you are magic, own that shit.

“I miss you,” Aron said into the phone, wrapping a blanket more firmly around her shoulders. “It’s cold here—really cold. Ummm what else—my socks have holes in them and there’s no one else I can complain to.”

Aaron’s voice was warm and teasing, his accent more prominent now that he was back home for the holidays. “Ru, you can complain to anyone about anything. And I miss you too, you know that.”

Aron sighed dramatically into the receiver, making a face at Luna when she popped her head out of her bedroom door to gag. “It’s a gift.” she said sadly, wiggling her toes. There was a huge hole in the heel of one that Aron had clumsily patched with a piece of another shredded sock. 

Aaron was humming a song—some nameless generic Christmas carol—and Aron could hear him clattering around in a kitchen, perhaps. It was around dinnertime in his timezone. 

Snow was lazily falling and banking against the house’s eaves. Ty and Tate were snuggled next to Aron on the couch, and Aron’s chapped fingers were gently stroking Ty’s silky ears. She was—for the first time in a while—content.

“Did you get the postcard I sent you?” half of a smile played across Aron’s face as she petted Ty’s head and tucked her feet under the blanket and scrunched her nose at Tate, who was chewing on a loose piece of yarn that had unraveled from the sleeve of Aron’s sweater. 

“Ahh yes,” Aron could hear Aaron’s smile, “Wish you were here but not really but wait actually I do, xx Your-Name-But-One-Less-A.”

Aron laughed. “Hearing you say X-X is very strange, to say the least.”

“X-O baby,” Aaron teased. Yes, he was definitely clattering around a kitchen—Aron could hear pots clanking against each other and the faint sound of something simmering. 

Aron groaned. Aaron laughed. They both sat in comfortable silence, and Aron imagined what Aaron might be doing. Maybe he was wearing sweatpants, and was barefoot in his kitchen cooking something for a family dinner. She could picture his brown hair, messy like it was when he didn’t bother to style it. She could picture his wry, crooked smile, and if she focused hard, she could pretend that he was sitting there next to him.

You didn’t realize the space someone took up until there was a hole in their place—the holiday season was a time to be spent with people that you loved. Aron had her parents and her siblings, and of course the three Milans—Mara with their ferocious sense of right and wrong, Maia and the gravity she had about her, Maven and his outstretched arms, kinder than his sisters but just as stalwart.

And then there was Aaron and the place he had started to fill—the person he had become. Her friend, her secret, and now her . . . what could she even call him that summed it up? Boyfriend, lover, soulmate?

No, her soulmate was Maia. You didn’t have to love someone romantically to be the other half of them in that way—Aaron was the other half of her that she didn’t know was missing. He smoothed out her jagged edges, brought calm to her chaos, peace to her storm. 

The line crackled. “You still there, Ru?”

“I’m here, Swift.”

“I miss you,” Aaron’s voice was low, wistful. “I wish you were here, meeting my sister and my parents and my cousins.” 

Aron smiled, heat creeping into her cheeks. It was such a strange feeling, to be wanted. It was the kind of wanting that wound Aron’s heart into a spring, waiting, waiting, waiting to burst.

“I wish you were sitting next to me and I could put my head on your shoulder and complain about my busted socks.” Aron managed a wry smile, combing her fingers through her newly-cropped hair. She lifted a finger to her lips and tore at the callused skin of her fingertips, letting the silence of the call wash over her. It was a good kind of quiet, the quiet that came when two people understood each other.

“When I come back we’ll drive to the coast,” Aaron said suddenly, and there was a clattering of cookware. “We’ll take your car.”

Aron rolled her eyes and drew her finger across her throat at Luna, who had put a pillowcase secured by a headband on her head and was dramatically walking down the hall, a bunch of fake flowers in her hand like a bridal bouquet. 

“There’s an unfortunately high chance of the Beetle breaking down halfway to the coast,” Aron smirked good-naturedly. “And why the coast? It’s the middle of December, and it’ll be bitter January when you get back.”

The words were a punch to the gut. Two more weeks of phone calls and sporadic FaceTimes, with Aaron usually cutting short because his mom needed him or Aron’s siblings barging in and demanding her attention. 

“True,” Aaron mused. “Hmmm . . . we can drive up to Tahoe and go skiing.”

“Neither of us know how to ski, and you don’t know how to snowboard,” Aron said amusedly, her fingers tracing the waves in Ty’s soft fur. Tate had stopped chewing on her sweater and had started dozing against Aron’s thigh.

Aaron laughed. “You could teach me with your wonderful, patient teaching skills.”

“That’s just mean,” Aron whined, her mouth curling into a smile against her will. “I’m not patient by nature and you know that.”

“Am I pushing it saying ‘I’m the only person who can tease you like this and not get brutally murdered in my sleep’?”

Aron smiled again, wider. “Possibly.”

More clattering of pots and pans from Aaron’s side of the line. Tate yawned contentedly, her little pink tongue stretching out. Outside, Hadley was almost completely dusted in snow, softening the little town’s hard edges and severe lines.

In Aron’s hand, her phone started shrilling out her ringtone for Maia Milan. “Crap, Swift, hate to cut this short but—Maisey’s calling.”

She heard the mild surprise in his voice, startling a particularly Southern-accented sentence out of him. “Of course, Ru, I’ll call you back later?”

That thought brought a smile to her face. “FaceTime me tonight?” she asked, almost shyly. She combed her fingers through her hair in the heartbeats between her question and Aaron’s reply. “Sounds good. I’ll be up later.” she could hear his smile, and her chest felt strangely warm.

“Merry Christmas, Aron,” Aaron said, bashfully, and hearing her name—not just Aaron’s pet name Ru—felt strangely intimate. 

Aron mustered a smile, ducking her head. “Merry Christmas, Aaron. I miss you.”

She swore she heard his light chuckle before the line clicked silent, and Aron flopped back onto the couch and let her heart pound for a second. She felt—she felt—

Her phone rang again, and this time Aron picked up. “Hey, Maisey!” she couldn’t help it. A grin slowly overtook her face, one that not even the sourest of Aron’s moods could have dampened. 

“You’re sounding chipper,” Maia’s British-accented voice, melodic and silvery, floated from her speaker. “What’s up?”

“Why did you call? You first,” Aron insisted, crossing her legs and patting her lap, looking pointedly at the two black-and-white dogs. Ty wagged his tail and stumbled onto Aron’s lap, promptly falling asleep. 

Maia laughed into the receiver. “I just wanted to say hello, Ronnie. Also, Leora and I just came back from an impromptu date and—” Maia dissolved into giddy laughter. “I’m gay panicking so badly, I should do this with my sister. Anyways—enough about me, what have you been—”

“Aaron and I were calling,” Aron said softly, propping her elbow on her leg and resting her chin on her hand. “I—I really like him, Maisey. I really do.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” Maia groaned. “Don’t tell me that I cut your talk on the telly short—”

Aron waved it off. “It’s fine, it’s fine, we were talking for ages before and he was already cooking dinner.”

Maia laughed into the receiver again, but it wasn’t the giddy lovestruck laughter of earlier. It was full-blown cackling, and Aron knew enough about her friend to know that she was probably swaying back and forth. “You really like him? Darling, good job, you’re officially the last person to know.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Aron rolled her eyes, but then glanced around to make sure Elliott wouldn’t pop up out of nowhere and scream QUACK in her face. 

“But—do you—” Maia’s voice lowered conspiratorially, and Aron had the vague sense that the two of them were at a sleepover and Maia was trying to coax Aron’s deepest secrets out of her at 3am. “Do you feel forever about him?”

“Maia Milan, I’m seventeen.”

Maia clicked her tongue. “Ahh yes, you don’t know anything.”

Aron snorted. “But I know I miss him.”

“You two are so in love it hurts,” Maia sighed. “I’m glad you’re happy, Ronnie, I really am.”

There was a tiny bitter note in her voice, but it was quickly covered. “I love that you love him. I—you two have something that a lot of people would be lucky to find.”

“We’re seventeen,” Aron said again, laughing. But something was in her chest, almost like a string tied around her heart. It was easy to imagine an invisible string connecting her and Aaron. “And what about you and Leora? Every time I see you two together I want to gag.”

“The feeling’s mutual, love,” Maia deadpanned. But she sighed wistfully, and there was an oomph from the phone, like Maia had fallen backwards onto a pile of pillows. She did that a lot. 

“Anyways,” Aron’s throat was tired, from talking for so long. “I should probably make tea or something, it’s getting really cold.”

“Get your pyromaniac sister to start a fire or something,” Maia advised. “She started one here this morning when Mavey called her over—it’s still burning, bright as new love—”

Aron squinted suspiciously at her phone. “Am I picking up what you’re putting down?”

“I put down nothing at all, Aron Rucyznski.” Maia lied unconvincingly, Aron’s last name newer and prettier in her accent. Rucyznski. All the hard sounds smoothed by her voice, like stones in a river.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Love you,” Maia air kissed the receiver and it clicked dead. 

Aron stared out the window, at the snow slowly falling into soft white heaps against dead grass and concrete and asphalt and roofing tiles. She felt content. It was such a strange feeling, to not be wound up as a kid’s toy or so stressed that she felt like breaking down on her bathroom floor every few minutes.