Dancing down the snowy sidewalk, leaving a trail of soft footprints behind she twirled and let the snow fall down onto her warm pink cheeks, her black hair streamed behind her like a long ribbon reminiscent of storm clouds and the black of his coat.
She had once buried her head in the cream fur of his warm shoulder, letting her hair cover her face and the silver around her neck bounce against his bare skin. He would shudder, the cold metal just barely touching him. It was so cold; it felt as though a thousand tiny snowdrops fell down from his hair onto his chest.
She looked up, falling into his translucent eyes. Smiling angelically, she pressed one cold white finger against his two pale lips. They were chapped and delicate, almost as if they were her own.
Pressing her lips tighter together, she still let her finger rest lightly on his lips. One white wine finger, long and flawless touching chapped silk that opened just so to breathe every now and again. A perfect fingernail barely touched the skin above his lip, carefully avoiding the tip of his nose.
Silence.
It's cold, despite the little fire quietly burning in the background, snow falling on the skylight above, just lightly. Seemingly falling onto them, onto their shoulders and on their dark hair, leaving only the perfect image of a finger and two pale lips belonging to a silent man and an angel.
The finger trails off of the lips and down to a hand. In the dark, there is no difference between the two. They seem to be the same size and color and rest lightly together, holding on for tomorrow and forever.
The fire begins to crackle, red sparks emitting from a thick gray smoke, leaving more things charred then the couple had imagined. It blazed on throughout the entire night; it's red-orange flames seeming to rise out of nowhere.
Then in the morning it stopped.
He woke up, cream fur covering his shoulder blades, the rest of him drowned in a pool of darkness. He looked up at the skylight to see that there was no more snow, it seemed to have stopped suddenly, revealing a light blue sky and green leaves dancing in a light spring breeze.
He looked over from where he was sitting, only to see no one. She was gone, leaving only one silver ring on the pillow. Staring down at it, he felt the place on his chest where the cold metal hit last night, feeling like a thousand cool knives piercing him, as ice had once before.
He looked down at his chest only to realize where he was touching was his heart. He closed his eyes, flashes of last night come back to him, when the finger pressed against his lips had trailed off down to his hand, which he studied now closer than ever.
Finally standing up off of the white cotton sheets, his eyes surveyed the room, praying she hadn't left him. He hoped this was a dream as he pinched himself over and over again and then stopped and looked out into the distance. His eyes were sad, the sparks he knew were in them at one point had disappeared.
Spring was surprisingly saddening, trees brushing against the window and bluebirds fluttering away into the crystal orange sun, clashing against the light blue of her dress as the sky.
His sad eyes grew wider as he jumped up and ran. It wouldn't take long to find her, she was never far away. He seemed to fly down the sidewalks, passing cities of eternal night and parks full of the bluebirds that had flown up to the orange sun. He flew past field after field until he finally found her.
She was sitting amidst the flowers, strands of her dark hair fluttering away from her face, her skin not so ghostly white against the sunflowers, roses making her cheeks seem pink. Her eyes matched the violets against the white oleanders. Tulips seemed to match the color of her own two lips, pale and lovely.
"I'll be waiting here…"
He waited for her response, but she just cocked her head to the side and continued to stare off into the vast field of hibiscus and lily. However, he remained undiscouraged and continued, a bit louder.
"I be waiting for you… here…"
She brought her knees up by her stomach and hugged them to herself, running a white hand across her thigh and onto a knee. The other hand was placed under her chin as she continued her blank stare into the flower storm.
"If you come here"
No response.
"You'll find me."
She finally turned around and looked at him, her violet eyes blinking forever into his memory. Her hair blew away from her face as she opened her mouth slightly, still not whispering a word to him. He tried to speak louder, but the vision of the girl remained in his mind, and his last words only came out as a whisper.
"I promise…"
She walked over to him; her feet seemed to never touch the ground. She was almost suspended in time, her sky blue sweater dusting against the pink rose petals that had settled when the wind stopped. She blinked her eyes open at him and took his hand in hers.
"Are you okay?"
He asked just lightly, the words falling off of his lips and past her dark hair into her ear. She in turn brought his hand up by his face and placed her hand on his own.
They were different in the light.
Her hands were smaller and whiter than his, with long lady-like fingers and fingernails that seemed perfect, just the right length and clean. It was smooth, dusted with chamomile and jasmine blossoms.
His hand was bigger and a bit darker than hers, the fingernails dirty and stubbly, as was the skin. It was rough and dirty, and his fingers were very rough, the underside like worn leather.
They were cream and leather. Different. He understood suddenly, and stared into her almond eyes, trying to bring her back, trying not to push her away. Words flew through his mind, yet he stumbled to speak. He couldn't get a single word out of the pale lips the ghostly fingers once rested on.
Their hands stayed together for one second.
He was about to pull her in and never let go, about to pull her in and float down the crowded streets with her in his arms, back to last night. He would try to stay up as long as he could, telling her faerie tales and wishing on snowflakes that looked like stars as they fell upon the skylight.
It seemed as though they were rushing through space, the stars flying at them as they fell asleep on his bed, fire crackling. He hadn't stayed up; he had fallen into a dreamless sleep before she had.
She pulled her hand away, the sun dancing on it as she did. The sun seemed to make her hand flutter as she recoiled and pushed him away lightly, mouthing one word.
He blinked his iridescent blue-green eyes at her one last time; they were now filled with tears the same color falling lightly down his chest.
Down his heart.
She turned away and into a new storm of rose petals, swirling around her as if she were engulfed in the middle of a tornado. She held onto a long white ribbon, as she seemed to spin across the field, forever away from him.
He stayed until she walked down the field. He now figured she would live forever with the faeries as her friends and the flowers and butterflies brushing against her eyelids. It would always be a spring day for her as he headed back into eternal darkness and snow alone.
She had never told anyone why she broke off the relationship. It was something that was always with her, even when she was younger. It seemed as though they would always be two different things.
He was darkness and she was light. He was the thorn and she was the flower. Should these things ever merge, it would be a disaster, a mix of chaos and love at the same time. She was confused and left him finally, chasing the faeries into a field of forgetfulness.
She had stayed up that night, packed her things away and doused the fire when she left. She had drawn the blinds, and left the house, melting the snow as her footprints whispered lightly on the ground.
The next day, she had stopped it, and had never missed or thought of his teardrop colored eyes or his cream fur collared jacket for a year now.
Now everyday, she would read from old enchanted faerie tales, fall asleep in the rose petals, dance with the faeries, and eat lilac and chrysanthemum flowers. She made chamomile tea and put sunflowers in her longer black hair that now danced down past her shoulders and reflected in the sun.
She would float across the pool of August, or so she liked to call it. It must've been the way the sun turned orange and the leaves on the trees seemed to turn darker too. She had wished she had someone to share all of it with, aside from the faeries and flowers.
As she sat under a willow one day, letting it sweep across her shoulders as she dangled her legs into the water, she thought of everything but him. As she entered forgetfulness she lost all memory of him.
A spider crept along the rocks up to her light sky blue sweater and sat there for a minute until she noticed and became alarmed. There had never been a spider here before, and it seemed to remind her… of him? She had a flash of memory and saw for an instant a dark black man, catching her.
She jumped away and the spider scurried off back into the water, floated on shore, and continued to step away in a direction she'd never ventured before. Everytime she tried, it turned cold and she moved away back to spring and sunlight.
Now she floated after the spider, trying to follow it forever.
She followed it past poison neon signs and platinum blonde starlets; it suddenly turned night and began to rain glittering crystals down into her hair, which it clashed with. She seemed to go against the darkness more than anyone else, more foreign.
She recognized everything, but was too afraid to stop and reach out and touch anything. Finally, she stopped at a well-blended door, peering into the tiny window and seeing nothing but a blood red wall. She backed away and looked up to see if there was a poison pink sign, which seemed to lurk above most of the places she passed, and there wasn't.
She took in a breath of cool winter air and cautiously opened the door. Her sweater was dragging against the floor, almost soaked with snowflakes and frost, and her hair was damp and cold. She was pink all over because of wandering with no sleeves, her arms felt as if they were burning.
As she stepped past the wall, she leaned around and felt warm and light like she had in forgetfulness. She took in a breath, inhaling the chamomile and honeysuckle scent.
She took a seat on a little black beanbag, a small coffee table in front of it. A girl wearing a silky pink rose petal dress floated over to her and told her that she would bring something to warm her up. This wasn't needed; she was now warm enough, as though June was beating down on her shoulders.
When the girl came back, she sat across from her. The girl had long blonde hair that looked very soft and almost white, and eyes a frozen sad blue. She was a very nice skin tone, and her lips seemed to fit together perfectly. She placed the meal in front of her, and left a note and walked away.
She now picked it up and read an address, memories flooding back to her. She ate the goddess vegetables, which had different flowers than she had ever tasted in them, and left her own note on the table.
Directions to forgetfulness.
As she continued to float down the sidewalk, she couldn't get the vision of the girls sad eyes out of her head, and suddenly wanted to tell her everything and eat flowers with her and make her smile. She wanted to float in the pool of August with her and dance with ribbons and chrysanthemum.
She stopped at a poison pink sign restaurant, and ordered wine as white as her skin. She sketched the girl's eyes onto a napkin and finally came to the address on the paper. She knocked on the door and left the napkin on the doorstep.
He opened the door and took it, reading it and then leaving one teardrop on it as he placed it against his heart. He closed his eyes and took in a breath before closing the door and shivering.
Once inside, he wished it was spring.
She wandered back home into the poison neon signs, dancing with people she never met and staying with men she wished she hadn't danced with. Her eyes grew as sad as the girl's at the restaurant and she began to feel less happy as she floated down the sidewalk.
Eventually, she came across the road to forgetfulness, where the snow became calmer and fell on her eyelashes, protecting the dark eyes that were seeing the rose petal pink girl she met that one time, wandering down the same road she was.
She ran to the girl, faster and faster until it became warmer, the sun melting the snow in her hair, the wind drying it. It reflected once again as she continued to run and finally brush against the rose petal's shoulder, her hand drifting down to the sleeve of the pink dress and bringing a hand up to her face.
She pressed her on hand on it, praying that this was the one person she could dance across the flower field with in a tornado of lilies and roses, because that's what they seemed to be.
Lilies and roses weren't different. The hands fit, both seeming to resemble each other exactly.
It wasn't romantic, but it was a moment in time where they both brought their hands down and hugged each other, both finally finding the person they'd been searching for their entire lives.
It wasn't love, but something so much stronger. It was friendship.
One stood there in a light blue duster, angel wings lightly imprinted on the back, her black hair falling across her face and the other's shoulder, the rings had been lost somewhere over time and weren't there to feel like ice against the other's shoulders. Her eyelashes brushed against the petal dress and her white skin seemed to glow.
The other was taller, her long blonde hair falling around her face, her cheeks pink with the sun and her eyes no longer frozen, but now melted to look less saddened. They were finally happier.
They weren't looking for love this whole time. They'd found what they were looking for.
A best friend.
Together they danced down the sidewalk of forgetfulness, never to travel into the outside world again, and never to speak of him who they both loved but only of the wonderful journeys they had as the lilies and roses brushed past them forever.