Keep My Blood Cool

Chapter Twenty-Four

Winter seemed to drag itself no matter how much Savannah wanted it to be over it. She missed the sun, its warmth and a blue cloudless sky. She was sick of feeling cold and having to wear a thousand layers of clothes. She couldn't wait for Spring to arrive with all its shine and glory. She couldn't wait for the flowers to start blooming and the birds to reveal their wonderful singing.

Of course, she knew very well that as much as she loved the sun and the warmer seasons, it was Romeo's warmth she missed the most. She never really liked Winter, even when she lived back at the farm, but this seemed to be the coldest and greyest of them all. She couldn't wait for it to be over, as if the end of Winter symbolized her return to her beloved Romeo.

She thought it would get easier with time, but in fact it got harder and harder each day. No matter how many goals she accomplished, they still felt half-empty because she wasn't sharing them with Romeo. In a way, Savannah saw that as a good sign. After all, one of Romeo's biggest fears was that the distance would make their feelings for each other fade. There was a point during her journey she started fearing the same, but now she saw that would never happen. She would never stop loving Romeo, and there was no time and space that could ever erase that. And she was sure it was the same for him, too.

Maybe enough time had passed. Maybe she had organized her thoughts and feelings well enough and was now ready to work on their relationship again. She had already crossed almost half of the things on her list, her classes and studies were going well and her social life was thriving. She had found a perfect balance between all the plates in her life and was more than willing to throw Romeo back in the mix. She was sure that now she could make everything work without neglecting one or the other.

So, why didn't she call him? Why didn't she run up to his house, throw herself into his arms and tell him she loved him and would never want to be apart from him again? Well, in all truth, she felt... awkward. It had been a very long time since she ever saw him or even heard his voice, so she didn't really know how to approach him now. And as sure as she was of Romeo's love for her, she couldn't help but feel some anxiety about the whole thing. What if now he was the one who didn't feel ready to get back together? What if he was still mad at her? What if he met someone else? What if he didn't want to get back together anymore? As much as she believed these were baseless thoughts, they still worried her. It was enough to keep her from speaking to him, so she always ended up procrastinating on getting back together.

That wasn't the only thing that worried her. There was also Penelope. She still thought she broke up with Romeo and Savannah didn't know how her friend would react to the truth, especially now that it had been so long. Even if she pretended she had broken up with him but decided to get back together, which would make her a terrible friend, Savannah was sure Penelope would never accept that. Which Savannah understood. Romeo had been terrible with her and Penelope was only trying to prevent the same thing from happening to her. She couldn't trust him, and Savannah wouldn't either if she had been through the same situation. However, Savannah knew Romeo better than anyone and she knew he would never make his old mistakes again. The hard part was, how could she show that to Penelope?

It was a lot and Savannah was starting to feel a little lost. The fact every time she tried to go on a walk to think things over, she could see her own breath freezing didn't help. She knew she was reflecting her frustrations in Winter and that wasn't fair. Her life problems had nothing to do with the season, it just felt nice to have something to blame and be angry to besides herself.