All the Bright Places

I’m glad to
be back. When will I see you?
I text her: 
Come outside
.
She is there in a minute, wearing monkey pajamas and Freud slippers, and
a long purple robe, her hair pulled into a ponytail. I come up the walk
carrying the refrigerated shipping bucket, and she says, “Finch, what on
earth? Why do you smell like smoke?” She looks behind her, afraid they
might see.
The night air is freezing, and a few flakes start to fall again. But I feel
warm. She says, “You’re shivering.”
“Am I?” I don’t notice because I can’t feel anything.
“How long have you been out here?”
“I don’t know.” And suddenly I can’t remember.
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“It snowed today. It’s snowing again.” Her eyes are red. She looks like
she’s been crying, and this might be because she really hates winter or, more
likely, because we’re coming up on the anniversary of the accident.
I hold out the bucket and say, “Which is why I wanted you to have these.”
“What is it?”
“Open and see.”
She sets down the bucket and undoes the latch. For a few seconds, all she
does is breathe in the scent of the flowers, and then she turns to me and,
without a word, kisses me. When she pulls away, she says, “No more winter
at all. Finch, you brought me spring.”
For a long time, I sit in the car outside my house, afraid to break the spell. In
here, the air is close and Violet is close. I’m wrapped up in the day. I love: the
way her eyes spark when we’re talking or when she’s telling me something
she wants me to know, the way she mouths the words to herself when she’s
reading and concentrating, the way she looks at me as if there’s only me, as if
she can see past the flesh and bone and bullshit right into the me that’s there,
the one I don’t even see myself.
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