Part 2: Home for the Holidays
(RE9 Leon Kennedy x Female Reader)
Summary: It's been five months since he ghosted you. You're home for the holidays hoping to avoid him entirely. Instead, you've got a demolished snowman in your front yard, a newly painted living room, and him sat at your family's table like nothing happened. You're still furious but you're still not over him. And you have no idea which one is going to win.
Warnings: MDNI, mentions of sexting/nudes, angst, age gap, ghosting, fluff, yearning, slow burn
Notes: No smut this part but I promise there will be some in the future!
The cold air hit you the second the airport doors slid open and you’d almost forgotten how the air out here bit in December. Back east the cold was wet and heavy. Here it was thin, sharp and stung your face like it had something to prove. It was the kind of dry cold that made your eyes water and your breath come out in hard white clouds. You pulled your coat tighter and stood at the curb with your bag while you waited for your mom.
You spent the whole flight trying to not think about Leon ghosting you a few weeks after you went back home and had failed somewhere over the middle of the country.
It was stupid. You knew it was stupid. It had been one afternoon and one night in July. You kept telling yourself that it was just a summer fling, it was just a hookup, and it didn’t mean anything. You were leaving the next day and that was the deal. You said it to Leon in his half-torn-apart living room. Tomorrow. You’d set the terms and you didn’t get to be surprised when they held.
Except. He did text you. That was the part you were caught on. If he’d let you walk out that door and never said another word, you could have forgotten about it. But he didn’t. For almost three weeks after you flew home you messaged each other. It was the same sarcastic back and forth you’d had over beers in your parents’ backyard but it was in your pocket all day. He’d sent you pictures of the kitchen cabinets that were finally hung. You’d said something obnoxious about the backsplash. He’d said something obnoxious back.
There’d been messages, late at night where the banter turned into flirting. Then the flirting turned into something more. It escalated in a way those things do when two people can’t sleep and won’t say why. You sent him nudes first, not knowing what his reaction would be. He didn’t seem like the type. But when you least expected it, he sent you one back and it made your breath catch. You waited for the typing dots with your heart going stupid in your chest. He complimented you and made you feel wanted, instead of just looked at. You fell asleep that night smiling.
And then out of nowhere he just stopped texting you back.
There wasn’t a fight. Just a few messages you’d sent that went unanswered. Then after a few days you decided that following up would’ve looked desperate. Days, weeks and then… Five months went by and now it was just a fact of life that whatever happened that night probably meant nothing to him.
Except it didn’t add up with how tender he’d been. The man who could go five months without a single word was not supposed to be the same man who’d taken his time with you in the dark, who’d cleaned you up after and kissed you like you were something worth being gentle with. Those two men were not supposed to be the same person. And the fact that they were had kept you up more nights than you’d admit to anyone.
You’d stopped trying to solve it after a few months. Mostly.
A familiar car swung up to the curb and your mom leaned across to push the door open. You shoved the emotions and thoughts of Leon down and put on the face you wore for your family.
“There she is.” Your mom walked out from the car and hugged you. “God, you must be frozen, why weren’t you inside? Here, put your bag in the back. How was the flight?”
You both got into the car and sat down. She pulled out into traffic with the particular fearlessness of a woman who’d driven this same loop for thirty years. “Your sister came in on Tuesday, did I tell you? She’s staying through the week with the kids, so the house is full, I hope you don’t mind the noise. The kids have been asking about you nonstop and I mean, nonstop. Mason had something he wanted to show you, I don’t know what it is, something with cards.”
“Deadly serious.” She glanced at you, with the warmness that mothers usually do. “It’s good to have you home, sweetheart. It’s been too long.”
You meant it, mostly. The small talk carried you out of the airport and onto the highway. Your mom was talking about the sister logistics, who was cooking what for Christmas, the saga of the neighborhood’s collective failure to not shovel the snow off the sidewalks. It was easy and familiar to you. The mountains came up white on the horizon and the light went long and golden the way it only did out here, and something in your chest loosened a notch despite itself.
When you finally turned onto your parents’ street, you saw the house next door and the notch pulled tight again.
You knew it was stupid and impossible but you told yourself you weren’t going to look at his house as much as possible while you were here. But your eyes went to it the way a tongue goes to a sore tooth before you could stop them. The same gray siding and black metal roof looked somewhat different now. There were actual curtains in the front window and a wreath hung on the front door. The whole place had the settled look of somewhere that was lived in.
And in the driveway sat a car you did not expect.
A black Porsche.You knew the car was expensive and it probably cost more than you made in a very good couple years put together. It didn’t look like the kind of vehicle that would be owned by a guy who told you he moved to the suburbs because he wanted normal. It didn’t fit. Normal men who renovated their own kitchens did not have a luxury car sitting out in their driveway.
You didn’t know what he did for work. All he ever said was work moved me a lot in that flat tone. That closed the door you decided not to knock on because you didn’t want to pry. It seemed polite at the time but now it was another piece that didn’t fit the others. And the not-knowing had teeth in the winter that it didn’t have in the summer.
Under the mystery the old hurt crept back up your throat. Because whatever he was, whoever he was, whatever that car meant, he still hadn’t texted you. And now he’s fifteen feet away, all week, and you were going to have to look at that finished house every single time you walked to your own front door.
When you walked inside it was filled with warmth and chaos. You noticed the christmas tree in the corner of the living room and the smell of food in the kitchen. Your dad got up from his chair to hug you and tell you that you looked thinner, which was probably true. Your sister, Dani, was there with the loudness of someone you didn’t see nearly enough and hugged you. Your niece attached herself to your leg and your nephew appeared with an expression of grave importance. He immediately began explaining a card game with rules that seemed to change as he described them. Everyone was loud but it was good, it was distracting enough.
Your niece pulled you toward the couch to show you one of her toys and that’s when you noticed something was different.
The living room was a different color.
It had been painted beige your whole life. Now it was a soft gray-green. It was a nice color and it made the living room seem brighter. It almost looked like a color you would have picked yourself.
“Hey, mom, when did you repaint the living room?”
“Oh. You noticed!” Your mom was pleased, wiping her hands on a towel in the doorway. “Doesn’t it look nice? We’ve been meaning to do it for I don’t know how many years. Your father kept saying he’d get to it.” She said it fondly, the way she said most things about your father not getting to things. “That nice man next door offered to repaint it a few months ago, he said he had the ladders and drop cloths already from his own place. Wouldn’t take a cent for it. Did the whole room in one day.” She shook her head, still a little amazed by it. “Nicest thing. I made him a plate of dinner but he wouldn’t stay.”
“That was nice of him,” you heard yourself say.
“Very nice man.” Your mom went back toward the kitchen. “Keeps to himself, but very nice.”
You stood in the middle of the living room with the paint job that your parents wanted for years, the room he had painted and you didn’t know what to do with yourself. You were a little confused and it added to the list of things that didn’t fit the story you’d spent the last five months telling yourself.
“It’s a great color, Mom,” you called and you let your niece pull you down onto the couch and show you her toy.
It took you the better part of an hour to peel away and haul your bag up the stairs to your old room.
It was the same as it always was. Your bed was still in the same spot and the same posters on the wall that you picked out in high school. The same window that looked out over the side yard and the corner of his house next door. You dropped your bag and sat on the edge of the bed. The noise of the family muffled through the floor and you were hit with a wave of sleepiness.
You took out your phone and you told yourself you were just checking the time but your thumb was already going to your messages. You tapped on Leon’s name and scrolled up to the kitchen photo and the messages that made your face go warm.
And then you scrolled back down to the bottom, the last message you sent that was still on delivered.
Then you noticed over the hedge and through your window, a light came on in the house next door. The kitchen light, warm and yellow in the blue dark. You turned your phone face-down on the quilt. You looked at the ceiling and told yourself, again, that it didn’t matter but it was getting harder to believe it.
You woke up to the weight of your sister landing on the end of your bed and her voice way too loud for whatever time it was.
“Up. Come on. The children have plans for you.”
You cracked one eye open. The light peaking out from your window was gray, the kind of gray that usually meant fresh snow. Your sister was sitting on the foot of your bed already dressed and a cup of coffee in hand. She had a smug look on her face that looked like she had been awake for hours and intended to make it your problem.
“Late enough. Mason and Ellie want to build a snowman with you after breakfast. It’s very important. There’s apparently going to be a committee.” She sipped her coffee. “I told them you’d be thrilled.”
“Sooo thrilled,” you said sarcastically into the pillow.
“You sound thrilled.” She stood, then paused at the edge of the bed, and her voice dropped out of the teasing register into something lower. “Hey. You haven’t told Mom and Dad yet, right? About moving back?”
You came a little more awake. “No. Have you?”
“No, God, it’s not my business to tell them. I just didn’t want to walk into it blind if it came up.” She raised an eyebrow. “You’re still doing the whole—”
“I want to tell them at Christmas dinner.” You sat up, scrubbing a hand over your face. “I’ve got the whole thing planned. I think it’ll be a good surprise.”
Your sister smiled, softer now. “It is a good surprise,” she agreed. “They’re going to lose it. Mom’s going to cry into the potatoes.” She headed for the door. “Mom said breakfast will be ready in ten. Wear something you don’t mind getting wet, the committee has demands.”
She left, and you sat there in bed with the thought of moving back warm in your chest. The job back east had run its course, and the new one started in March, and it was here. Not this town exactly but about thirty minutes from here. It was close enough to be home for real instead of twice a year. You’d been carrying this around for three weeks and Christmas dinner was going to be the moment you finally let everyone know.
You didn’t in any of your planning, let yourself think about what it meant that “close enough to be home for real” was also close enough to a certain house, his house next door.
You got up out of bed and put on thermals under an old pair of jeans, thick socks, and a chunky sweater you found in your childhood dresser that you’d left behind years ago. Not cute, exactly, but warm.
Breakfast was laid out with eggs, bacon and your mom’s cinnamon rolls, the good ones she only made when everyone was home. Mason was explaining the snowman to anyone who’d listen. Ellie had syrup in her hair already. Your dad was reading something on his phone and making the small disapproving noises he usually made when watching the news. You were halfway through a cinnamon roll when your mom dropped the words in the middle of the table like it was nothing.
“Oh. I invited the neighbor over for Christmas dinner. The nice man next door. He’s coming Christmas night.”
“What?” The words coming out sharper than you meant. “Why?”
Your mom blinked at you, mildly surprised. “Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. He’s over there all by himself, that whole big house, no family that I’ve ever seen come by. And after he did the living room for free, I wasn’t going to just let the man eat a sad dinner alone on Christmas.” She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, because to her it was. “It seemed lonely. He seemed lonely. So I asked, and he said yes.”
He said yes. Of course he did. He’d say yes to your mother in a heartbeat. He’d paint the walls and come for Christmas, apparently, everything except message you back.
“Well,” you said, aiming for light and landing somewhere short of it, “I’m sure that’s his choice.”
There was a small pause. Your sister glanced at you. Your dad looked up from his phone. Even your mom paused, her head tilting a fraction, and you felt the whole table register that the temperature had shifted a couple of degrees for reasons none of them could see.
"...Right," your mom said slowly. "It is his choice. That's generally how invitations work."
“I just mean it’s nice,” you said, picking your fork back up. “It’s nice of you.”
Your sister was still looking at you but you didn’t look back at her.
Mason, gloriously oblivious, chose that moment to announce that the snowman committee would be convening in the front yard in fifteen minutes and that your attendance was mandatory. The kids moved on from the table and you got up too. But you could still feel your sister filing what you said away and you knew that at some point today you were going to have a conversation you weren’t ready for.
You also knew on Christmas night. Leon would be here, at this table, three days from now and you didn’t know what you were going to do.
But for now there was a snowman that needed to be made, and its demands would not wait.
The front yard was untouched with a clean sheet of snow. It was about six inches deep and glittering. The whole street was quiet the way it does after it snows. Mason took charge immediately, assigning roles with the authority of a small general: you were on base duty, Ellie was on head, he would supervise and handle “the important parts,” which remained undefined.
You didn’t mind though, you crouched in your mom’s too big coat and showed Mason how to roll the base so it picked up more snow as it went. Ellie was patting a lopsided lump between her mittens with tremendous dedication and no discernible technique. Your breath came out in clouds. Somewhere down the block someone was scraping the ice off the windshield of their car.
The snowman came together into something that was, mostly, snowman-shaped. It leaned slightly to the right. It had two rocks as eyes at slightly different heights, which gave it a permanently skeptical expression, and Ellie insisted on donating her scarf, which she would absolutely want back within the hour. The three of you stood back to admire it and it held and it was genuinely the ugliest snowman you’d ever helped build. You loved it a little bit.
“It needs arms,” Mason said gravely.
“It does need arms. Go find sticks.”
He went, with Ellie following after him because Ellie usually went wherever Mason went. You crouched there for a second alone beside your terrible snowman, hands cold and breath fogging. You let yourself just be in it with the quiet as you watched the kids gather the sticks.
Then you heard a loud bark in the distance.
You recognized that bark before you turned around. You wished you didn’t but some part of your brain had somehow catalogued that exact bark and never let it go. Your stomach dropped a full second before the fluffy tan-and-white blur came running through the snow. You had just enough time to think oh no before the dog hit the snowman at a dead sprint.
It exploded. There was no other word for it. The head fell one way to the ground and the scarf went another and the skeptical rock eyes vanished into the powder. The dog barreled straight through the wreckage and into you. Sixty-some pounds of pure fluff, both front paws in the snow at your feet and his whole back half wagging so hard he could barely keep them there.
Ellie shrieked and Mason shrieked louder, delighted, the snowman instantly forgotten in favor of the vastly superior dog. You were down on one knee in the snow with the dog’s tongue across your jaw, you started laughing despite yourself, hands full of cold fur and your heart doing something complicated.
“Hey,” You said to him with a soft voice. “Hey, buddy. Look at you. You’ve gotten so fluffy.”
He remembered you. He shouldn’t have but he was pressed into you like no time had passed, whining, trying to get close, and you buried your face in the ruff of his neck for a second longer than you needed to. You knew it was easier than looking up because you knew what was coming next.
Leon was jogging toward you, with no coat, gray henley, jeans and boots. He’d clearly shoved on in a hurry. He pulled up short about ten feet away when he saw you, and he just.. Stopped. The dog didn’t care about any of it, if anything, the dog was in heaven. But the two of you looked at each other across ten feet of trampled snow and a demolished snowman, and every easy thing you’d never even got to rehearse went straight out of your head.
Leon looked good. It was unfair and it was the first thing you noticed. A little more gray at the temples than July, maybe, or maybe you’d softened the memory. The same pale blue eyes. The same way of going still and reading a situation before he committed to it. But now you knew that stillness wasn’t calm, and you watched him do the math of you, here, in the snow, in front of him, and arrive somewhere that made his jaw tighten.
Five months of nothing. And hi.
The dog looked between you both, thrilled, certain this was the greatest thing that had ever happened to anyone. Behind you Ellie was already demanding to know the dog’s name, and Mason was informing her that the snowman looked “way better now,” and the cold was getting into your knees where you knelt in the snow.
"He, uh." He gestured at the ruined snowman, at the general catastrophe, and something that wasn't quite a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Sorry about your—"
“Yeah. Buddy.” Leon snapped his fingers. “Come.”
“...Yeah.” There was a hesitation before it, small but there, like the name cost him something to say out loud in front of you. It caught you off guard but you didn’t know why.
And that hesitation, for whatever reason, was the thing that tipped the irritation over in you.
“You know,” you said, and your voice came out cold, “you really should get him a collar if he’s going to keep running out like this. And maybe keep a better eye on him.”
You watched the way he took it and didn’t flinch. He didn’t defend himself either, because he knew as well as you did that you weren’t really talking about the dog.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I should.”
He didn’t argue and that was almost worse. You wanted him to push back, to give you something to actually be angry at and instead he stood there in the snow and agreed with you.
You brushed the snow off your knees and stood.
“You kids want some hot chocolate?”
Your mom’s voice carried across the yard from the front porch completely oblivious. You turned to see her standing in the doorway in her slippers with a dish towel over her shoulder, beaming out at the snow like the whole scene was a Christmas card she’d staged herself. Her eyes landed on Leon and lit up.
“Oh. Leon! I didn’t see you out here. Perfect, come in, I was just about to make some hot chocolate for the kids. You’re coming for Christmas anyway, might as well start now.” She said it the way she did everything, like it was already decided and it utterly irritated you.
You watched him navigate her question. You watched him want to say no. His weight shifted with the polite decline already on the tip of his tongue and you watched him bite it.
Mason and Ellie were gone, thundering past him, Buddy chasing after them playfully into the chaos.
“I don’t want to impose,” Leon said.
“You painted my living room, you’re not imposing.” Your mom was already turning back inside. "Come on, before it gets cold. Bring the dog, the kids'll love him."
Bring the dog, the kids’ll love him. Those were the exact words you’d said to him in July, at his own front door. It landed in your chest like a stone dropped down a well, and when you glanced at Leon he was already looking at you like he remembered it too. For a second neither of you had anywhere but each other to put your eyes and then he looked away.
“Yeah,” he said to your mom. “Okay. Thanks.”
The kitchen felt stifling hot and you were losing your mind.
Your mom had Leon sitting at the dining room table with a steaming mug of hot chocolate pressed into his hands with the determination of a woman who considered a lonely neighbor a personal project. The kids had gone feral. Mason had claimed the chair beside Leon and wouldn’t stop talking about Buddy exploding the snowman. Ellie had abandoned the table entirely for Buddy on the floor.
“What kind of dog is he?” Mason demanded.
“He’s some kind of shepherd.” Leon said. “The shelter wasn’t sure. Could be a little bit of everything.”
“He can sit. When he feels like it. Which isn’t very often.”
“Buddy!” Mason spun in his chair. “Buddy, sit!”
Buddy was sprawled across the kitchen floor on his back with Ellie hugging him. He, of course, did not sit. He thumped his tail against the cabinet and wriggled deeper into the attention, one back leg kicking as Ellie found a good spot behind his ear. He looked like the most content dog in the world.
“He’s not sitting,” Mason reported.
Ellie had both arms around the dog’s neck now, her face buried into his fur. “He’s so soft,” she informed everyone. “He’s the softest dog. I love him. Can we keep him?”
“No sweetie, he’s not ours,” your mom said, delighted. “But I’m sure Leon will let you visit.”
“Buddy can come to my birthday,” Ellie decided. Buddy licked her cheek and shrieked with joy. Mason immediately demanded the dog to lick his cheek too.
“Alright, alright. Buddy.” Leon didn’t raise his voice and snapped his fingers once. “Come here. Sit.”
He got up off the floor, trotted around the table, and sat down at Leon’s feet.
“How did you do that,” Mason said in an amazed tone.
“He likes to make me look good in front of company.” Leon scratched behind the dog's ears. “Don’t get used to it, kid. He’ll be back to ignoring me by dinner.”
Leon watched the kids with that look you remembered. Like a man enjoying the warmth of a fire from just a little further back than everyone else. But this time there was something softer in it, like the distance had shrunk.
And that’s where your brain left the room.
You tried to be normal. But instead you were floating about a foot outside your own body, leaned against the counter with your hot chocolate you haven’t been drinking, watching Leon get along with everyone like he belonged here. The sound of everyone went muffled and far away.
“And you remember Leon, honey, from the Fourth of July, right?”
You were a thousand miles off with the question sailing clean past you.
“Yeah.” You paused. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Leon said back, just as carefully. The two of you performed acquaintances so hard the air went stiff with it.
Across the table your sister’s eyes moved from you, to Leon, and back to you.
Your mom’s brow twitched. “You okay, hon?”
“You sure? You seem a little—”
She glanced at your untouched mug. “Is the hot chocolate bad? I think I might’ve put too much milk—”
“No. It’s fine. It’s good.” You made yourself take a sip to prove it.
Ellie, meanwhile, had gotten up to follow Buddy around the table. She dropped back down beside him to bury her hands in his fur again. She petted him with the intense, wobbling focus of a five-year-old, and then in the way small children have no filter, she looked up at Leon and asked:
“Ellie.” Your sister put a hand over her eyes.
But Leon just huffed, unbothered with that quiet almost-laugh. “No,” he said. “No wife.”
“Ellie. Oh my god.” Your sister reached over and pulled Ellie to her side. “You can’t just — we don’t ask people that.”
“It’s alright.” Leon was still faintly amused, still scratching the dog.
Ellie, apparently done with her interview, reached up to the kitchen table and grabbed a marshmallow out of the open bag. She ran to the other side of Leon to feed it to the dog.
“Ellie, no—” You pushed off the counter, moving toward her. “He can’t have that, that’s not for—”
“He can’t have those,” Leon said at the same moment, reaching for her little fist. “They’re not good for him.”
And your hands met over Ellie’s hand.
It was just a graze. His fingers over the back of yours for a quarter of a second. You pulled your hand back, not in a dramatic way, but you felt it go all the way up your arm and settle hot somewhere behind your ribs. When you glanced up he was already looking at you.
Your sister saw it and you knew it.
“Okay, no marshmallows for the dog,” you said, too briskly, prying the squashed marshmallow out of Ellie’s fingers. “Buddy can’t have those, they’re bad for him.”
“He can have a piece of cookie later,” Leon offered Ellie in a soft tone. “The plain part. No chocolate, chocolate’s bad for dogs. But a little bit of the plain part, that’s okay.”
“Okay,” Ellie agreed and went back to loving the dog with her whole body.
You walked back to the kitchen with the squished marshmallow and threw it away.
Mason, who had been quietly assembling something at the table, slapped a battered deck of cards down in front of Leon.
“Do you know how to play Kessel?”
Leon looked at the cards. “I don’t think so. Is that a real game?”
“It’s my game,” Mason said. “I’ll teach you. It’s easy.” He was already dealing and slapping the cards down in uneven piles. “You have to get three of the same cards but not the same color, unless you have a wild, then it’s four, and you can’t look at the middle ones until someone says go.” He pointed at you without looking up. “You’re playing too. We need three people.”
“You’re playing,” Mason said as authoritatively as a seven-year-old kid can be.
You sat down across from Leon and Mason was sitting next to you. The card game rules seemed to change based on Mason’s needs at any given moment, while Ellie narrated from the floor. Your mom refilled everyone’s cocoa and pretended she wasn’t watching the whole thing like a hawk.
“Okay, go,” Mason announced.
You picked up your cards. You had no idea what you were doing and neither, blessedly, did Leon.
“So I need three that match,” Leon said, slowly, studying his hand, “but not the same color.”
“Unless you have a wild.”
“What do the wilds look like?”
“They’re the ones with the star. Or the moon. Not the sun, the sun ones are worth negative.” Mason said like it was obvious, like Leon was being deliberately slow. “Do you have a moon?”
“I have a —” Leon turned a card around. “Is this a moon?”
“They look identical, Mason.” You chimed in.
“They do not.” Mason was scandalized and Ellie from the floor told Leon he was “Very bad at this,” and Leon accepted the critique with grace. And you laughed before you could stop yourself.
Leon glanced up at the sound of it. Something a little wistful crossed his face before he looked down at his impossible hand. You felt the laugh die in your throat as you remembered, all over again, that you were supposed to be angry with him.
You picked up another card that was a sun and it was worth negative something. You had, apparently, already lost.
“You’re bad at this too,” Mason informed you.
“Yeah,” You said, smiling at Mason. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
The game wound down with Mason declaring himself the winner and no one argued.
Your mom took the moment to refill Leon’s mug one more time.
“So, Leon. What is it you do? For work, I mean. You’ve got that lovely car, we were all wondering.” She laughed lightly. “You’re not a bank robber, are you?”
It was meant as a joke, an easy question to fill the strange air.
“I, uh.” He turned the mug in his hands. “I worked for the government. For a while.” A beat. “It’s — complicated. Retired now, mostly.”
Government. You filed him saying government next to the Porsche and everything else that didn’t fit. The pile getting taller.
“Well,” Your mom said smiling. “We’re glad you ended up next door.”
Leon didn’t stay much longer after that. He read the room and read you, probably. He finished his cocoa and thanked your mom. Told the kids to take good care of Buddy for him. He was gracious and easy.
Your mom walked him out to the door, chattering about Christmas, told him to not bring anything, just himself. And at the door, Leon paused and his eyes found you across the kitchen. There was something in them, like he wanted to tell you something before deciding not to. All he said was:
He stepped out to the front porch with Buddy reluctantly following him.
The door shut and the whole house was quiet.
Your mom and sister looked at each other then at you.
“I’m going upstairs,” you announced. You set your mug down in the sink and fled with both of them watching you go the whole way back up.
You didn’t even get to sit down on your bed before your door opened.
“Okay.” Your sister came in and shut it behind her, hot chocolate still in hand. “What was that.”
“Oh, come on.” She leaned against the door. “The energy between you and Leon was weird as fuck.” She paused. “You know him.”
“Tell me.” She sat her drink down on your dresser and sat down on the end of your bed, pulling one leg up under her. “Go on.”
So you told her all of it. The dog. The barbecue. The fireworks. How easy he’d been to be around. And the part where you went home with him at the end of the night, and what that turned into.
“Shut up.” Her hand flew up over her mouth. “In July? And you didn’t tell me!”
“I didn’t think it was a whole thing.”
“It clearly is a whole thing.” She was grinning now, delighted, leaning in. “I can’t believe you hooked up with the hot mystery neighbor! I have to say, sis–” she nodded slowly. “I’m kind of impressed. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Hey!” You swatted her arm.
“Ow!” She laughed, rubbing it.
“You’re such a bitch sometimes.”
“I know. But you love me.” She bumped her shoulder into yours.
You looked down at your hands and started picking a loose thread on the quilt. You felt the grin fade off your face.
“I kind of wish we didn’t hook up.” You said, almost whispering.
The laugh went out of her. You felt her shift beside you, turning to actually look at you.
“Wait.” Her voice dropped. “What do you mean?”
“He– we texted for like three weeks after I went back home. Pretty much every day. And then he just—” You hesitated. “He ghosted me.”
“Oh.” A beat. ” Shit. Really?”
“Mhm.” Your throat did something and you swallowed it down. You wound the thread tighter around your finger. “I thought it was going somewhere. Stupid me.”
“Hey. No.” Dani reached over and put a hand on your knee. When you finally glanced up at her, her face had gone soft. She held your eyes for a second. “That’s — okay, that’s weird. That’s not a fun-summer-fling thing.” She frowned. “But men are weird. And he’s older, right?”
“Yeah.” You wiped a tear under your eye with the heel of your hand. ” What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he got in his head about the age gap and freaked out.” She said it gently, offering it to you like it might help.
“Look, I’m just guessing, I have no idea what his deal is.” She leaned back on her hands, watching you. ”But I saw the way he looked at you today. He’s still into you. That much I’d put money on.”
“That’s the whole problem.” You gave the thread a final tug and it snapped loose in your fingers. “I’m still mad at him and I still want him, at the same time. I just wish he’d tell me why he stopped.”
“He’ll be here in a couple days.” She reached over and pulled a piece of hair out of your face. “So ask him.” She held your gaze. “And for what it’s worth. I don’t think him ghosting you is what you think it is.”
You looked out the window instead of her.
“It still doesn’t change what he did.”
“No.” She stood, gathering her mug off the dresser. “It doesn’t. But talking to him’s the only way you’ll find out. So talk to him.” Dani smiled and pulled you into a quick hug, then headed for the door. “And you have to tell me everything he says, immediately.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
I don’t think him ghosting you is what you think it is.
You didn’t want to sit in that. And you for sure didn’t want him to be weirded out by the age gap, though at least that would be a reason. A real one, even if it didn’t matter to you in the way it apparently mattered to him. You could live with he thought he was too old. You’d braced yourself for something like this since July. It was almost comforting, in a bleak way, to have your sister hand you an explanation that made him a nervous man and not a cruel one.
But it didn’t make it hurt any less.
You took off your socks and lay back on top of the quilt. The exhaustion from all of the events of the day had worn you out. You thought just for a minute you were going to lie down. But something about the snow falling softly outside and the familiar sounds of your family below made you fall asleep completely.
You slept, and you didn’t know for how long. Long enough that the gray sky outside had gone dark.
Then you felt a hard buzz just inches from your head and the loud ding made you jolt awake, heart going before your eyes were open. Your hand fumbled for the phone. The screen was bright in your dark room and you squinted at the words.
romaincrisis
germansingergirl
izzy806
kaledo-art
theartofmadeline
jacobvanloon
