December 25th:

This particular morning is golden, the milky sun flowing through all the open windows, lighting up the living room they relax in. The fireplace is in the background, a stuffy warm surrounding them as Mara sits cross-legged on the floor. A hand-woven blanket draped over her shoulders, and freshly brewed coffee heating her hands. The overpowering aroma of it attacks her senses, sleep missed by the jitters of Christmas morning.

Elias rests next to her, torn wrapping paper like a crime scene around their feet. The necklace he'd bought her, a small turquoise pendant, hangs around her neck. Its vibrant color even brighter as the sunlight reflects off of it, her fingers messing with it aimlessly.

The comfort of light conversation fills the silence as Elias reached for one of the last two presents under the tree, the rest around them. Kissing the top of her shoulders, watching her flip the box-shaped present in her hands, trying to guess what it could be.

"I tried to wrap it in the middle of the night," he scratches the back of his neck bashfully, Mara giggling softly at the horrible wrapping job. Strips of tape cover most of its exterior, holding pieces of different paper together. Like scraps of every wrapping paper they owned, Mara loves him more for it.

Instead of taunting him, she places a chaste kiss on his lips, leaning back so she can tear it apart, sensing his eyes on her. She never fancied people watching her open presents. The impassive look that is perpetually on her face makes them feel as if she doesn't like it.

But with Elias, she doesn't mind the burning feeling of his eyes burning into her, a puppet to his strings. The soft smile, waltzing on her lips as her chipped green nails dig into the paper, ripping apart the tape.

There, sitting in her hands, is a brand new copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Its pages smell unspoiled, like crisp paper and dried ink. Tears prick her eyes as she drags her fingers across the words. Such a simple gift, anyone else may have scoffed at it.

"That's the book you stole from me the first day we met," he points towards it, glancing up at her through hooded lashes. "I had to check it out under my name and force myself to read it, just to understand your fascination."

"You remember that?" She mutters with melancholy in her tone, looking up at him with every ounce of affection she can pool buried in her mare irises. They are glassy with unshed tears that prick her ducts, biting her lip to stop herself from crying. It's not that deep, she tried to stress to herself.

But to a person like Mara, it is everything. To believe someone cared enough about her to remember such a minuscule detail in time when even her own family forgot her birthday. That he even read it just so he could understand a piece of her, without the knowledge he'd ever see her again. The notion that she had left a big enough imprint on him for him to even acknowledge.

"Of course I remember," he smiles, poking her sides. "I remember a lot about you, Mara, believe it or not. Even before I really knew you, I paid attention enough to know a little bit about you, just in case you wanted to know me too."

Elias had been captured by Mara from the start and it wasn't just one aspect of her that lured him in. Not her vulgar language or her tantalizing his muteness, but the way she embraced that little bit of chaos in her while ignoring his. Making him feel the most average he had in awhile. Their interplay was no more than ten minutes, yet almost a year later, he can still treasure it in fine detail. The snow-dust in her hand, the pitiful sound of her singing.

"You're kinda weird," she had said after a minute, smiling softly as she took a step towards the fiction section, "it's cute."

"I can be cute too," she laughs, forging her sorrow enough she can watch him open his present from her with clear vision. Setting his heartwarming present aside to grab hers, equal to destructive wrapping paper.

Waiting as he strips the paper to unveil a new notebook with a coffee-colored moleskine cover, the word Elias engraved on its surface. Next to it is another decorated pen, this one lilac purple with equal frilly details. Fuzzy yellow pom-poms glued around the eraser of it, with googly eyes to pair.

"I figured by now you used up the old one I bought you," she recalls the day at the donut shop. Braving the storm just to get there when she'd delivered him a notebook so they could formally talk to each other. Even if she couldn't hear his low gravelly voice at the time, it was nice to see him responding through words and not interpretations.

"Oh hush now, I brought you this," she pushed a small lilac notebook his way, petite enough he could shove it in his coat pocket. "And this." She adds a pen to the mix, a frilly one with dawn-tinted sparkles decorating its body, a pom tied around the top.

"Now, we can have a conversation that isn't like playing I Spy. Your silence is cute, but if I'm being quite honest, one-sided conversations are tedious." She ushers for him to use it with frantic fingers, kicking her legs under the table in excitement.

"Thank you, I love it, but I don't deserve it," he mumbles, the feeling of blame striking him at once. "I'm so sorry, Mara."

She blinks slowly, her eyebrows furrowed as she shakes her head at him, confused at what he was sorry about.

"If you don't like it, we can change it out. That's what gift receipts are for, weirdo," she chuckles, uneasy at the way he can't look her in the eye. Her hands, cupping under his chin, leveling his eyes with hers, so she knows he is listening, so he is seeing. It is easy to escape one's words when you look away, brushing it off like raindrops on your skin, tears on your cheeks. But staring into their eyes, scorning it into their skin, they have to hear.

"No, it's not that-'' he shakes his head, biting his lip as he takes her hands from his cheeks, holding him in his lap. His mind reflects back to the day his mother had done the same with a weeping lodged in her throat, telling him his aunt had drowned herself in the bathtub. His hands, shaking the same way his mother's had, with the same ounce of tremor in his voice.

"You're scaring me," she laughs humorlessly, twining their fingers, holding onto that rock. As if she can ground them with her touch, feeling every atom between them.

"I got accepted for this internship," he starts, holding her hands as he looks her in her eyes. As if it can make it any easier. This will never be easy, pulling away from somewhen when it physically hurts. As if watching himself drown with no care to stop it, feeling the water in his lungs, struggling to produce words.

"That's amazing, Eli. What's the problem-" she starts, being cut off by Elias's expression.

"It's in New York," he states glumly, his eyes flickering between hers, trying to decipher what she is feeling. He can't tell right now, and that alarms him. She always speaks through her eyes, and he can always understand their own little language. But right now, it is all foreign, the way she just stares impassively for a beat of silence.

Not even static to fill it, just- nothing.

"Okay," she drawls, running a hand through her hair, "well, I will just come out there with you, I guess, I don't know. My friends are in California, but who can't make new friends, right. When is it?"

"I leave in a week," he grinds his teeth.

"When did you find out?" It feels like a punch to the chest, pleading that he will say he found out today or yesterday. They promised no secrets, no lies, nothing that would fluctuate the structure of their archaism. Mara is in a vulnerable position this time around, more conscious of her feelings, more bound to get hurt. She trusts him, and she can only hope he trusts her.

"I found out a few weeks ago," he laments, watching her physical pull away, her hands retracing from him. Visibly detaching herself from him and the situation.

Like a flicker in her eyes, switching the lights on and off. If possible, they become more hazy, more caged off. Elias had seen it happen before when she pushed him away at the hospital and when she pushed him away each time she ran. As if convincing herself she doesn't care so she won't get hurt.

"You...what?" She speaks loudly. "Why didn't you tell me, Elias. We promised no secrets. What? You think I can't handle it?" She is talking rushed, not really thinking, afraid of the detachment she feels. The numbness is worse than pain because despondency reminds her she is alive.

Her emotions are flaring, having to remind herself to ground herself with three inanimate objects around her, two things she can smell, one she can hear.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just didn't want this to end."

"It wouldn't have had to," she declares, "I'm not mad about the internship, Elias, or the fact that it's halfway across the country. It's the fact that you lied that gets me. Because we promised no lies this time, no secrets."

She isn't mad, or sad, or even angry. Maybe she is all of those and can't pick them apart, but really she is disappointed. And Elias can't tell if that hurts more. If he'd rather she scream than look at him so wholly betrayed he feels the cuts to his skin, he feels himself hurting her.

"I tried a thousand times to tell you, it never felt right. But I take the blame, your right, I should have told you," he runs his hands down his face, groaning.

He is an idiot.

"For us to work you need to trust me," she says, placing her hand against his heart, flattening her palm over the fabric of his t-shirt. "You need to trust me here," tapping his forehead with her other hand, "not just here."

"I'm scared to lose you," his hand falls over hers, admitting softly, his palms brushing her knuckles.

"You have to remember it's my first time too, Eli. You're not the only one with new feelings. You're not the only one who's scared. Communication is the only way we will survive," she laments, steadying her breathing.

She isn't going to blow up at him, to destroy everything he lived for. Maybe the old Mara with an act of vengeance would have, the Mara who had nothing to live for and only felt empty. In the almost year she's known him, Mara has matured into the adult she is. Not a child lost in a grown-up world. It took her recognizing her faults to get here, but she did, and she is glad.

Rage, sadness, they are all sentiments that would eventually pass. Mara considers more about if she can live with herself with the aftermath of those emotions. With whatever she did once feeling them if she could look at herself in the mirror and not hate every aspect of her existence.

"What are we gonna do, Mara? I can't just make you leave everyone you love to be with me. That's selfish. Should I just not go? I don't know," He grumbles, holding his head in his hands as she rubs hers up and down his back, pushing away the anxiety.

"You're going to New York, Elias. Because if you don't, you're going to hate yourself, and a part of you is going to hate me too," she whispers against his ear.

"I have a week to pack my bags and be there," he mumbles, pulling her into his lap, so she is straddling him, his hands running up and down her thighs. Staring at the necklace that hangs around her neck, the small E engraved on the other side of it, so she will always have a piece of him with her at all times.

"Which is a week we have to figure it out, whatever happens, happens," she says, her lips finding him in the turmoil, kissing away his torture. And he kisses her back with the same passion, his lips cupping hers tenderly. Agreeing that whatever life brings, they will go with it because they really have no control at this point.

They can only hope that their love is strong enough to fare.

---

Authors Note:

There is only two more chapters left!!

Do you think Mara should go with him? Or should she stay with her friends?

Like, comment, follow.

- Nia

Edited 4/14/22