Climb | ✔

Chapter 33 | Winter

December was a time in Winter's life that always presented as a period of busyness. It started with her birthday, and rose through the end-of-semester projects and exams, ending finally with the glamour of the coming holidays. At present, Winter was in the middle of the rising action, her head buried in a textbook, cramming a semester's worth of formulas in her tired brain.

Her phone rang, breaking her concentration, and she answered without so much as a glance at the ID.

"Hello?"

"Winter," her dad began, a little surprised at her answer.

Winter sighed, but a part of her knew that had she really wanted to avoid speaking with him today, she'd have made sure of it.

"Hi," she responded tersely.

"H-Hi. How are you?"

"Fine."

"That's good to hear. We haven't spoken since your birthday. I was really getting lonely."

Winter rolled her eyes at the mention of their last conversation. It had come about only with Rose as the mediator, and consisted of little but a 'happy birthday,' a 'thanks,' and some money wired into Winter's bank account. The worst part of it all was that it was not unlike any of Winter's birthdays prior.

"Mhmm," said Winter, returning her attention to her book.

"Winter, we really need to talk."

Winter put down the pencil she had just picked up and looked straight ahead at the blank wall in front of her. Perhaps she had forgotten that she was talking over the phone, because she made an annoyed, narrow expression that her father could not see.

In her silence, John continued, "I don't want things to continue like this. I don't want to lose you. Not like-" he paused, and Winter could hear the words caught in his throat. "Not like your mother. I was wrong. I was wrong for putting everything that I did on you. I reacted out of the fear that you would end up like her, but I was so, so wrong.

"If you got anything from her, it was only the good parts," he admitted.

The quiet that followed was long and weighty as Winter digested all that he'd said. She felt her throat constrict and the wall in front of her became blurry and translucent.

"So you'll let me go to NYU?" she asked shakily, her tears spilling over in the process. Would her father finally support her?

John couldn't help the short beat of a laugh that escaped him, and his heart squeezed from his daughter's vulnerability. "Yes. Yes, of course, Winter. From now on, whatever you want."

Winter whimpered and sniffled, rubbing at her eyes as she nodded and the pent-up emotions and stress poured from her. A few moments of silence passed on in this way until she opened her mouth to speak.

"I love you, dad-"

"I love you, Winter-"

They paused again and laughed, and for the first time in a long time, Winter and her father felt like father and daughter in its truest form.

On the last day of classes, and as exam week loomed over the horizon of the weekend, Murdoch and Winter made plans to study for their statistics class together.

When Murdoch pulled into the back of Rose Antiques, he was surprised to find the storefront darkened and closed. Though, as Winter unlocked the doors and let him in, he had to admit that the shop had a whimsical, mildly eerie charm to it in the absence of human disturbance. The pink-purple hue of the sky fading into the quiet winter night poured in over the collection of antique furniture, dying everything in a blushing purple color. Every once in a while, a chandelier or windchime hung along the ceiling would catch the sunset at just the right angle, casting a flash of bright red light across the tops of old tables and cabinets.