Page 231 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
Distance stretched thin over everything, over the couch and the table and the ringless space my finger had felt bare in for days, over every careful look he gives me and every time I catch myself waiting for him to touch me and feeling that quiet, humiliating drop in my chest when he doesn’t.
I try to write through it.
That’s what I’ve been doing more and more, letting the words take what they can from me before the ache settles too deeply.My laptop is open in front of me, my fingers moving slower than they had last night but steadier somehow, less frantic, less like I’m dragging my own insides out with every sentence and more like I’m finally learning how to hold what happened without letting it own me.
It helps.
That’s the part I hadn’t expected.
Not just the release of it, not just the private relief of putting things somewhere other than inside my own body, but the way it has been helping me feel like myself again. The way each page reminds me there is still a part of me untouched by him, untouched by what he did, untouched by the dark room and the needles and the sick, breaking fog of those days.
I’m still here. I’m still me. And maybe that should be enough for now. Maybe it would be, if Elijah would just come back to me. A knock sounds at the door.
I look up automatically, my fingers stilling over the keyboard.
Elijah is already moving, already crossing the room before I can push my chair back. He opens the door, and Christian steps inside with that same calm, contained air he always carries, like the world never quite gets to him no matter what state it’s in.
His gaze finds me almost immediately.
“Hi,” he says, and there is something gentler in it than usual, something that makes me close the laptop without thinking.
“Hi.”
“How are you doing?”
The question is simple, but the answer catches in my throat for half a second because I don’t know how to explain any of it without saying too much.
“I’m okay,” I say finally, because it’s the closest truth I’ve got right now.
Christian studies me for a moment, then nods once, as if that’s enough.
“I have something for you.”
Something in my chest tightens. He reaches into his pocket, and when he pulls his hand back out, my breath catches so sharply it almost hurts.
My ring. And tangled beside it, the pendant Zach gave me on a fresh silver chain.
For a second, I can’t move.
I just stare.
The wedding band glints softly in the light, impossibly familiar, impossibly right, and the sight of it punches straight through me so hard that my eyes sting before I even realize what’s happening.
“We found them at the cabin,” Christian says quietly. “The chain was broken, so I had a new one made before I gave it back to you.”
I push back from the table too fast, emotion rising so suddenly and violently that it leaves me a little breathless, and by the time I reach him, I’m already throwing my arms around him.
“Thank you,” I whisper, the words breaking apart on the way out. “Thank you so much.”
He hugs me back, firm and brief and steady, then steps back just enough for me to take them properly.
The pendant sits cool and familiar in my palm.
The ring feels heavier than it should. My fingers shake. And then Elijah is there. I don’t hear him move.
I just feel the shift in the air, and when I look up, he’s close enough that my breath catches all over again.
His eyes are on the ring in my hand. For a second, neither of us says anything. Then he reaches for it. He doesn’t ask. He just takes it gently from my fingers, turning it once between his thumb and forefinger before his gaze lifts to mine.
