Chapter 7 - The Blizzard Outside
The county siren wailed in the distance—the low, mournful howl that signaled the mountain passes were officially shut down.
Lauren turned her head toward the window. Outside, the driveway was already buried under four inches of fresh, drifting snow. The pine trees at the edge of the property were bending violently under the weight of the gale.
"The highway patrol just closed Route 9," she said quietly, reading the notification that lit up her phone screen on the counter. "Nobody's driving tonight."
I looked at my boots by the front door. "I can sleep in the truck. I'll keep the engine running."
"In minus-twenty windchill?" Lauren scoffed, though there was no malice in it now—only utter exhaustion. "You'd be dead of carbon monoxide poisoning before four in the morning. Your tailpipe would be buried in a drift within an hour."
She ran both hands through her hair, pulling it back from her face. I could see the fine lines around her eyes now—lines that hadn't been there when she was twenty-two. They were lines carved by worry, by late nights balancing checkbooks, by the fierce, unrelenting burden of raising a child without a safety net.
"You stay on the sofa," she said firmly, pointing toward the living room. "You do not go upstairs. You do not talk to Leo about who you are. Tomorrow morning, as soon as the snowplow clears the cul-de-sac, you take your bag, you get in your truck, and you leave."
"Lauren—"
"Those are my terms, Liam," she said, her eyes flashing with a steel that brooked no argument. "You wanted to apologize? You apologized. You read the letter. You know the truth. If you care about me—if you care about *him*—you will respect my boundary. He gets to have Christmas morning without his world being shattered."
I bowed my head. "Okay. On the sofa. Not a word."
She nodded once, stiffly, then walked toward the hallway. But before she went up the stairs, she stopped at the linen closet and pulled out a thick woolen blanket and a feather pillow. She tossed them onto the sofa without looking at me.
"Goodnight, Liam."
"Goodnight, Lauren," I whispered.
May you like
I heard her footsteps ascend the stairs. I heard the quiet murmur of her voice in Leo’s bedroom, the rhythmic, soothing cadence of a mother reading a bedtime story.
I stood alone in the dark living room, surrounded by the life that should have been mine, feeling more like an intruder than I ever had in my life.
