Warmth in Ice (A Find You in the Dark novella)

by A. Meredith Walters

  “Stop the meltdown, Clay, I brought the one you sent me,” Maggie said, giving me a wry look. I laughed.

  “Was it that obvious?” I asked, holding my hand out to her after she situated the gifts and had come back to the bed. She wrapped her fingers around mine and I gave her a tug, pulling her down onto the bed with me. I noticed the sucky wrapping job of the present I had sent her.

  That gift had taken a lot of time to put together. It would have gutted me if she hadn’t been able to open it on Christmas.

  “Like a neon sign, Clay. You wear your freak out on your sleeve, babe,” she joked, nudging me with her elbow.

  I squeezed her into my side, her head fitting under my chin. “Thank you for doing this, Maggie. I can’t believe it. I’ve wished for this for so long, I keep thinking it’s a big, crazy delusion and I’ve finally tipped the scales to full blown psychosis,” I said, breathing in the scent of her shampoo as I pressed my nose into her hair.

  “I couldn’t stand the thought of not being together for Christmas. The distance was killing me, Clay. I knew this would be hard, but…”

  “We had no idea how hard it would actually be,” I finished for her. Maggie folded her hands under her chin on my chest and looked up at me, her brown eyes serious.

  “I’ve been so worried,” she admitted and I frowned. Had I given her a reason to think I wasn’t doing okay?

  “I’ve been fine, Mags. I swear it. Every day is a challenge, but they’re getting easier. I promise,” I assure her, wanting to erase her fears.

  Maggie shook her head and looked away. “I wasn’t worried about that,” she murmured.

  Now I was confused.

  I tucked my fingers under her chin and pulled her face around to look at me. “What was worrying you then? If it wasn’t about me relapsing, what was it?” I asked.

  Maggie sighed and didn’t say anything. The silence stretched between us and I was starting to feel a tension that I didn’t like between us.

  “Maggie, please, just tell me.”

  I was shocked to see the tears fill her eyes and spill over. What the hell? I wiped the wetness away with my thumbs and pulled her up so I could kiss her mouth. I needed to take this away. Her sadness, her anxiety. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

  “I thought you’d get better and move on, Clay. I’ve been scared to death I’d lose you,” she sobbed and buried her face into my shirt.

  You could have knocked me over with a fucking feather. Had she completely lost her mind? How could she ever think I’d move on from her? She was my entire world. My entire reason for trying so damn hard. Without Maggie May Young, there was no Clayton Reed.

  “Maggie, look at me,” I said softly as she continued to cry into my chest.

  I sat up and held her away from me, even though all I wanted was to hold her. But I needed her to look at me when I said what I had to say.

  “Maggie, damn it, look at me,” I said harshly, feeling a little out of control with this whole situation. The fact that she could even for one second think that was too much. I couldn’t stomach the thought of her feeling pain over something so completely ridiculous.

  Maggie finally looked at me, her eyes red and puffy. I kissed her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks. I rubbed my nose with hers and clasped my hands around the back of her neck.

  “Mags, I’m in this forever. You are my future, my always. How could you ever think that? Everything I’m doing here is to make a life with you. Sure I’m learning to live for myself too, but there’s nothing without you. It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. You are what keeps me going through the day and your face is what I see when I go to sleep at night. If there is one thing in this messed up universe you can count on, it’s my love for you. It’s constant. It’s endless. And it’s never going anywhere,” I swear.

  Maggie is crying even harder now and this is not how I wanted our time together to be. I didn’t want us sitting in a hotel room while Maggie cried.

  “You’ve just been so distant since I went to school. Being away from you is so hard, Clay. I start to imagine things and think things that drive me nuts.” I laughed and Maggie glared at me.

  I hold up my hands. “Sorry, I’m not laughing at you. It’s just, I’ve been trying not to be an over the top jealous boyfriend. The first time I saw those guys in your room I wanted to fly up there and beat the shit out of them. Every time I think of you living your life without me, I start to think that maybe you’ll leave me. That you’ll realize that what we have is too hard. Too complicated. Not being able to hold you every day is the worst kind of torture. It’s all I can do not to lose it some days.” Maggie starts to look panicked again but I silence her with a kiss.

  “But then I remember why I’m fighting so hard to begin with. For you. For me. For what we are building together. And then I can get through the day.” Maggie had finally stopped crying and she was smiling. Just a tiny grin but it was there all the same. I placed her palm over my heart.

  “I told you once that this was yours. There’s no giving it back. Even if you decided you didn’t want it anymore, it would still only ever belong to you,” I said. I knew with a certainty, soul deep, that our love was more than a moment.

  It was a lifetime.

  “WAKE up, Mags. It’s Christmas,” Clay whispered in my ear, nuzzling my neck with his lips. I burrowed down into the covers and grumbled. I was not a morning person and I was even less a morning person when I had only been asleep for what felt like a few hours.

  Even if the reason for my lack of sleep was kissing the skin below my ear, sending pulsating waves of warmth throughout my body.

  After my crazy cry-fest last night, we had decided to get out of the hotel for a while. We went and saw a showing of Ernest Saves Christmas at the dollar theater a few blocks away. We had eaten our weight in junk food and laughed like little kids the whole time.

  Afterwards, Clay decided he wanted to go to the Sea World Christmas Celebration. I had wrinkled my nose at the idea but he was persistent. So we ended up paying for overpriced tickets and sitting through cheesy Christmas carols and fake snow falling into the stands.

  It was completely over the top and so not my thing, but Clay seemed to be having a great time so I set aside my sarcasm and enjoyed it for what it was.

  By the time the show was finished it was getting dark, so we went to get some dinner and then drove around looking at Christmas lights. We stopped to get some hot chocolate, which was a little unnecessary given that it was still eighty degrees at ten o’clock at night, but Clay was insistent.

  He was boyishly embracing all things Christmas and I couldn’t remember a time I had seen him so excited and exuberant. By the time we got back to the room, we were exhausted.

  Though not so exhausted that we were willing to waste the time we had together. We were frenzied and almost frantic as we removed each other’s clothing. We were a blur of tongues and teeth. Nails scraping, hands grasping.

  Clay had laid me down on the bed and braced himself over me as he pressed his hips against mine. After the desperation we had experienced in getting ourselves to that point, it was with heart shattering tenderness that Clay pushed inside me, filling me completely.

  We had made love with an aching gentleness that brought tears to both of our eyes. We stayed up most of the night, talking, touching, loving until we had fallen asleep exhausted yet deliriously happy.

  “Please, Maggie. Wake up,” Clay nipped at my ear, tracing his tongue down the side of my neck, making me shiver. I rolled onto my back and looked up at my boyfriend, who was wearing a contagious grin.

  He settled himself over top of me and softly kissed my temple, nuzzling my hair with his nose. “Merry Christmas, baby,” he said, his breath causing gooseflesh to break out over my skin.

  “Merry Christmas,” I replied, wrapping my legs around his waist, very aware of the fact that we hadn’t bothered to get dressed before passing out.

  Without preamble, Clay sank ins
ide me slowly and deliberately. I arched my back, groaning deep and low. As we started to move our bodies together, Clay whispered, “Best Christmas ever.”

  I chuckled but then my laughter changed to moans as our movements became frenzied and rough.

  When were sated, laying tangled up in each other, Clay’s hands drifting lazily up and down my naked back, my phone started to ring.

  “That can only be my parents or Rachel. No one else has such impeccable timing,” I muttered, reaching over to the nightstand to grab my phone.

  I pulled away from Clay so I could answer it. “Merry Christmas!” I said brightly into the phone.

  “Merry Christmas, Maggie May!” my mom and dad replied in unison.

  “Thanks,” I said, looking over at Clay who was lying on his side, his head cushioned by his arm, watching me with a peaceful smile on his lips. I couldn’t remember the last time he had looked so content and it made my heart stutter in my chest.

  “We hope you have a wonderful day. We just wanted to tell you that we love you and miss you,” my mom said.

  “I love you too,” I replied.

  “Can we speak to Clay for a moment?” my father asked, taking me by surprise.

  “Uh…” I started, not sure if this was such a great idea. Even though my parents had come around and were much more supportive of Clay and our relationship than they had been in the beginning, I was never entirely sure how their interactions were going to be.

  “We’d just like to wish him a Merry Christmas,” my mother assured me. I handed the phone to Clay, who sat up and looked confused.

  “They want to wish you a Merry Christmas,” I said, shrugging.

  Clay took the phone and held it to his ear and I had to hold in my laughter. He looked petrified to talk to my parents. It probably had everything to do with the fact that he had to speak to them only moments after our morning sexathon.

  I bit my lip and hid my smile.

  “Hello Mr. and Mrs. Young.” Clay was silent for a moment and then his eyes slid to mine and he relaxed.

  “Thank you so much. Merry Christmas to you too. I know. I’m a very lucky man. I will. I promise.” Clay hung up the phone and handed it back to me.

  “You have some pretty great parents,” Clay said, reaching out for me and pulled me close. I snuggled into his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist.

  “Come on, let’s open presents and then go out to get some breakfast,” Clay said, getting off the bed and going over to turn on the Christmas tree lights. He witched on the TV and found a station showing an endless loop of a burning Yule log while playing classic Christmas music.

  Clay was like…well…a kid on Christmas. He sat cross-legged on the floor and I sank down beside him. I picked up the small gift to Clay from my parents and handed it to him. He read the tag and smiled before opening it.

  “Damn,” Clay said pulling out a really nice wristwatch with black, leather straps and a trendy, modern face. I knew that particular brand cost over a hundred dollars. I was more than a little surprised that they had spent that much on him, though honestly, I shouldn’t have been. My parents were generous to a fault.

  Clay opened the case and pulled it out, strapping it around his wrist. “This is too much. These things aren’t cheap,” he said, setting the time and admiring it on his arm.

  “And you thought they didn’t like you,” I teased. Clay’s smile was shy but pleased. He reached under the tree and picked up the package he had sent to Virginia. He held it out for me to take, looking anxious.

  I shook it but it didn’t make a sound. I made a show of weighing it in my hands. “Well, it’s not bigger than a bread box. It’s kind of heavy. What is it?” I asked giddily. Clay ran a hand through his dark hair and started to pick at the strap of his new watch, a sure sign he was feeling nervous.

  I ripped off the paper and stared down at a thick cloth bound book. There was an engraving on a small plaque across the front that read, The Story of Us.

  I looked up at Clay and he was gnawing on his bottom lip but his nervousness was being replaced by a look I recognized all too well. Total and complete love.

  I opened the front page and saw a short dedication:

  Our story has just started. This was only the beginning.

  I turned the page and saw a beautifully drawn picture of a boy and a girl standing on a sidewalk in front of what I recognized as Jackson High School. There was a cellphone at the girl’s feet and papers scattered everywhere. Both of them looked annoyed but there’s a smile on the boy’s face as he looked at the girl with dark brown hair and irritated scowl.

  Of course I knew who they were. This was us. The first time we had met. Clay had written along the bottom: Today I learned to believe in love at first sight.

  I flipped through the pages and everything was there. Me standing up to Paul Dewlader in the lunchroom. Us having coffee while I grilled him about his past.

  When I opened to the day we had gone to the swimming hole I grinned at the drawing of a girl and boy just starting to fall in love. Clay had written: Today I made you realize that normal just might be perfect. And I remembered him telling me how much he had wanted my kind of normalcy and that is when I knew there was so much more to him than I had thought.

  My throat closed up when I saw the dark lines of his drawing depicting himself lying on the floor with me wrapped around him. His words today you saw the side of me I wish you would never know brought tears to my eyes. I wiped them away and looked up at him. Clay’s eyes were wet too.

  I continued to look through the book, remembering every detail of our relationship. The beautiful like the Fall Formal. And then the two of us studying at my house while my parents were at work. The graceful lines depicting the very first time we said I love you. Of course there was Lisa’s cabin and Clay giving me my butterfly necklace.

  And there was the ugly. A picture of my down turned face, tears falling to the ground. Shattered glass at my feet. The words, today I lost everything, broke my heart all over again.

  “Keep reading,” Clay whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

  I scrubbed at my face and turned the page to see a drawing of Clay and Ruby. Words I remembered writing, flowed over the top of the page. It was from the scrapbook I had put together for Clay after he had left Davidson. The scrapbook I had taken to Ruby to give him on his birthday.

  Below the picture, Clay had written: Today I was given hope.

  It was then that I had to put the book down. I was overwhelmed with the enormity of this gift. Clay leaned forward and cupped my face in his hands.

  “Did I screw up? If it’s too much, I totally understand. I know I can be a bit on the intense side.” I laughed at his too true statement.

  Clay kissed my lips. “I just wanted to show you that every moment has mattered. That every tiny second has changed me. You have changed me, Maggie. You’ve given me something I had never dared to dream for myself. A future. Hope. Love. I can’t even begin to put into words what your gifts have done for me. All I can do is cherish and adore you every day for the rest of my life.”

  “Sheesh, Clay. How can I compete with this?” I ask, holding up the book. “My gift is seriously lame in comparison.” I gave him a watery smile that Clay returned.

  “I like lame,” Clay grinned and I punched his arm playfully. I grabbed Clay’s gifts and handed him the first one. Clay unwrapped a world atlas.

  “Cool…” he said, turning it over in his hands. Noticing a few tabs at the top, he opened them to the pages they marked. One was a map of France. Another Egypt. The last one showed Peru.

  “These are places we’ve talked about wanting to go. I figured we could start planning a few trips. You know for the time when we can go together,” I hurried. I had gotten the book with the idea that it showed Clay I had plans for us that went beyond today, tomorrow, or next year. I wanted him to know that I wanted to see the world with him. That every new experience in my life would involve him in some way.

/>   “I love it,” Clay said, his voice breaking and I knew he got what I was trying to say. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me forward, crushing his lips to mine. I broke away after a few minutes, completely breathless.

  “Well, hell, if that’s what I get for an atlas, check out the rest of your gifts,” I teased. Clay unwrapped a new art set and a super swank I-Pod filled with all the music I knew he loved.

  I left him to his presents and went to the bathroom to get a shower. When I came back out, I found that Clay had opened his new art set and was bent over the book he had given me, drawing.

  He looked up as I approached and I saw what he was doing. He had drawn a new picture at the back of our story. This one showed the two of us, sitting together in front of our small Christmas tree. He had written at the bottom: Today I was given the greatest gift of all…you.

  “You are such a mush ball,” I teased, leaning down to kiss his mouth. Clay grinned underneath my lips.

  “You love it,” he said, smiling.

  I kissed him soundly before replying, “No, I love you. For forever.”

  SPENDING time with Clay at Christmas did everything I hoped it would. I made the journey to Florida feeling apprehensive and unsure. Clay and I had been struggling to solidify our relationship even as we fought to overcome all of the insecurity and mistrust that had defined our past.

  Clay was waging a war against the demons inside of him as I was trying to build a life for myself over a thousand miles away.

  But that’s not the chapter we were living. We weren’t at the end of our happily ever after…yet. We still had the growing and learning left to do.

  And seeing him for those few days restored everything that I knew to be true about us. We were a boy and a girl who loved each other past all reason, past all logic, and to the point that we could over look just about anything to be together.

  We were each doing what was needed to make sure that when the day came and we could finally walk side by side into that future we wanted, we were doing it as the best people we could be.