CHAPTER 4 : Spanakopita and Snow

The weeks that followed were like waking up from a bad dream into something perfect.

I still waited for Elaine at the bus stop every morning, but now she held my hand while we walked. I still made her spanakopita—though now she helped me in the kitchen, her hands covered in flour as she tried (and failed) to fold the phyllo dough correctly. I still sat through her art exhibitions, but now she pulled me up on stage to thank me, saying “This one’s for the boy who believed in me before I believed in myself.”

December came fast, bringing snow that turned Moscow into a white fairy tale. Elaine had never seen snow before moving from Greece, and she spent every free moment outside, catching flakes on her tongue and building tiny snowmen in the courtyard. I watched her from the bench under the pine tree, my heart so full it felt like it might burst.

“Kei, come help me!” she called, waving me over. “I want to make one that looks like you—big and warm and with a silly smile.”

I stood up and walked over, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. She leaned back against me, and I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I love you,” I said, the words coming easily now. “I never want to stop saying that.”

“I never want you to stop hearing it,” she replied, turning in my arms to look at me. “Kei… do you ever feel like we’ve done this before? Like we’ve been here, under the snow, holding each other like this?”

I thought about the grave in Athens, about the cold marble under my fingers. I thought about the letter that had been lost to the rain. “Sometimes,” I said carefully. “But maybe that’s just because this feels like where we were always supposed to be.”

She nodded, resting her head on my chest. “I think you’re right. My grandmother used to say that some people are meant to find each other—even if they get lost along the way.”

That night, her parents invited me over for dinner. Her father, a tall man with kind eyes and a thick Greek accent, pulled me aside after we’d eaten. “Keith,” he said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “I know you care about my daughter. I’ve seen how you look at her—like she’s the answer to every question you’ve ever had.”

“I do care about her,” I said, my voice steady. “More than anything in the world.”

He smiled, nodding slowly. “Good. Because she cares about you too. And I think… I think you make her feel like she’s home, even when she’s thousands of miles away from Greece.”

After dinner, Elaine showed me her room—walls covered in paintings of Moscow and Athens, of pine trees and olive groves. She pulled out a sketchbook I’d never seen before, flipping to a page filled with drawings of me: laughing, studying, making spanakopita.

“I’ve been drawing you since the day we met,” she said, her cheeks pink. “I just… never showed you. I was too scared you’d think I was the clingy one.”

I pulled her close, kissing her forehead. “I’d never think that,” I said. “I’d think it meant we’re perfect for each other.”

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