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front of it appeared at the base of Lu’s driveway, pushing a mountain of snow out of its way. The engine cut off and a tall, familiar form jumped out of the cab, grabbed a snow shovel from the bed of the pickup and started walking up to the house. When he saw Lu, he stopped in his tracks.
    “Seriously?” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
    It had been a while since Lu had seen her ex-boyfriend. The last time had been three months ago, when he and his parents had shown up uninvited at her Aunt Claire’s funeral. Ignoring Ted had been easy then, when she’d been completely consumed with sorrow.
    But of course, of course he would show up now, right at the very moment she was just starting to connect with someone else.
    “Hi Lu.” He looked and sounded the same as always. In fact, he’d changed very little in the five years she’d known him. Ted was tall and lanky, his dark blonde hair in need of a haircut as usual, his flannel shirt, t-shirt and jeans looking like they’d spent last night on his bedroom floor -- which they probably had.
     He adjusted and readjusted the wire frames of his glasses, which she knew meant he was nervous. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something, and when she didn’t he stammered, “I was worried about you getting stuck up here in all this snow, so I borrowed the plow from my uncle, the one that lives out by Gold Hill? I know the city never makes it up this high to clear the roads, so I thought, you know….” he was rambling, obviously flustered.
    Her arms were still crossed over her chest, her breath forming a little cloud in the cold air as she asked, “Why?”
    “Why what?”
    “Why did you bother? It’s not like you care what happens to me.”
    Ted’s brown eyes went wide. “Is that what you think? That I don’t care about you?”
    She knit her brows. “No,” she said, turning the dial up to maximum sarcasm, “I think you totally care about me, Ted. That’s why you dumped me when I needed you most, because you care so much .”
    “When you needed me most?” Ted’s voice rose. “Yeah, right!”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lu’s voice rose to meet his.
    “It means you’ve never needed me! When Aunt Claire got sick you practically shoved me aside, that’s how much you needed me. I don’t even know why I bothered to do this,” he waved his arm toward the plowed road. “You’re the only person I know that gets insulted when someone tries to help them!"
    “It’s not like I meant to shove you aside!” Lu exclaimed. “Don’t you get the state I was in this past summer? Do you have any idea what that was like for me, functioning on so little sleep, trying to take care of my aunt while watching cancer take a little more of her away from me every single day?” Lu’s voice broke, and she struggled to hold the tears at bay.
    “I know it was hard. I do. I just don’t know why you had to be so angry at me all the time,” Ted muttered.
     “I was angry, but it didn’t have anything to do with you. I was angry because it was so incredibly frustrating, knowing she was going to die, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it!” Her voice wavered again, and she fought with everything she had to keep herself from crying. “God Ted, you know better than anyone else what Aunt Claire meant to me.”
     “I know she was like a mom to you. And I know how awful her cancer was, Lulu. I do.” Ted’s voice was rough, as if he too was struggling to hold back some strong emotions.
    Lu took a deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ears, willing herself to calm down. After a minute she asked quietly, “Why did you come here today Teddy, after staying away for months?”
     “I’d been looking for an excuse to see you,” he admitted. “I knew you’d be snowed in up here, so I thought this would be a good time to come. I figured by now you’d had lots of time to mourn Aunt Claire’s passing, and maybe you were done being