She realizes when she stops at the stop-sign that she's completely alone.
Not just in the sense that she is forlorn and friendless, but in that the
world is completely still and silent, and she almost doesn't wish to
breathe. And she's stopped at this stop-sign, but there's nothing to stop
for because right now she's the only one alive. She has nowhere important
to go, nothing to do, and most importantly nothing to care about, and
outside the cold is piercing but numbing, so to her it makes perfect sense
to pull over and step out of the car.
She's pulled up to the curb, right next to the playground of Everwood Elementary. She walks over the grass, which crunches under her feet in the snow and frost, and ambles to the chain-link fence. When she touches it, it's as cold against her fingertips as the ice beneath her feet.
Her eyes scan the familiar swingset that's nearby, and memories wash over her. She remembers that slide. Colin once pushed her off when she was so little, when she said she was too afraid to go, and she yelled at him afterward but admitted that it was fun.
And then there are the swings, where sometimes she'd hang out with Colin and her brother after school when there was nothing to do. Sometimes Colin would push her, so that she flew higher than she could just by pumping her legs, and she'd almost kick the sky with the tip of her shoe.
Those days rested in her memory warm, like sun on the skin or sweet kisses or a summer day. Those were the days when they were alive and happy and young and everything was wonderful. They were cozy, glowing, warm.
Not like the bitter night that surrounds her and freezes her tears to her cheeks as she sobs, weeps, cries out in misery.
*
"Dammit," he mutters far too cheerily as he plucks icicles off the bottom of his car and tosses them over his head. They crash behind him, shatter on the street into a thousand pieces, like glass. Meanwhile, he looks like an idiot, smiling stupidly and taking the time to get the icicles off of his car, but he was walking up to the car and they were there and they were bothering him (this is his car, after all) so he decided to get them off.
Why not?
Maybe he's just in a really good mood.
When he's satisfied himself, he leans back against the car door, grinning. He's panting and his breath turns to mist on the air, makes swirls of nothingness.
He stands up, still beaming a smile that looks strange on him, and wonders to himself why he's caring about his stupid car, the piece of junk. Maybe it goes with the manly agenda, he decides while flinging open the door and getting inside. After all, this grinning, sexually-active Ephram who just dropped Madison off at her house is certainly different from the boy who first received the vehicle in the beginning of the year.
He drives down the abandoned streets at a leisurely pace. The trees are dusted with snow, so white against the black night sky, and all is still. The bright headlights of the car merely observe the silent town, somehow not interrupting with their intensity and brilliance. So he watches, drives. He feels like he hasn't done nothing in a long time.
He meanders for a long time, until he's afraid he's lost. A slight panic sets in, and his heart accelerates, but then he looks to the left and there's a big sign that says "Everwood Elementary." Relieved, his eyes linger, and then he nearly slams onto the break when he sees the hunched, lone figure in the darkness by the playground. To him, maybe that's Amy, breathing little puffs of air into the moonlit shadows. It doesn't make sense, but he's in such a good mood that he pulls over. Stalks across the grass to the fence, whispers gently, "Amy?" She's crying, and when he embraces her comfortingly and his cheek touches a tear it is cold as ice.
*
They've climbed the fence, after somewhat of a struggle. It was Ephram's idea, but after his jean pocket got caught and he looked like a complete idiot, he regrets it. But he just laughs it off, because he's playing savior and trying to make her feel better.
When they manage to get over the barrier, they walk through the mulch to the swings and each get settled on one. Swinging a little, just looking out at the cold night. "So, you gonna tell me what this is about?" There's a pause. She won't look at him, and maybe she really wants to keep this to herself, so he adds quickly, "It's cool, if you don't want to--"
"What is it always about?" The words come out sounding funny; her nose is stuffed up, not just because of the cold, but also because of her recent crying. She sniffles and it sounds hopelessly self-pitying, so she manages a sad smile. "It's always about Colin."
He smirks wryly. "You're right about that." Ever since he met her, nearly every conversation they've had has been about the aforementioned boy. Which should be defined as obsession, but somehow isn't. Maybe it's just love.
"I think we switched places, Ephram," she tells him, in between little sniffs. "Since last year, at this time. Somehow, our roles changed." He looks at her. Pleads an explanation with his eyes. So she continues, "Remember? It was around this time. The ski-trip, Valentine's Day, all that. I had Colin, and I was happy. Like you are now."
She looks at him, and there is a sadness in her brown eyes that couldn't be seen by any other person. Her lip trembles, and he knows her heart is breaking, shattering like ice into a thousand pieces.
He swallows so that his voice won't crack with emotion, and then murmurs, "And what about you?"
She sighs a little. Or maybe she's just breathing. She grips on the chains of the swings tightly. Makes a line in the dirt with her shoe. "I got your role. The loner role." Somehow she manages to laugh, swing over a little and bump her shoulder against his. But Ephram isn't laughing. She stares into his eyes, still smiling a little, with a smile so sad that it isn't a smile at all. "Last year you had Laynie. But you didn't really. You were still alone. That's how it is with me."
"You mean Tommy?" It's wrong, he knows, that he feels so relieved after hearing her words. It's wrong that he lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, slowly, in staccato puffs of air making mist in the sky. Because he has a girlfriend, technically. And he's in love, technically. Something in his head says, But not just in love with Madison.
She nods wordlessly. And Ephram sees her, and suddenly feels her pain, and involuntarily stands up from the swing. It's as though he has no control over his body; he just needs to touch her, and ease her pain, or he'll surely die. He comes up from behind, wraps his arms around her waist in between the chains of the swings, and buries his face in her shoulder. It feels right, as it did when they danced at the wedding, as though they are two halves, separated, and made whole again. Made right again.
He thinks of what she told him. How they've switched places. And it's right, he thinks. Colin didn't know her. So Colin couldn't love her. Just like Madison will never love him.
These dark and bitter thoughts pop into his head without warning, and he pushes them away quickly as he always does, lifts up his head, and finds that Amy is crying. Silently. And smiling at the same time.
Is it wrong to be in love with two people at one time? Ephram doesn't know. But they say that you never stop loving your first love, and he never stopped loving Amy. Even when she told him he needed to find someone like him, when she held him close and closed her eyes and hurt him so badly- -even then he loved her. Even when he lay there in the car, panting, with his deft and agile hands on Madison's warm sleeping body afterward, he loved her. Perhaps he always will.
*
His body is warm, comforting around her, but his eyes, azure and brilliant in the darkness, are like a frosty winter's morning. They're that piece of him that never changed. They are that piece of him that she has become.
When he finally speaks, with his face mere millimeters from hers, his voice is low, hoarse, but strong at the same time. "You know what hasn't changed? You still have me."
Her lips curl a little into a smile, and the tears keep pooling, and fall and fall and fall forever. So cold.
Without warning, he drags his body away from hers, and pushes her. Gently, at first. Then harder. And Amy's soaring. She's plunging through the air- -plummeting but safe, falling and slicing through freezing sky. She swings out her legs, and she can almost kick the stars.
From up there, she can see that the snow is starting to fall, blanketing the world in a thin layer of ice.
She's pulled up to the curb, right next to the playground of Everwood Elementary. She walks over the grass, which crunches under her feet in the snow and frost, and ambles to the chain-link fence. When she touches it, it's as cold against her fingertips as the ice beneath her feet.
Her eyes scan the familiar swingset that's nearby, and memories wash over her. She remembers that slide. Colin once pushed her off when she was so little, when she said she was too afraid to go, and she yelled at him afterward but admitted that it was fun.
And then there are the swings, where sometimes she'd hang out with Colin and her brother after school when there was nothing to do. Sometimes Colin would push her, so that she flew higher than she could just by pumping her legs, and she'd almost kick the sky with the tip of her shoe.
Those days rested in her memory warm, like sun on the skin or sweet kisses or a summer day. Those were the days when they were alive and happy and young and everything was wonderful. They were cozy, glowing, warm.
Not like the bitter night that surrounds her and freezes her tears to her cheeks as she sobs, weeps, cries out in misery.
*
"Dammit," he mutters far too cheerily as he plucks icicles off the bottom of his car and tosses them over his head. They crash behind him, shatter on the street into a thousand pieces, like glass. Meanwhile, he looks like an idiot, smiling stupidly and taking the time to get the icicles off of his car, but he was walking up to the car and they were there and they were bothering him (this is his car, after all) so he decided to get them off.
Why not?
Maybe he's just in a really good mood.
When he's satisfied himself, he leans back against the car door, grinning. He's panting and his breath turns to mist on the air, makes swirls of nothingness.
He stands up, still beaming a smile that looks strange on him, and wonders to himself why he's caring about his stupid car, the piece of junk. Maybe it goes with the manly agenda, he decides while flinging open the door and getting inside. After all, this grinning, sexually-active Ephram who just dropped Madison off at her house is certainly different from the boy who first received the vehicle in the beginning of the year.
He drives down the abandoned streets at a leisurely pace. The trees are dusted with snow, so white against the black night sky, and all is still. The bright headlights of the car merely observe the silent town, somehow not interrupting with their intensity and brilliance. So he watches, drives. He feels like he hasn't done nothing in a long time.
He meanders for a long time, until he's afraid he's lost. A slight panic sets in, and his heart accelerates, but then he looks to the left and there's a big sign that says "Everwood Elementary." Relieved, his eyes linger, and then he nearly slams onto the break when he sees the hunched, lone figure in the darkness by the playground. To him, maybe that's Amy, breathing little puffs of air into the moonlit shadows. It doesn't make sense, but he's in such a good mood that he pulls over. Stalks across the grass to the fence, whispers gently, "Amy?" She's crying, and when he embraces her comfortingly and his cheek touches a tear it is cold as ice.
*
They've climbed the fence, after somewhat of a struggle. It was Ephram's idea, but after his jean pocket got caught and he looked like a complete idiot, he regrets it. But he just laughs it off, because he's playing savior and trying to make her feel better.
When they manage to get over the barrier, they walk through the mulch to the swings and each get settled on one. Swinging a little, just looking out at the cold night. "So, you gonna tell me what this is about?" There's a pause. She won't look at him, and maybe she really wants to keep this to herself, so he adds quickly, "It's cool, if you don't want to--"
"What is it always about?" The words come out sounding funny; her nose is stuffed up, not just because of the cold, but also because of her recent crying. She sniffles and it sounds hopelessly self-pitying, so she manages a sad smile. "It's always about Colin."
He smirks wryly. "You're right about that." Ever since he met her, nearly every conversation they've had has been about the aforementioned boy. Which should be defined as obsession, but somehow isn't. Maybe it's just love.
"I think we switched places, Ephram," she tells him, in between little sniffs. "Since last year, at this time. Somehow, our roles changed." He looks at her. Pleads an explanation with his eyes. So she continues, "Remember? It was around this time. The ski-trip, Valentine's Day, all that. I had Colin, and I was happy. Like you are now."
She looks at him, and there is a sadness in her brown eyes that couldn't be seen by any other person. Her lip trembles, and he knows her heart is breaking, shattering like ice into a thousand pieces.
He swallows so that his voice won't crack with emotion, and then murmurs, "And what about you?"
She sighs a little. Or maybe she's just breathing. She grips on the chains of the swings tightly. Makes a line in the dirt with her shoe. "I got your role. The loner role." Somehow she manages to laugh, swing over a little and bump her shoulder against his. But Ephram isn't laughing. She stares into his eyes, still smiling a little, with a smile so sad that it isn't a smile at all. "Last year you had Laynie. But you didn't really. You were still alone. That's how it is with me."
"You mean Tommy?" It's wrong, he knows, that he feels so relieved after hearing her words. It's wrong that he lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, slowly, in staccato puffs of air making mist in the sky. Because he has a girlfriend, technically. And he's in love, technically. Something in his head says, But not just in love with Madison.
She nods wordlessly. And Ephram sees her, and suddenly feels her pain, and involuntarily stands up from the swing. It's as though he has no control over his body; he just needs to touch her, and ease her pain, or he'll surely die. He comes up from behind, wraps his arms around her waist in between the chains of the swings, and buries his face in her shoulder. It feels right, as it did when they danced at the wedding, as though they are two halves, separated, and made whole again. Made right again.
He thinks of what she told him. How they've switched places. And it's right, he thinks. Colin didn't know her. So Colin couldn't love her. Just like Madison will never love him.
These dark and bitter thoughts pop into his head without warning, and he pushes them away quickly as he always does, lifts up his head, and finds that Amy is crying. Silently. And smiling at the same time.
Is it wrong to be in love with two people at one time? Ephram doesn't know. But they say that you never stop loving your first love, and he never stopped loving Amy. Even when she told him he needed to find someone like him, when she held him close and closed her eyes and hurt him so badly- -even then he loved her. Even when he lay there in the car, panting, with his deft and agile hands on Madison's warm sleeping body afterward, he loved her. Perhaps he always will.
*
His body is warm, comforting around her, but his eyes, azure and brilliant in the darkness, are like a frosty winter's morning. They're that piece of him that never changed. They are that piece of him that she has become.
When he finally speaks, with his face mere millimeters from hers, his voice is low, hoarse, but strong at the same time. "You know what hasn't changed? You still have me."
Her lips curl a little into a smile, and the tears keep pooling, and fall and fall and fall forever. So cold.
Without warning, he drags his body away from hers, and pushes her. Gently, at first. Then harder. And Amy's soaring. She's plunging through the air- -plummeting but safe, falling and slicing through freezing sky. She swings out her legs, and she can almost kick the stars.
From up there, she can see that the snow is starting to fall, blanketing the world in a thin layer of ice.