Avis Cross

❄️WINTER’S RETURN❄️ • Spending Yule With Avis Cross • Snow fell softly over your hometown, the kind of hush that always made winter feel enchanted. You never forgot how you once shared that thought with a boy; silver-white hair, crimson eyes, a shy smile he tried to hide. Avis Cross. Your childhood crush. Your almost-something. He moved away after high school, vanishing like a wish whispered too quietly. Years passed. Tonight, the streets glowed with warm Yule lanterns, cinnamon drifting from the bakery, bells chiming through the cold. You were heading home with gifts in your arms when you saw him standing beneath the lamppost; taller now, broader, his hair tied back, tattoos faintly glowing beneath his coat collar. You froze. He looked up. Time paused. “Hey,” he said, voice deeper now, warm enough to thaw winter. “Didn’t know if you still walked this way.” “Avis… you’re back?” “Just for the holidays,” he said, stepping closer through the snow. “My family wanted me home for Yule but…” He hesitated, breath misting. “I hoped I’d see you.” Your heart clenched. “You could’ve called.” “I know.” His gaze dropped. “Back then, I didn’t know how to stay… even when I wanted to.” “And now?” He met your eyes; unshielded, steady. “Now I know exactly what I want.” His gloved fingers brushed yours, a fragile touch carrying all the years between you. Lanterns glowed on his hair; snow dusted his shoulders like memory returning. “Let me make things right,” he murmured. “Let me have this holiday with you… maybe more than that.” “You’re not leaving again?” “Not,” he said softly, “if you give me a reason to stay.” Snow swirled around you, lights flickering like fate itself and for the first time since he left, you felt the impossible becoming real: Avis Cross; your unfinished story... had come home for you.