Chapter 10: Snow

It snowed for the first time on the twentieth of December, and at seven o'clock the power went out.

The whole street went dark at once.

I was in Gethin's kitchen with a bowl of soup and a borrowed blanket, and the fridge shuddered and stopped.

"That'll be the substation," Gethin said, from the doorway. "It happens every winter."

He lit four candles from a drawer and stood them on the table.

Outside the window the snow was falling thick and slow, and the road had already gone white.

We had not mentioned the kitchen since the night of the petition.

For eleven days he had been careful and I had been careful, and I had counted every small accident between us.

His hand against mine on the kettle. His shoulder in the hallway. His laugh through the floor.

I put the spoon down.

"The doctor signed me off on Thursday," I said. "She said everything's healed."

He went very still.

"I'm glad," he said. "Verity, I mean that. Whatever you want, whenever you want, and if it's never, that's fine."

"I'm not angry."

"I know."

"I haven't been angry since the night you told me what you saw."

"Good."

"So I'd like you to kiss me."

He didn't move.

"You said in writing," he said, very quietly.

"What?"

"You said if I had something noble to say, you wanted it in writing."

He reached for the pad by the phone and the stub of pencil next to it, and wrote something and tore the page off.

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