The air is nice and crisp. The snow gently falls upon my head, getting stuck in my hair. I shove my hands into my pockets, knowing it won’t do anything against the cold.

I see her.

Not like I haven’t seen her before.. I just haven’t seen her like this..

Cold. Beautiful… alone.

“You know… last I heard, you were dead” I say to her with a slight smirk.

“Far from it, sir.” She thrusts her arms out to the side and looks up closing her eyes and spinning. I give her another smirk, “You are just as adorable as I remember you.. how are you doing?”

She stops spinning and lazily drops her arms. “After 4 years, you are SERIOUSLY going to ask the most boring question in existance? You aren’t even going to ask me where I’ve been? You, sir, have lost your touch. I expected more from you”

“Then I’ll just rephrase… How WERE you doing?

She gives a giggle and wraps her arms around me. “I’m okay. Life has this way of throwing you through the biggest loops, and expects you to survive. Work sucks, but at least i have a job. You know, there’s only so much an associates in ‘general education’ can get you in life. I am moving into an apartment next week. Fuckin one bedroom, but it’s a place to stay. Been single a few months.. but I’m sure you don’t care about that?”

I open my eyes a little wider. “what makes you say that? I want to hear ALL about your wonderful adventures with the boys and girls.”

She shakes her head smiling. “No you don’t. You just wanna know if I am emotionally stable enough to ask me out on a date.”

I snap my fingers playfull. “Darn.. ya got me.” I look into her eyes, moving a piece of her hair out of her face. “I think I might just take a chance and ask you out to some coffee.”

“I can’t. I need to get to class.”

“That’s a lie.”

“My dog needs to go on a walk”

“You hate pets.”

“I’m gay?”

“…..”

She lets out a long sigh. We start walking down the sidewalk towards the nearest coffeeshop.

“I’m not.. you know.” She says after a few minutes.

“Not.. what?” I reply, genuinely curious.

“Emotionally stable.” she looks down. “The last guy I dated left me for some 18 year old…”

“Well,” i say taking a deep breath, “Seeing as we aren’t dating… i think you don’t have to worry about that.”

She smiles and grabs my hand.

The snow is falling harder now. Luckily, we are not in it. We are watching each speckled flurry of white fall upon the what-used-to-be black top. I sip my mocha as she stirs her hot tea.

“Do you remember,” I say with a tone that could be reminiscent of an an excited kid, ” like, 4 years ago when that HUGE snowstorm came through?”

She smiled, “Yes, how could I forget? The apartment I was in had no heat.. That was probably the most miserable week of my life.” She rolls her eyes and tilts her head like she was remembering something.

She blinks after a few seconds and states,” Actually, my girlfriend at the time left this beautiful red rose on the porch. I’m surprised she actually did that. I mean, she didn’t even have a car! But she walked 15 blocks, in the snow just to do that and i felt like the luckiest girl in the world.. Too bad she didn’t stick around…”

I laugh a bit, and sipped my mocha. “Yeah! I remember that! I was talking to you online when that happened. That was the same day my bike decided it didn’t want to be a bike anymore, but a lovely thing with one tire.”

“Aww, I’m sorry..” She apologizes. Why was she apologizing I started thinking to myself…

“Why are you apologizing?”

“huh?” She replies, obviously caught off guard.

“You said you were sorry. You obviously had nothing to do with it, besides that was FOUR years ago. I have a car now.” It was obvious I was a little annoyed.

She looks a little confused and hurt,” You realize I say that because I don’t know what else to say. You have this way of getting people to feel sorry for you, and then when they do, you don’t want anything to do with it. I remember later that night, ya know. You were a real dick.”

I silently sip my mocha. I too remember that night.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ambiguous_Jester: Hey. Are you busy tonight?

Lost_Girls_Bite_Tires: Nope. Work is cancelled, house is freezing, and my liquor cabinet needs to be raided.

Ambiguous_Jester: I VOLUNTEER! I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE!

Lost_Girls_Bite_Tires: Huh?

Ambiguous_Jester: >.< Nevermind. Book reference.. you probably don’t get it. Hunger Games. I’m kinda obsessed….

Lost_Girls_Bite_Tires: haha. Okay, nerd. You wanna come over?

Ambiguous_Jester: Of course… but could you pick me up.. my bikewheel no longer exists..

Lost_Girls_Bite_Tires: K. I’ll be there in about 30 minutes. Gotta throw on some pants.

Ambiguous_Jester: Oh baby :]

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thirty minutes later she arrived at my house. I lived about 20 minutes walking distance, but the snow messed up any chance of that. Besides, my bike was broken. I hopped in the car.

“I really hope you didn’t speed. It’s icey out, and I fear for our safety” I smirked.

“Are you saying I am a bad driver?” She smirked back at me.

“NO. Why would I say that?” I smirked still

“Dick.” Oh that smirk.

We headed back to her house, the sound of techno softly playing out of the speakers. The entire city looked like a different place. I barely recognized it. Everything was white. The tall buildings rising out of the white mounds reminded me of what was my city, but the ground was just too clean. It was beautiful.

We carefully walked up the stairs to her porch and enter her house. I take off my hoodie and toss it on her couch. I notice the rose. “Who got you that?” I asked.

“I found it on my porch. I think my girlfriend left it.” She was smiling as she brought back two shots of what I assumed to be rum.

“Peach shnapps?” She asked me. You know what they say about assuming….

“Um.. yeah?” I said as if to say “Duh?”

We took the shots. They down smoothly and I slowly felt my body get a little warmer. I decided to tell her the one thing that has been on my mind.

“She called again.” I said after another shot.

“Who? Your ex? She’s a bitch.”

We had moved upstairs to her room, where a big tv and a video game console sat in front of us. We were playing some zombie game. It was mind numbing. If only I could have said the same about the shots.

“She yelled at me. Said I was good for nothing, worthless, and will amount to nothing. I couldn’t say anything back…” I choked back a cough.

“What?! Man, you better be lucky she isn’t anywhere within reach right now. I mean, not only is she wrong, but she is ignorant.” She had paused the game.

I looked over at her with eyebrows raised.

We kissed.

We pull away, I am obviously blushing.

It’s the alcohol. It’s got to be the alcohol. Alcohol makes you blush. Kissing a girl you like also makes you blush. Alcohol makes you kiss the girl…. The Boy you…… It’s the alcohol.

“I have to go.” I said. I got up and ran downstairs, grabbing my hoodie off the couch, and I was out the door into the snow. I didn’t care that I was tipsy. I didn’t care that it was cold. I just wanted to be as far away from… it…. as possible..

~~~~~~~~~~

My Mocha is gone. We sit in silence for a while. I know she wasn’t always this beautiful woman I had met many years ago. I had figured it out a few days after we started talking. I don’t know why it didn’t phase me. Maybe because nothing really phased me anymore.

“You walked out on me. I thought we were friends.” she is still a little irrate.

“We were drunk… I was confused.. i’m so sorry” I don’t know what else to say

“And why the sudden kindness? Huh? Why would you, of all people show kindness to a freak like me? Do you realize how much that hurt!? How much I cried over you? I liked you, you asshole.” She gets up and starts to walk off. Tears are forming under her eyes

“Hey, don’t go” I put my hand on her shoulder. She stops and pushes it away. She starts walking towards the door. I have to tell her….

“I LEFT YOU THE ROSE!”

She stops and turns around, confusion on her face. “My girlfriend left that for me. She even told me it was her.”

“Well your girlfriend lied.“ I reply with confidence in my voice. "Remember how my bike was broken? It’s because I rode it all the way to your house to leave you that rose. Hit a pothole on the way back…”

Tears were streaming down her face.

“You did that for me? And then you kissed me and ran away? That doesn’t make any sense.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“I was scared. I’ve never kissed a-” I stopped so I could choose my next words carefully.

She finished my sentence: “A boy.” I nod slightly. She walks up to me and wrapped her arms around my waste and put the side of her head into my chest, still slightly sniffling.

I wrap my arms around her and kiss the top of her head. I did miss her. She looks up at me with watery eyes and in that moment I say the two words that I will never regret to this day. “Fuck It.”

We kiss long and passionately. I dont care what once stood between her legs. I don’t care what other people thought. I don’t care about all the shit I could get from this. I just care about her.

We end the kiss. I am blushing. No alcohol this time. Just pure joy.

The End