text: She would leave. It was the best possible solution to their problems. Who was she kidding? A romantic getaway with a man who had given up months ago couldn't...wouldn't fix their problems. So she made up her mind. At first light she would leave their beautiful chalet and their relationship forever. She sat in the great window of their cabin and watched the sun come up over the silver-tipped mountains. It was amazing how long the sluggish sun took to make its drowsy appearance when the importance of one's fate was at hand. She had never really unpacked because she never really believed that this trip could be anything other than what it was, a final good-bye to a seven-year relationship. But sitting in this big, plush chair, she realized it held her the way he used to hold her. It was warm just like his arms, and she found herself casting a glance to the bedroom where she knew he slept. She hated to admit that she still wanted this from him. The sun creeped its lazy ascension into the world, and she realized the world that surrounded her had transformed over night into a winter white world that she had only seen in pictures. It was a beautiful and a truly breath-taking blanket of pure white. It only made her think of how she'd love to snuggle up next to him, feel his warmth under the covers, but she knew that the words of the past stacked an unbreakable wall between them. The "I could never forgive you" that she'd spoken just days before made her sick to her stomach. She wished she could just simply take it back. How could they go back? So much had been done. So much had been said. She heard him stir. It was as if her hopes and dreams were somehow cast into the room he slept so soundly in. He had no idea that she would be walking out the door in the next few minutes. Maybe she could try, again. Tell him that all she wanted was his love, to forget all the things that had gone wrong over the years. She could forgive him, but there was so much between them that she didn't know if it was possible. "Amy, why are you up..." he said, trailing off. He saw her bag by the door. He instantly knew why. Walking to the window, he looked at the new fallen snow. "Looks like a lot fell over night, huh?" "Yes, it does." She said, still watching the sun rise over the trees. She wouldn't...couldn't look at him. He would see it in her face, the resolve within herself. In the distance, the light of the sun touch the tips of the mountains creating golden peaks where silver tips had once been. She felt her breath catch at the sight, and she exhaled for the first time in months. "It's beautiful, isn't it? It just seems so easy." He said resting his hand on the back of her chair. "What seems easy?" She asked, a little confused at how a sunrise could be easy. "Nature. It isn't hard for the sun to come up. It just does, and then something miraculous, out of the blue happens, like snow. It's the easiest thing. " His eyes were now on his wife. Her eyes were welding with tears. He saw them, but he knew she didn't want him to see them. "Yeah, you're right, Adam. The natural thing isn't hard. Not at all." She wiped the tears that were now streaming down her cheeks. It was so natural for her to love him, but she didn't feel like it was natural for him to love her at all. It certainly wasn't natural to be thinking of leaving him. Here he was talking about the sun and snow, but what about them? She stood up to step closer to the window. The light danced off the snow. She wanted to step out in it, be anywhere that didn't make her feel this way, but she knew that leaving now would be impossible. There was simply too much snow. Adam stepped closer to the window. Taking another step toward his wife, he touched her waist. "Amy...I..." he trailed, pulling her close to him. "No, no..." Amy said, pushing away from him. "What do I have to do? Amy, I'm sorry for the millionth time!" Adam pleading, rushing to pull her into him. "No, Adam!" You don't just get to put a band-aid on our relationship. You don't just get to buy me gifts and take me on trips! You don't just get to say, 'I'm sorry!' Aren't you tired? Like, really tired of the up and downs?" She was looking at him finally. She wanted him to really see her pain. She wanted him to acknowledge her hurting heart. "I am tired. I'm so tired of feeling guilty. I know I've been a terrible husband! I'm tired of trying, and you keep pushing me away. You never gave this trip a chance, Amy. Do you think I don't see this bag? Your bag is packed. Where are you going?" Adam now looked at his wit's end. He was pacing back and forth. But Amy had no words. If she really spoke them, it would be true. There would be no going back. Just like that, seven years would be gone and wasted. So she watched him. She watched his face turn from worry to anger to mere frustration at her none answer. Finally, he walked over to her. "Are you leaving me, Amy?" So they had come to this. She stared into his eyes looking for truth, looking for love, looking for a reason to stay. "You don't want me, do you? Really, Adam. You don't, right? It took us this long to get here. Look at this beautiful place. Look at us. It's literally where I've always wanted to be with you but not like this." Amy cried, shaking her head. "Not like this? What do you mean? Not like me, really trying to love you? I do love you. I want you, and I know you want me! I keep trying to show you, and I just don't know how. I don't know how. I don't know--" Adam gripped his jaw, holding back the tears that threatened to fall. "Not like me feeling heart broken and angry with you! You broke my heart, Adam! I don't know how to be here with you!" Amy sank back down in the chair allowing it to envelop her the way she wished Adam could, but she knew she couldn't...wouldn't let him in. They sat in silence for a moment, both gathering themselves until Adam broke the silence. "Let me love you, Amy." Adam said facing Amy. "That's how to be here with me. You can feel what you want to feel, but please, just let me love you. Let me back into your heart." Amy looked into Adam's eyes and for a moment, her breath caught in her throat as it had before with the sunrise. She exhaled when she finally saw a needing-kind of desperate love in his eyes. She knew it, for it was the kind of love she saw in herself for him. Taking Adam's hand, Amy led him into the bedroom and let him hold her. She let him kiss her. She heard his pleas of love. She kissed him back. She let their love intertwine into something beautiful again until their bodies locked in warm, desperate surrender. And as the snow kept falling outside their chalet, miracle that it was, Amy remembered what it was to love a man who needed her as much as she needed him and just how easy that really was.