It’s freezing as I wait for the ferry.
Most people are in their cars. There is a small, heated waiting station for travelers without vehicles, but I don’t feel like being crammed inside with strangers.
So I hug myself, tuck my gloved hands under my armpits, and wait in the cold.
I hear a car honk behind me. I ignore it.
I’m used to ignoring people who honk at me.
Then I hear it—“Naomi!”
The voice is familiar, so I glance over my shoulder.
Snow drifts in front of the headlights of a black Mercedes. Jason is in the driver’s seat, the passenger window open. He gestures for me, and I approach.
“Hi.” I wonder if he can see my streaked makeup in the low light.
“Waiting on the ferry?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He glances at the clock on his phone. “It won’t come around for another ten. Want to get out of the cold?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
I step into his passenger seat and close the door behind me. I rub my hands together near the open vent, and a tingling warmth rushes through my fingers.
“You really don’t have to wait around with me,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “I don’t mind.”
He’s wearing a dark peacoat and suede gloves. The radio is playing lowly, and his fingers tap on the steering wheel in time.
There are bags in the back seat that look stuffed with clothes.
“Is that Otto’s?” I ask.
He glances at the back seat, then nods. “Yeah. Some of Kenzi’s stuff, too. He’s probably going to spend a day or two at the hospital, at least, so I wanted him to have a change of clothes. Brought some books. Something to keep him entertained.”
“That’s nice of you.”
He gives me a sad grin. “It’s as much for me as it is for him. It helps me to do something. Keep busy. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise it becomes real?”
“Something like that.”
I glance out the window. It’s dark outside, but holiday string lights hang from the lanterns, illuminating the road. The lights on the poles are twisted up in holiday forms. Twinkling angels. Colored Christmas trees.
“Does he hate me?” I ask. My voice is nearly a whisper.
“Otto? No. He couldn’t.”
“It’s not…it’s not that I don’t care.”
Out of the edge of my vision, I see Jason nod. “Alright.”
But there’s an itch rising in me. I need him to understand. I turn to him and insist, “I do care. I love him so much. I had dreams…so many dreams. And now it feels like they’ve been ripped right out from underneath me. It’s like, every time I try to get close to him, he just—”
“Pushes you away,” Jason finishes for me. He stares out the window, his gaze far away.
“Yeah,” I say. “Exactly.”
He blinks, then looks at me, refocusing. Those blue eyes are calm. Listening. “You said you had dreams. What’d they look like?”
“I saw myself with him. I saw us getting an apartment together. Having kids together. Growing old together. It wouldn’t be conventional, but it would be us. Whatever future we wanted, I just knew we could make it together.” I let out a deep sigh. “What an idiot I am, right?”
“You’re not an idiot,” Jason says firmly.
A car passes us, and the headlights briefly illuminate Jason in the darkness. He looks so much like Otto. Otto in twenty years.
Otto with silver-gray in his hair. Otto with laugh lines around his eyes.
Otto with those same, bright blue eyes but now tinged with experience.
The thought that I might never see Otto this old is paralyzing.
Before I know what I’m doing, I lean over and clumsily push my mouth against Jason’s.
My lips barely graze his before he takes me by the shoulders and firmly holds me back. “Whoa, there,” he says gently, stalling me like a wild horse.
Immediately, I come back into my body. It’s not Otto in the car with me.
My boyfriend’s father. I’m kissing my boyfriend’s father.
“Shit,” I say, putting my hand to my mouth. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”
“Emotions are…high. I get it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jason nods and drops his eyes to the steering wheel.
I want to crawl underneath the tires and let him run me over. I close my eyes.
Dear Lord, make me an ant. Then crush me.
Jason breaks the silence suddenly, and his voice is controlled, firm. “Loving someone…it’s not always easy. It’s a choice. I could’ve decided to love only Kenzi. Or only Donovan. Or I could’ve run away to volunteer in some third-world country and left both of them behind. Instead, every day, I wake up and I make the deliberate choice to love both Kenzi and Donovan. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. I gave up my family to love them. And they gave up a lot to love me. Everyone made sacrifices. And I’d do it again for them. A thousand times over.
“Love has to be more than…passion and dreams. It’s intentional.”
I push my fingers against the air vent, turning the vents one way, then the other. I let Jason’s words settle over me like snow.
He continues. “I guess what I’m saying is…whatever decision you make, just make sure it’s the right choice for you.”
The ferry blares its horn. It’s docked.
“You should run if you’re going to catch it,” Jason says. “They don’t wait around. I learned that one the hard way.”
“Thanks for the heater.”
“Sure.”
I get up and exit the car. Before I can get very far, I hear Jason call my name. When I turn back, he’s rummaging around in the back seat. He finds a scarf and holds it out the window for me.
“Here,” he says.
I shake my head. “Oh, no. I can’t.”
I’ve taken enough. His son. His time. His patience.
But Jason keeps holding it out. “Otto will kill me if you freeze to death.”
I press my lips together and take the scarf. “Thank you.”
He gives a nod, like it’s nothing. As I start back toward the ferry, I wind the scarf around my neck. It’s cozy and warm, and I inhale.
It smells like pine needles. Like tea leaves.
It smells like Otto.
My heart twists in my chest. It’s so painful, I suck in a quick breath, and my feet come to a halt. I close my eyes to catch my bearings, and I see:
Otto, bare feet on my coffee table, nibbling on the end of his pen as he stares at his notepad.
Otto, twisted up in my bedsheets, his hand in my panties, his voice in my ear, murmuring as he teases me.
Otto, looking at me with those endlessly blue eyes as he tells me he loves me.
It’s a punch in the chest. I’m dizzy with longing for him. A deep, soul-longing.
I open my eyes and gasp in a breath of cold, salty air.
I can’t board this ferry.
I turn. Jason hasn’t left yet. He’s texting in his parking spot, the phone light glowing on his face.
I knock on the window. He lifts his eyes from the screen and rolls the window down.
“Hi.” I smile awkwardly. “Sorry. So sorry. Can you drive me somewhere? I’ll keep my hands to myself this time. I promise.”
The edges of his eyes crinkle with a small smile. “Hop in.”
