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I’ve wondered if I worked hard enough at my bruised and broken bits, if I could be shiny again, too. I’ve wondered if anyone might ever see me as something precious.
“I promise you, Harriet. I won’t let go.”
I want to make sure she’s okay. I don’t think she has anyone to make sure she’s okay.
“You’re the first thing in a hundred years to make me feel anything at all, Harriet York,
“I think you’re bringing me back to life, Harriet.”
“You haven’t let me see a single dress,” I say. “No one said you’d get to see the dresses.” “It was implied.” “By who?” By me, I think wistfully, and this ache in my chest. This . . .longing I can’t seem to get rid of. I haven’t wanted anything in decades, but I think I want you.
I drowned in the ocean once and I think I could just as easily drown in Harriet. Sink down into her and lose myself for days.
Christ. She looks like something carved out of marble. Like something that deserves to be worshipped.
“I find it hard to believe you’ve ever intentionally broken anyone’s heart. How’d you manage that?” Her shoulders rise and fall, listless. Her eyes find mine in the reflection. “I followed mine.”
I’m a collector of very old things. And you’re—” “A very old thing.” I laugh, finishing her thought. “Clever.”
“Did you kiss me just because, like, ten million things of mistletoe exploded out of you?” A self-deprecating smile inches across her mouth. “Do Christmas ghosts get penalized for not upholding traditions?”
“I kissed you because I wanted to, Harriet,” I say. Her eyes find mine. “And I’ll kiss you again, if you want that. But know there won’t be anything pitying or required about it. I’ve existed for decades. I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”
It’s just us and the mistletoe in her tiny shop, time slipping slowly around us. If I ever got to choose to come back to a memory, I’d want it to be this one.
“Will you remember me?” she whispers. “Yes,” I confess. “I’ll remember everything.”
Because his threadbare white shirt is unbuttoned to the middle of his chest, two thick suspender straps hanging around his waist. He looks like a period drama on steroids. My thoughts are nowhere decent, that’s for sure.
“You’re being very agreeable right now.” “Am I?” “Mm-hmm.” His fingers drift up my back again. “Maybe I should kiss you more often.”
Kiss me as much as you can, I beg in my head. Kiss me until I can’t possibly forget you.
“You’re boundless.”
“I could spend an eternity studying you and still not know what you might do next. You give so much of yourself, so freely. You’re . . .wild with your attentions. Miraculous. I’ve seen so many lives, Harriet, but I’ve never seen someone live like you.”
What are you looking for?
“What a gift that is. To still wish and dream and want. To find the good. To wear it on your sleeve.”
“Is there a word for what this is?” he says. His eyes hold mine. “Because if there is, I’m not familiar with it. I think about you all day long. I fall into a sleep I don’t need and I dream of you. Of your smile, and your laugh, and the way your mouth tastes. The sounds you make. I wake up wondering where you are, how you’re feeling, and I hope—” His eyes search mine. “I hope you’re thinking of me. You make me hope, Harriet. You make me want. I am haunted by you.”
You make me hope, Harriet. You make me want. I am haunted by you.”
“Do not mistake me for a good man. I am not here out of some misplaced sense of honor or duty. I demand your attent...
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“Every time I close my eyes, it’s you I see. You I want.”
“I want to make a mess out of you.”
“What I want,” she says slowly, “is to keep you.
“If I don’t get to keep you, I want to at least make sure you’re happy.
“Maybe I was always supposed to find you,” I rasp. Maybe, my heart adds, you were always supposed to be mine.
“It points to you,” he says, his voice low. Blue eyes flick up and hold mine. A sad, knowing smile edges at one side of his mouth. “It points right at you.”
“Don’t forget,” I say again. “Please, please. Don’t forget.”
“The compass was never your unfinished business.” Matilda plucks her mug back up from the table. Builín hops from my lap and returns to her, winding between her legs. “Harriet was,”
“You’ve been waiting for Harriet. To exist in the same time as her. Your souls were together in the beginning, and so they shall be in the end.”
“I remember,” I say, my voice too high, my mouth busy pressing frantic kisses to his chin, his jaw, the little hollow beneath his ear. “Of course, I remember.”
“It was you, Harriet. You are the one I’ve been waiting for. You were never supposed to move me forward, you were supposed to hold me here. Keep me tethered.” He presses his forehead to mine. “It was always supposed to be you.”
“The unfinished business I have is with you, Harriet York. You better get used to having me around.”
