ice palace

Ellie hated driving when the streets were snow packed. Thankfully, her father had made sure her tires were ready for such roads. Really, she loved her car. She was so careful to keep it clean. She wanted it to stay beautiful as long as possible. Hopefully, no one would ask her a ride home from work. All Ellie wanted to do was to be with herself, lately in her favorite possession.

She kept missing Elliot at work which was fine with her. It didn't matter if she saw him again. Hopefully, never. OK, yes, she did want to see him, but not really. Ellie was pretty sure he'd moved on. Although, everyone at work was on alert of his flirting capablities now. Amber had quit. She was going back to college out of state. The rest were avoiding him. He seemed aloof, as well.

Ellie was pretty sure he got the memo on dating in the work place. For all she knew, maybe he'd made up with Dora, but she'd gone back to some arts school in Grand Rapids. Perhaps he'd decided to join her.

Ellie hated these sort of mysteries occupying her time at work. Especially when she needed to be checking about skeins of yarn that needed to go on sale. She needed these things to do so she wouldn't worry if Eric was OK or not.

He was so good at not being in the hallway the same time she was at school. It had shocked her that he'd pulled a vanishing act like this. At least it gave her no reason to have to think up anything to say if she saw him. But it hurt that he didn't even want to see her even in passing. It was so puzzling. Even devastating.

She didn't want to miss him, but she did.

Should she keep all the stuff he gave her? The cd mixes. The clothes. The jewelry. Even his Christmas presents? She put them all in a box and stored them away in her closet. But there were so many times she wanted to look at these things.

What had she done? She'd cheated on him. It was the right thing to do. Yet....it felt so unfinished. So horrible. Deep inside, she longed for this conversation with him, and yet it didn't seem possible to have because she didn't want to make things worse than they already were.

Why was everything becoming so cold and somber now? There was nothing pretty about an ice palace, especially in the dead of winter.