Noelle huffed. “Why would it be absurd? It’s a rational fear, Hannah.” She crossed her arms and scowled.
“Why would we chooseMiriam? Overyou?” Hannah asked, sounding truly lost. “She doesn’t know shit about pine trees, and she hasn’t been here for the past five years pouring her soul into this place.”
“I would choose her over me,” Noelle mumbled, dropping into a chair. She could tell Hannah was trying valiantly not to laugh, and she knew she sounded ridiculous, but damn it she was scared, and some of those fears were reasonable.
“Okay, back up,” Hannah told her, pushing out of her own chair and coming around the desk to perch on the edge of Noelle’s. “We wouldn’t choose either of you and then kick the other one out on their ass. We’re grown-ups who love you both, and that’s not how functional families work. This isn’t really about you losing Carrigan’s. What the hell is going on in your brain?” She ruffled Noelle’s hair, and Noelle reflexively patted it back into place.
“My brain is trying to kill me again, I think.” She buried her head in her hands. “I keep remembering trusting my parents when they would quit drinking for a few weeks, believing them that this time would be different and letting myself hope. It’s like a hot stove. I’m trying to fuck up this relationship before it even starts, because I know she could hurt me someday. She’s left before, what will keep her from doing it again? I don’t know how to stop being petrified that this is a bad idea.”
“Aha! That I can help with!” Hannah clapped, because she loved to fix things. “I fell in love, and it was a truly, extraordinarily bad idea.”
“I remember,” Noelle reminded her flatly. “I was there.”
“And I would do it again, in an instant. My love story ended about as catastrophically as it could have without anyone dying, and I would never undo it. I would fall in love with him again, tomorrow.”
“Really?” Noelle asked, shocked. “Damn.” Somehow, of all the things anyone could have said, this was the one that made sense to her. The idea that falling for Miriam could go horrifically wrong but might still be worth it fluttered around inside her, like a bird out of its cage for the first time.
“I think you just have to do the next thing, even though you’re terrified,” Hannah told her.
“Can’t you tell me what the right thing is?” Noelle pleaded.
Hannah shook her head. “What would Cass Carrigan do?”
“I’m currently closed to Cass’s meddling until I’ve forgiven her for lying to us and using her death as a dramatic reveal instead of just reconciling with Miriam like a normal person,” Noelle grumbled.
“Just because you’re mad at her doesn’t mean she was wrong.”
That night, when everyone was long since in bed, Noelle got a text. She woke up to the insistent beeping and glared angrily at her screen.
Miriam:Meet me at the snowmobiles. Dress warmly. Bring skates.
A pond toward the back of the property had been cultivated for many years by Mr. Matthews’s exacting hands and was now a perfect skating spot. They drove guests out to it via snowmobiles they kept stashed in the carriage house.
Noelle thought about letting Miriam go ice skating in the dead of night by herself but decided she was curious and that she needed to keep Miriam from falling through the ice. She wrapped herself in many layers of clothing, then grabbed her ice skates off the rack in the mudroom and headed out.
“It’s the witching hour, Miriam. This is a terrible idea,” she whispered, stamping her feet and blowing into her gloves. Miriam was wearing a puffy coat that went down to her knees, brushing the tops of her boots. She was so cute, it physically hurt. “Why do you always want to hang out in the middle of the night?”
“We live in a crowded hotel with my nosy family,” Miriam pointed out. “The middle of the night is the only time we can be alone.”
Noelle harrumphed. “I hope you know which of these has a full tank of gas, because if we get stranded in the snow, it’s not going to be cute for Insta.”
“Are you always like this in the middle of the night?” Miriam asked, amused, as she climbed onto the back of the snowmobile and gestured for Noelle to sit in front of her.
“You’ll just have to hang out with me more in the middle of the night and find out,” Noelle told her and then mentally kicked herself. She was supposed to be treading cautiously, not flirting lasciviously.
Miriam grinned back before saying, “I’m glad you came.”
They rode out in silence, neither willing to shout over the engine. Noelle drove, and Miriam held on to her back, their closeness sending jolts of electricity through Noelle. By the time they laced up their skates, she wanted to strip off all of Miriam’s layers to get to her skin.
“What are we doing out here, Blum?” Noelle finally asked, after they’d skated a few circles around the ice.
“Have you ever seenMoonstruck?” Miriam said instead of answering. She grabbed Noelle’s hands and pulled her along, skating backwards. Their fingers entwined.
“Obviously. It’s a masterpiece. Why?”
“I watched it a lot as a kid because Cher’s hair looked like mine. It’s my comfort movie.”
“That’s a weird movie to let a kid watch,” Noelle observed.