Pebbles
I
Gloss and Glass
I run my hand along the glass of my window. Cool glassy frost is encasing my pane: instant attraction from glass to glass. Beyond the windowpane, thick sheets of snow made their mark on the sidewalk. Each coat was a soft pillow of cleverly discrete, hypnotic designs. They beckoned you to come lose yourself in their pale folds. Hurriedly you would heed the warning and drag me out to the vacant sidewalk, void of all traffic and people. While in our pajamas, I would threaten to inflict disgustingly immense pain on you while you pelted me with the snow, interrupting their delicate pattern and smooth, untroubled space. I would counterattack, listening to the "swoosh-swoosh" of snow in my shoes or nestled somewhere in a pocket of the sweats I wore for pajama bottoms. Afterwards, when we were too tired to yell at the top of our lungs for no reason at all, or our lungs were filled with too much cold air, we'd lie in the snow and just stop- possibly worsening the condition…not that it mattered…not that we cared. Trudging back inside stripped away any energy the snow fight hadn't, but there was a feeling of satisfaction you get knowing that you had fun stuffing snow in someone else's underwear.
All winter we would lie in the snow: just you and me, when it could be helped. On that day and many following, you would hand me smooth cold pebbles of brilliant colors that you had found in the snow and told me they were something casual and normal I could collect. "You need a good collection…something normal," you said.
Then in an instant, there were no more pebbles. There were no more romps in the snow, or slushy wet feelings in my shoes after lying in the snow for hours at a time. My hand was empty the following afternoon when you left me with no play fight. I wondered where you were, where my pebble had gone, and where my promise for a play fight in the snow had been lost and forgotten. Did you forget? Were you being held up at the Digital Bean with Lizzie? Did your parents bring you along with them to the airport before they entrusted you with the house for the weekend?
It took me several hours to find that you had taken your life hours after you gave me that last glossy stone and your parents had left for the airport. But don't worry. I found you and made up for the pebble you hadn't given me yourself. There was another one, lying lonely and forgotten on your palm, covered in your blood.