The signs in front of the general store were gone, and the dumpster had no trace that anything had been burning inside. A rat was perusing through a normal variety of black plastic bags and loose scraps of food. Melanie tried to brush it off. The sanitation department must have wiped it clean last night, she told herself. When she got off the train the station was empty, the turnstiles devoid of any travelers other than her. At work, her emails were free of any choice slurs and vitriol. She even dug through the trash folder just to be sure, but it was just more ads and typos. 

From there, the rest of the day was slightly off. The peace she should have had was tainted by something, an unknown hiding just outside her field of view. It followed her on her commute home, the silence only occasionally interrupted by the quiet, angry mutterings of passing pedestrians arguing with themselves or over the phone. 

Eileen was her refuge. She came home to her waiting eagerly for her on the sofa, asking her how her day was, and if she had anything planned later. “Home” she realized, wasn’t what the apartment was to her until the second night she and Eileen spent together, and even though the memory of Eileen’s death was still out of reach, Melanie was happy talking to her about the mundane memories like the disappointing microwavable lasagna she ate for dinner, or how she put Amélie on and watched it for the twelfth time. Later that night they brought the total up to thirteen. Melanie suggested it might jog her memory, but if she had been honest, she really just wanted a fun night with Eileen. 

That one fun night turned into a week, and then a month, and then into several months. Eileen recovered more and more bits of her life leading up to the last day, and Melanie found herself taking each opportunity to bond with her as they came along. One night they watched a recorded live session of Daughter, Eileen’s favorite folk band. On another night Eileen taught her her favorite smoked salmon recipe, which ended up being dinner for several days after, and on another night Melanie surprised her with Candyland, her favorite childhood board game. They played (or more accurately Melanie played for both of them) multiple games late into the night until Melanie couldn’t keep her eyes open. 

Before she knew it December came around and buried the city in white. The blizzards had Melanie working from home most days, which meant more time with Eileen, and she seemed to recover memories faster when they were together. But as the end of the year closed in, something else did too. Melanie had been ignoring an ever present feeling, a truth she kept burying at the end of every night, but would be impossible to ignore forever. She didn’t want Eileen to leave.

She knew it was a mistake. She knew it didn’t make any sense, allowing herself to get attached. Even if there wasn’t somewhere else for Eileen to move onto, even if she could stay, Melanie would never be able to share anything other than the apartment with her. She would never be able to cook a meal for her to eat. She would never be able to take her out on the town or travel anywhere together. She would never be able to hold her. And she knew it was selfish to want all of those things, to ask those things of Eileen if a peaceful existence or nonexistence was really waiting for her. There was only one path that made sense, but the deep burning in her chest weighed on her with every step, a mix of her affection and her guilt, slowing her down more and more until she was barely moving. 

She decided to spend the week before Christmas solely on work. She told Eileen she had been neglecting her project for too long, which was true, but she never really gave a damn about productivity if she had a far away enough deadline and was close enough to being finished, which she did and was. No, the truth was she wanted the distance. She was hoping their relationship would somehow fizzle out on its own, instead of her having to cut it off herself. So day after day she stayed at her desk with her headphones in, drowning in Bon Iver at full volume and eyes glued to her tablet screen, only stopping to use the bathroom or eat a meal, and never allowing any conversation between her and Eileen to go past small talk. 

She woke up at her desk on Christmas morning with her pen still in her hand. The pit in her stomach deepened when she realized she was still alone in the room, when Eileen would usually be greeting her good morning from where she was sitting. She grabbed the last clean pair of sweatpants in her closet and a clean set of underwear and dragged her feet to the bathroom. As she opened the door with her free hand, she was surprised to feel warm air escaping from behind it. The room inside was filled with steam, swirling out from the shower behind her light blue, bubble pattern curtains. She set her clothes down next to the spare towel on a wooden shelf above the toilet and sighed. She didn’t have to guess if she had showered last night and forgotten. The answer was written through the fog on the mirror in front of her.

Merry Christmas, Mel! I hope you kick your project’s ass so we can do something fun tonight! - Eileen

After a quick shower she got dressed and rushed over to the kitchen where Eileen was sitting at the table, watching the sunrise through the window.  “Hey..” she said timidly.

“Morning,” Eileen replied. Her smile was as bright as it always was, but it was weighed down slightly by a pensiveness just under the surface.

“That was cute, what you did in the bathroom..”

“Tis the season. I’m sorry a cliché was the only way I could do it,” she laughed half-heartedly.

Melanie smiled back, but her heart was a molotov; burning and she wanted to toss it out the window. “It was really sweet and I loved it,” she started, “but the thing is I.. I don’t feel like I deserve it..”

“Mel..”

“No, listen,” she stopped her. “I know I’ve been distant lately, and the truth is I’ve been trying to avoid you.. And not because you did anything wrong, I’m just.. I just–”

“Mel,” Eileen interrupted gently, “it’s okay.. I get it.”

“No, Eileen, it’s not because of work or anything like that, it’s–”

“I know.” Eileen’s smile was warm, but bittersweet. 

“You know..?”

“Yeah,” Eileen nodded. “I mean, you’re not hard to read.. You kept going out of your way to do stuff I liked, and in the beginning I thought it was just to help me remember things faster.. And I’m sure it did start that way, but then you kept going and it felt..” She looked up at the ceiling. “Different.. But not in a bad way!” She looked back down at Melanie. “I could just tell something was up, and then three weeks ago you just stopped all of a sudden to focus on work, even though your deadline is in February and...” She paused, her expression adjusting like she caught herself mid-thought. “And I realized it might be more than that..” 

Melanie swallowed and tasted the ash from the forest fire in her chest. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, and her head was a storm of disjointed possible responses, none of them feeling like the right thing to say. 

“But that’s okay,” Eileen said, cutting through the noise, “I um.. I actually feel the same way..” The fire peaked.

“Huh..”

Not the best answer, Melanie thought, but given the absurdity of the situation it was a miracle she was able to say anything back at all. “Yeah..” Eileen answered back quietly. “It’s quite the pickle.. So I get it.. It’s okay that you don’t want to be around me anymore..” 

“No, no I want to be around you!” Melanie paced around the table. “God, I do.. I just…” she trailed off. 

“You shouldn’t..” The pain in Eileen’s voice wasn’t hidden any longer. Melanie could hear her trembling, and the brightness of her smile seemed forced now that the truth was out in the open. “You’re right, I shouldn’t..” Melanie answered in a sad whisper, “I shouldn’t, but if you asked me to stay.. If you wanted to stay, I’d…” She squeezed her eyes shut. 

“I know..” Eileen said shakily. “That’s what I like about you.. You would give so much to me–you’ve given so much to me–even though I can’t give you anything back..”

“That’s bullshit..!” Melanie looked again at her, deep into her eyes. “You did give me something! You gave me a home!” It caught her off guard that she had raised her voice, that the desperation was taking her down to the bone, but she knew the moment was slipping away, and there was nothing else she could do but cling to it like a climber short of rope. 

She could see in her eyes that Eileen was hanging on just as intensely, but there was something more to the pain, something else she was fighting. “I’m glad.. I’m glad I could be that for you..” Eileen said softly, “And I wish I could keep being that, but I can’t..” 

“I know..” Melanie looked down. “I know.” 

“But that’s okay, Mel.. Because there’ll be someone else. Someone else who’ll love you.”

“How do you know..?” she looked back up at her and asked. “I’m scared, Eileen.. I’m scared no one else is going to see me the way you do..” 

Eileen stood up from the table. “It’s because you’re scared, Mel..” she answered. “Because you’re scared but you still care for me so much anyway.. Anyone would be so lucky to have that.” Melanie watched as she stepped through the table, stopping just in front of her. She watched Eileen raise her hand up to her cheek, and felt her fingers almost touching her. “I need you to know that..” she said softly. “You helped me find peace.. Maybe not the kind we were looking for, but I’m happy.. And the only other thing I want is for you to find it too. Please.. Promise me you won’t stop looking for it.. No matter how shitty things get, you deserve to be happy.”

Melanie sobbed, finally pouring out the whole of her agony and anger. “I will..” she cried into Eileen’s hand. “I promise..” 

Eileen looked at her with what felt like all the love the world had to offer. “Thank you..” she whispered.

Her hand lost its shape, and the rest of her body followed. Melanie watched as the mist swirled around her face and vanished, like warm breath on a cold night.

All around her, the tangled string lights tying the market together died out in little  clusters, one after the other. The booths were quickly disassembled and hauled away to trucks waiting in the parking lot nearby, and the last few visitors followed suit, leaving her alone underneath a dim streetlight. She waited for the last car to leave before pulling out her phone and checking her messages.

Merry Christmas, honey! We figured you were busy with work so don’t worry about answering if you can’t. We just hope you’re having a wonderful day and staying safe. Love you so so much!

She swiped up to a photo of her parents smiling wide in front of the fireplace, her old stocking hung up behind them over the mantlepiece. For a moment, her thumb hovered over the call button, but she decided she couldn’t handle pretending to be happy. Not today. Not for a while.

Eileen wasn’t around when she got back to the apartment. She tossed her loot from the market onto the kitchen counter and dug through the fridge for some leftover salmon. If she didn’t finish it now, she knew it would just end up expired in the back behind her stacks of microwaveables. She took her plate to the sofa and put on a rerun of Olive, the Other Reindeer, sinking deep into the cushions and throwing her feet onto the coffee table. The salmon tasted bitter.