It Was You by Kim Hartfield

Author:Kim Hartfield [Hartfield, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-22T06:00:00+00:00

Fifteen – Ella

Two weeks into January, and I’d been seeing Judi for a month. We hadn’t put any labels on our relationship, but since neither of us was dating anyone else, it was hard to not think of her as my girlfriend.

I still hadn’t found the right moment to tell her I’d once pretended to be Sam. As time went by, it seemed like less and less of a concern. Why would she even care, now that we’d spent so much time together? She knew me, the real me – the one that screamed like a little girl while tobogganing down a hill, the one that cowered in her arms during the scary part of a movie. I wasn’t keeping anything from her in the present moment.

I couldn’t say the same about Sam. He still mentioned Judi from time to time, getting a hangdog expression whenever her name came up. He was aware that we’d “hung out” a few times, but he still had no idea it was anything more than that.

It felt strange and unnatural to keep something like this from him. I couldn’t even tell the rest of my family out of fear it’d get back to him. I was normally so open with them, and keeping secrets from them wasn’t something I wanted or enjoyed.

One day after work, a soft impact hit me in my mid-back as I walked up the driveway. “Hey!” I yelled, spinning around to find Sam with his hands dusted with snow. “I thought we called off the snowball war this year!”

“We did because you were helping me out,” he said. “But that’s been over for so long, and your back looked so snowless. It was just begging for some of this.”

“Oh, really?” Luckily I had gloves on. I reached down and scooped up some snow, quickly shaping it and jetting it back at him. “Then you won’t mind this!”

“No, I don’t.” He ducked out of the way just in time. “All’s fair in love and war.”

An interesting choice of proverbs. Did he really believe that? “I’ll get you with this one,” I said.

“No, you won’t!” He launched another snowball at me, and it flew past me – and right into the front door, which my mother had just opened.

“Kids, I just made hot chocolate,” she called, then pointed down at the floor. “Although one or the other of you is going to clean this mess up before either of you is getting any.”

We headed inside, kicking snow off our boots and shedding our coats. Hot chocolate sounded amazing right now. Once the snow was cleaned up, we went into the kitchen and served ourselves from the pot on the stove.

“I guess the new job is going well,” I said, dropping marshmallows into my mug. “At least, you seem to be in a good mood.”

“It’s going all right,” he said. “I’m catching on to the spreadsheet stuff. Sometimes I miss my old job, though.”

I looked at him sharply. “The coffee?”

“More like the coworkers.” Holding his mug in both hands, he sighed.

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