Clark Woodward would curse the name Kate Buckner until the day he died for making him feel this way. No, scratch that. For making him feel anything. As he drove back to his family’s cold and empty home, he could think of nothing else than the new parameters of his existence. She’d opened up his heart and demanded he let everything flow freely both in and out of it, leaving him completely vulnerable to the pains of existence. Now that he’d broken through the dam, nothing could stop the flow.

It all rushed past him and around him and through him until all he could see was the road before him painted with projected colors of rage and pain and longing and sadness. Trying to push it away worked, but only for a few seconds at a time before it pinned him to the mat once again.

It only got worse when he arrived at the house and found the facade still covered in the remnants of Kate Buckner’s invasion. He could no longer think of her as Kate, the girl he thought he fancied himself in love with. He could only think of her in formal terms, with a full, unbreakable name like a super villain. Lex Luthor. Inspector Javert. The Wicked Witch. To hold her personally and remember her humanity only broke him further because it was all fake, and he was a fool.

She and her team of scheming townsfolk rigged the Victorian-style manor with hundreds of flood lights and millions of tiny stringed lights, which brought out each painstaking holiday detail they’d hung outside. Giant wreaths, wrapped and bowed with red ribbons, hung between each of the fifty north-facing windows. Two proud Christmas trees—decorated with identical gold baubles and red toppers—flanked the front doorway.

It was as beautiful as it was welcoming. As welcoming as it was sickening.

Clark yanked the car into park and jumped out. He wouldn’t stay in a house like this. With the temperature rapidly dropping, he couldn’t stay in the car either, but he could not stay in a house covered in the fingerprints of the woman who ripped out his heart, lit it on fire and roasted chestnuts over it.

Great, now he was describing things like she would have.

Storming across the frost-strewn lawn, Clark made a beeline for the first wreath on the first floor. Earlier today, she’d told him taking these things down would be an impossible job for one person. She lied about everything else. Why would she lie about this? He reached for the four-foot monstrosity and tugged. And tugged. And tugged. Until finally it let loose. The momentum shot him back a few steps until he tumbled to a halt, gripping onto the wreath for dear life.