“Honesty game: tell me about every person you’ve ever loved,” Jack whispers into my hair.

I let myself reach out and touch the white scar on her upper lip. “I love my best friend, Meredith.”

“And you act like I’m a queer cliché.”

“No, I mean, I platonically love her. I’ve never loved anyone romantically before.” Jack’s fingers are still in my hair. “I thought I loved my college girlfriend, but I think I just loved what she taught me about my sexuality and myself. Is that weird? That I’ve never been in love love?”

Jack shrugs. “All types of love are love love.”

I kiss her scar then.

“We all experience attraction differently,” she continues, pressing her mouth to the soft skin behind my ear. “Some of us fall in and out of love easily. Some of us don’t experience romantic love at all. Some of us have to fight to let ourselves be vulnerable enough to fall in love.” She kisses my throat. “Some of us have to fight to let other people love us.”

She kisses my shoulder, a small patch of my skin that had been covered by my blue scarf all day. “Some of us need emotional intimacy in order to experience sexual attraction.” She nuzzles me until I laugh from the feeling of her nose against my skin. “All love and ways of loving are love, Elle.”

It’s just one syllable. One letter. Elle.

Yet I somehow feel like tectonic plates are shifting inside me, like my internal organs are experiencing subduction, pushing dormant feelings to the surface.

Because this. Jack in a dark bar. A jalapeño on her shirt and spiced eggnog on her tongue. Seeing and being seen. This feels like love love.

This feels like something huge and confusing, something too clumsy for me to puzzle through in my brain and in my chest, and it’s only been nine hours.

There are rules. Plans to follow. Schedules and structures. You’re not supposed to fall in love with a person in a single day, but maybe you can, when it snows.

Maybe on a snow day, you can ignore the nagging voice in the back of your head that says this won’t last because nothing lasts, because the people in your life don’t stick around. Maybe you can trust. At least, maybe you can trust her.

“Honesty game,” I say, and my voice shakes a little bit. “I feel like I’ve known you forever, too.”

Chapter Twenty

Friday, December 23, 2022

“I did not realize you were in that kind of romantic comedy.” Meredith lets out a low whistle from my phone screen.

“Not. Helpful.”

“Look, you’ve now kissed your fiancé’s sister twice, so I’m not sure what you think is going to help you. There is no eleventh-hour Judy Greer pep talk coming your way.”