Where The Ice Gives Way Chapter 85

**Blake**

What was that? I closed my eyes, sitting across from her on the rug, listening to Mum’s voice telling us to picture a field, to breathe in the sky and breathe out the sound of water, and I swear to God I was somewhere else. I could feel the grass under Lex’s paws and the wind moving through fur and the strange, absolute certainty of Lex as he found Shanti. Now my eyes are open again, and I am here on my side. With Charlotte in my arms and me in hers, our bodies are close enough that I can feel the heat of her all along the front of me. One of her legs is tangled with mine. My hand is spread at her waist. Her arm is curled around my back. Our foreheads are touching, and our mouths are so close I can feel her breath on my lips every time she exhales. I am vaguely aware my mother is still in the room with us. The bigger part of me does not care. That was something else. That was an otherworldly experience. I can still feel it. The field. The grass. The wide open sky. Lex was moving through it with confidence, with Shanti there in front of him, white and bright and real in a way that made every part of me go still. I can still feel the way they greeted each other. The certainty in it. The softness. The way they circled and pressed against each other and settled into the grass like they had been reaching for that exact space forever.

Charlotte is staring back at me, her eyes wide and as green as the grass, still carrying some part of that place in them. She looks just as shocked as I feel, but there’s something softer under it, too. Something open. I want to stay here forever. Mum’s voice comes back to me, gentle enough that it almost doesn’t break the moment. “When you’re ready, you can sit up, and we can talk about what you two just went through together.” I feel the second the world comes back for Charlotte. Her eyes flicker, and her breathing changes. The warmth of her body tenses slightly where it’s pressed to mine. I watch the exact moment she starts to pull herself back from me, to let the room return, to let the walls and the rug and my mother’s presence and all the ordinary rules of being two people in a room put space between us again. No. Her arm starts to slide from my waist, and Lex whimpers so loudly through me I feel it in my throat. Before I can think about whether I should, I catch her hand and press it back against me. My eyes close for a second as her fingers soften there, warm through my shirt, and I let myself feel the contact. I need it more than I know how to admit. “Just one more minute,” I say, my voice low and rough and too honest to take back. “Please.”

I don’t hear her answer, but she doesn’t move. That alone is enough to make something in me unclench. I keep my eyes closed for a second longer, forehead still resting against hers, breathing in her strawberry and cream scent slowly and trying to hold onto the last of that field before it slips too far away. When I open my eyes again, she’s still there—still looking at me. The shock has softened a little in her face, replaced by that same careful uncertainty she wears. I don’t know what the hell that was. I only know I never want to lose it. I want to feel that peace with her always. My thumb moves once over the back of her hand, where I’m still holding it against me. “You felt that too, right?” I ask quietly. Her lashes lower, then lift again. “Yeah.” The word comes out soft and a little breathless.

Mum doesn’t rush us. She sits there somewhere behind Charlotte, patient as ever, letting us have these few extra seconds before she asks us to put language to something that probably does not want language yet. Charlotte glances down then, like she’s only just realised how fully wrapped up together we still are. Her cheeks pinken almost instantly. It makes me want to pull her even closer, but I don’t. Barely. “You can move if you want,” I tell her, even though every part of me hopes she won’t. Her eyes come back to mine. “I know.” But she still doesn’t move. Another few seconds pass like that, stretched thin and quiet and warm, and then I hear Mum shift slightly, moving herself onto the couch and that brings the room back properly.

Charlotte lets out a small breath, and this time, when she starts to pull back, I make myself let her. Lex does not appreciate this. He gives one last mournful sound and retreats deeper, though not without making his opinion known. *Too soon.* Charlotte’s hand slides from my waist, and my arm loosens around her. The warmth between us doesn’t disappear all at once, but the space returns by degrees until she’s sitting upright across from me again, knees tucked close, hair loose around her shoulders, cheeks still flushed. I sit up too slowly, dragging one hand over the back of my neck, trying to look more put together than I feel. Mum watches us both with a softness that says nothing and far too much all at once. “Well,” she says gently, “that went better than expected.” Charlotte makes a sound that might have been a laugh in another life, while I stare at Mum. “Better than expected?” Her mouth twitches into a knowing smile. “I was hoping for a connection. Stillness. A little deeper awareness.” She glances between us. “I did not expect you two to disappear so fully into the bond that you came back tangled together on my floor.”

Heat hits the back of my neck, and Charlotte drops her face into her hands. I should be embarrassed, but I’m not. Not really. Because even now, with the room back and the moment broken open into something we’ll apparently have to talk about, all I can think is that if Mum asked us to do it again right now, I would. I look across at Charlotte, and she peeks at me through her fingers, catches me already watching her, and goes pink all over again. Yep, I’d do that in front of the whole world if it meant I could hold her and feel that space with her again.