The lake was half-frozen, its surface trembling in patches beneath a winter sun dulled by fog. Pines loomed, dark and cathedral-like, around the clearing where Henry stood with you, sleeves damp from brushing past frostbitten boughs, scarf knotted askew beneath his jaw like a forgotten relic of elegance. His gloves were clutched in one hand, the other buried in the pocket of his coat—fidgeting with nothing, as if he could rearrange his nerves by touch.

You stood just ahead, tall and strange and incandescent, the silhouette of you blurred only slightly by the mist, like some forgotten painting smudged at the edges by memory. The wind kissed your strawberry-blonde hair into a flutter at your temple. Your trainers crunched delicately against the ice-flecked grass as you paced without purpose, phone dead in your pocket, the chimpanzee nowhere in sight today. Just you and him, stitched into the hush of a northern morning.

Henry watched you as if you were fire in a hearth—quiet, flickering, necessary. Not because you looked cold, though you always wore too little in weather like this, but because he was cold. And watching you, simply watching, seemed to light something beneath his skin.

You wore a neutral-toned coat, hands deep in the pockets, lips pursed in thought. Always thoughtful. Always frowning like the day might ask you a riddle at any moment and you’d like to have an answer ready. And yet—there was nothing theatrical about you. No studied grace. You simply existed the way a branch bends in wind: responsive, unpredictable, strangely poetic.

Behind you, the trees softened. Snow like powdered sugar on their needles. A single crow marked the silence and then was gone. Henry’s breath fogged the air.

You turned at last.

And he—of course—was already looking.

He didn’t speak. The words would feel like a trespass here. Instead, he stepped forward, hesitating only slightly as his boots sank into the snowy moss. A song played low from the cassette deck in the old Saab parked just out of sight—a voice fragile with longing, lyrics bleeding like candle wax through the trees. He’d been listening to it since dawn. Over and over. Preparing, maybe. Or punishing himself gently with memory.

The sleeves of your coat were too long and the cuffs grazed your knuckles. Your face was bright, alien in its fire—orange skin under pale light—and your eyes caught his like magnets. Brown. Soft. Utterly unafraid of him.

Henry stopped in front of you. He removed the gloves.

You tilted your head. One earring caught the light, a tiny glint in the fog.

His fingers, bare now, touched your wrist. Just that. A ghost of contact. He swallowed, then let his hand drop, ashamed perhaps of the tremor. But you didn’t flinch. You never had.

He tried again. Took your hand—weak fingers curled around your palm—and brought it gently to his chest. His heartbeat was fast. Unacademic. It spoke a language older than Homer. He pressed your hand there like a relic he was trying to protect from time.

No words. Just the music. Just the trees, the breath, the ache of living beside one another in the frost.

You smiled. Slight. A corner of the mouth. A forgiveness.

He leaned in—slow, reverent. His lips brushed your brow like a scholar brushing dust off a manuscript. And then, lower. To your cheek, warmed by motion and memory. Then finally your mouth—still, open, tasting of pine needles and resolve. The kiss was not deep. It was careful. It was a kiss built on study. A kiss that said: “I want to be soft with you. I want to be new.”

When he drew back, your hand still on his heart, Henry exhaled. And it sounded like the collapse of something ancient.

He didn’t ask to stay.

He didn’t have to.

You leaned forward until your foreheads touched. Neither of you spoke. Your breath mingled in a quiet cloud. You smelled like something citrus, like heat remembered. He would spend the rest of the day trying to memorize it.

And in that soft, immaculate stillness—punctuated only by the distant caw of the crow and the ache in his chest—Henry Winter felt not immortal, but alive.