dress.

She pulled out a small rectangle, wrapped in soft tissue and tied with gold thread. I untied it carefully. Inside was a watercolor postcard—painted in loose strokes, pale blues and yellows blending together like sky and sand and sea. On the back, in her delicate handwriting, it said:

“I would choose you.

X,

Nicole.”

My throat tightened.

She handed me a second gift—a small handkerchief, embroidered at the corner with an “S” in gold thread. The fabric was light and fine, pale blue with hints of amber, almost the same palette as the card.

“I made it in the workshop,” she said. “I know it’s not much. But I kept thinking of you - of the way you wear your hair when you’re reading.”

I smiled and folded the handkerchief gently. Then, instinctively, I lifted it to my head and tied it back like a headband.

Nicole’s eyes lit up. “It looks perfect.”

And before I could stop myself, before I could think it through or question the impulse, I reached forward and hugged her with both arms.

She hugged me back immediately.

It was the first time I’d ever been close like that. We said nothing. But it didn’t feel like silence. It felt like understanding.

When we returned to the boys’ room, the chaos had shifted into something even more ridiculous. Everyone was now singing Jingle Bells, half of them off-beat, the other half off-key. Arthur had one sock on his hand like a puppet. Abraham was drumming with pencils on a box of crackers. Hannah sat on the bed, smiling vaguely, but her eyes were distant.

When the song ended, she stood up suddenly.

“I’m very tired,” she said. “I think I’ll go to sleep.”

I caught her arm gently as she passed me. “Want me to come?”

She touched my shoulder and shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I just need to lie down.”

On her wrist I noticed a new shiny watch.

The rest of us lingered for another hour - singing, sipping lukewarm cider, sharing half-jokes and sideways glances, and none of us wanted the night to end.

When it finally did, we stood in the hallway for a moment, sharing hugs and shaking hands.

“Merry Christmas,” someone said.

We all repeated it softly, like a spell.

Then we parted, one by one, into our rooms and our separate dreams.

When I finally climbed the stairs back to our dorm, it was nearly midnight. The corridors had fallen into that particular silence only winter can create: heavy, thick, and echoing. My boots made the faintest sounds on the stone steps, as though even noise had agreed to take the night off.

Our room was still lit.

A small lamp on Hannah’s desk cast a golden halo across her bedspread. She was sitting cross-legged in her pajamas, writing in her journal, her pink bow now undone and resting like a ribbon of thought on the windowsill.

She didn’t hear me come in.

“Hannah?” I said gently.

She jumped. Her pen slipped, leaving a smear across the page. She closed the notebook quickly and turned to me, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

“You scared me,” she said with a little laugh, brushing hair from her face.

“Didn’t mean to,” I said, slipping off my boots. “You’re still up?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Are you okay?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “More than okay.”

I sat on the edge of my bed, facing her. “Want to talk about it?”

She bit her lip, then closed her eyes for a second, as if steadying herself.

“Before Secret Santa,” she said, “I went to give Emiliano his present. I thought it would take five minutes. I wasn’t expecting anything in return. I just wanted to say thank you... for the semester, for the way he... sees me.”

I didn’t speak, just listened.

“He invited me to his room,” she continued. “He said he had something for me too, but he left it upstairs. So I followed him to the faculty wing.”

She looked out the window for a moment before continuing, the memory playing out like a soft film behind her eyes.

“He poured me hot tea. I wanted to say something I’d rehearsed, but all that came out was this awkward sentence about the semester being good. I gave him the scarf, it was wrapped in the best wrapping paper I found, and he unwrapped it slowly. Like it was something fragile. He ran his hand along it and said, ‘Thank you. I really appreciate the present. It’s exactly what I needed.’”

Her voice softened.

“Then he said, ‘I hope you’ll like mine just as much.’ And he gave me a long and narrow box. Inside was a watch. It is...” she smiled to herself, “perfect.”

She touched her wrist as if confirming it was still there, then took it off and passed it to me. The watch was truly beautiful. Silver. Simple and elegant. It looked like it came from another century.

“I was so shy I couldn’t look him in the eyes. But then he said my name. ‘Hannah.’” She thought for a second. ”And I still couldn’t look up, so he lifted my chin. And then he said it again: ‘Hannah.’ Just like that.”

Her eyes glazed, caught in the moment.

“And he said, ‘You are very special. I’ve never met anyone like you, so smart, so deep, so beautiful.’” She paused again. “And then he said ‘f**k it’ and he kissed me.”

The words dropped into the quiet like a stone in a still pond.

I couldn't breathe, just watched her face.

“It was quick,” she said. “But real. He kissed me. And I just I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Then I stood up and said, ‘I have to go. Merry Christmas.’ And I ran.”

She laughed a little, almost embarrassed, and finally looked up at me. “I feel so stupid.”

“What do you think?” - She asked me after another pause.

I though for a second, then asked carefully, “What do You think?”

She considered this.

“I think...” she hesitated, curling her fingers into the blanket Maria had made her, “I think I’m in love with him. I know we can’t be together. He knows that too. But I’m afraid I hurt him by running away.”

She looked down at her lap.

“And still,” she added, softly, “I’m happy. Even if nothing ever happens again, at least I know how he feels. At least now I know I wasn’t imagining it.”

I looked at her for a long time.

The innocence in her face. The certainty.

“If you’re happy,” I said gently, “I’m happy for you.”

Her eyes shone in the candlelight. “Really?”

I nodded. “Of course,” and hugged her.

She smiled and looked back down at her journal, reopening it with a kind of reverence, as though she had just lived a chapter she never thought would be hers.

I slipped under the covers. The candles flickered. Snow whispered against the window.

But even as I drifted toward sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about the word she’d used, 'love.'