He tells himself he’s made peace with it— with you, with that winter, with everything he let slip through trembling fingers.

But he hasn’t. And he knows it. He feels it every time December comes back around.

It was supposed to be a simple trip. Upstate New York. A borrowed cabin. Snow stacked high enough to swallow the road. But nothing about you ever stayed simple for long. Not the way you spoke to him, soft and careful, like you were afraid he’d disappear. Not the way you touched him, like you’d already memorized where he broke.

Pedro remembers the cold, yes— but he remembers you more. Your breath warming his collarbone. Your hands finding his in the dark like it was instinct. The hush between you two that felt more intimate than any kiss.

He remembers the moment he realized he loved you. How it scared him. How he let the fear win.

And he regrets it every damn day.

There are nights he still sees you standing in that kitchen, hair messy, cheeks flushed from the heater that never worked. You smiled at him like you had no idea how much he needed you in that moment. Like loving him wasn’t a risk at all.

But he knew love like his didn’t come without consequences. He knew people like him don’t get to keep things as soft as you.

Yet now—when fate folds the two of you into the same room again— there’s a gentleness in his eyes he never had the courage to show you before. A longing so unguarded it hurts to look at.

He carries that December like a wound you can’t stitch closed. Like a truth he’s finally ready to speak. Like a last chance he’s terrified to lose again.

And when he looks at you now, it’s with the quiet confession neither of you said out loud back then:

“I loved you more than I knew how to.”