“Was it messy?”

We were strolling through the park a few weeks later. He had just gotten off work and we had thought we were going on a picnic. April showers bring May flowers, I thought bitterly as I pulled my hood tighter around my face. He attempted to tuck the blanket into his coat to keep it dry through the drizzle. Despite the fact that they were freezing, our hands were intertwined.

“What?” I asked over the sound of the rain on the sidewalk.

“Was it messy?” Emmett raised his voice to be heard.

“Was what messy?”


“The divorce.” He’d learned by now that the topic of my parents should be approached carefully, avoided if at all possible. He hadn’t mentioned it since the afternoon at the apartment so long ago.

“Oh.” I thought for a few moments. “Not messy, no.”

“Mm,” he hummed. We walked in silence until we were almost at the edge of the park. Suddenly he stopped and pulled me close to him.
“What--?”

He whipped out the blanket and in no time had it pulled around both of us. We were dry and warm. I could see the faint outline of his face, his cheekbone shadowed by soft light from outside.

My name found its way out of his mouth in a rush of warm air. It twisted and vanished in the dark space between us like a tongue of fire, its sparks leftover, an afterthought.

“Emmett.”

With the single word came a rush of heat, finding its way up my cheeks. “Emmett,” I whispered again, loving the sound of his name in my voice.

He wrapped his arms around me and I leaned into his chest. My head fit into the crook of his collarbone like it had been molded to the shape of it. His strong grip was unusually gentle, but firm. I breathed in the smell of him, and for a moment, we stood together. And for that space in time, that tiny sliver of an infinite body, everything felt safe.


Right.

Normal.

Amazing.