Cold Feet -

The door was still open. The light was still on. And for the first time in a long time, Emma didn’t feel like a ghost.

Emma stared at the socks. Then at him. Then at the door to the house they’d bought together, the one with the leaky faucet and the crooked shelf and the bedroom where they’d stopped sleeping close.

“You told me,” Mark said, “that your feet were cold because you’d forgotten your wool socks. But the rest of you was warm. And that was enough.”

Mark blinked. “What?”

“I don’t know when my feet got cold again,” Mark said. “But I think… I think maybe they’ve been cold for a while. And I just kept walking anyway.”

Emma turned to look at him. The porch light caught the side of his face, the stubble he hadn’t shaved in three days, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes that hadn’t been there on their wedding day.

When he finished, he didn’t let go. He held her ankles, his head bowed, and she saw his shoulders shake once, twice. Cold Feet

She hadn’t meant to say I feel like a ghost in my own house . But she had. And Mark hadn’t denied it. He’d just looked at her with that new, tired expression—the one that said here we go again —and walked away.

“I’m not good at this,” Mark said quietly. “The talking. The… feeling stuff out loud. You know that.”

For a second, he didn’t move. Then he shifted onto his knees on the cold porch, took her bare foot in his hands—her feet were freezing, she realized, she hadn’t even noticed—and slowly, carefully, pulled the old wool sock over her toes, her arch, her heel. He did the same with the other foot. His fingers were clumsy. His knuckles were white with cold. The door was still open

The argument ended the way all their arguments ended now: with the soft click of a door and the louder silence that followed. Emma stood on the porch, arms crossed, watching her breath fog in the October chill. Inside, the warm light of the kitchen framed Mark’s silhouette as he scraped cold lasagna into the trash.

She felt her feet. Warm.

Emma pulled out her phone. Not to call anyone. Just to look. Emma stared at the socks

The door creaked behind her.

She remembered. She’d meant it as a joke. But he’d taken off his own boots, pulled off his thick wool socks, and knelt in the snow to put them on her feet. His hands had been red and shaking. His smile had been the warmest thing she’d ever seen.