"So… you moved back here huh?"
"Not moved… just… visiting."
"I see."
He breathed out, his breath coming out cold and foggy in the snowy afternoon. The sun was high above them, Max turning up his head to see a few birds passing overhead, cawing through the sky. He pursed his lips.
"She really didn't seem to care much."
"I can't blame you for thinking that… the way she is… she'll always be like that."
Max turned to the blue haired girl sitting next to him. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well," the girl sighed and tucked her hands into her brown coat pockets. "She's a hard head… and she knows what she wants. If she doesn't like one thing about you she'll flip. I can't say that I know from experience, but that just seems like who she is."
Max turned his head towards the sky again, his body shivering with a little bit of cold.
"How about we go to the local café?"
Her voice rang out in the empty park, Max finally getting his rump off of the stone cold bench that they sat on. He stood up and pulled his scarf around his lips more, muffling his voice but preventing him from getting any cooler than he already was.
"Alright, then let's go. The one by the fountain?"
"Yeah, that one."
Max began to walk, sensing the girl following in behind him carefully. She walked beside him, the man looking down at her warmly.
"It's good to see you again Miriam… sorry I bored you with all of my personal drama."
Miriam shrugged her shoulders and flipped her long hair back, gazing at him with her piercing emerald eyes.
"It's no big. I mean… we've both changed a lot haven't we Max?"
"Since we last saw each other?"
She nodded, kicking a pebble down the street. "The last time I saw you, you were in the national world championships of Beyblade and then you left… you four parted ways and in a way we all did…" her voice trailed off, leaving Max to spy at her through his peripheral vision.
"We all did?"
"Yeah…" she mimicked, sighing and looking up into the sky. "Ozuma… Joseph… Dunga… everyone kind of just disappeared after you four broke up… there was no reason for us to stay together. I mean I keep in touch with everyone but you know how that works out…"
"Skype can only do so much." Max replied with a smile.
They reached the café, and as Max opened the door for Miriam he spied a couple off to his left having an argument over something that sounded like money issues. He paused for a second, his hand sliding down the door's frame and letting down to his side. His eyes were glued to them, and as the women stood up she whacked the man she was sitting across from with her purse, walking off in a huff. Max swallowed and pursed his lips, his heart suddenly feeling as though a dagger had run through.
"Max?"
The voice startled him and as he looked up he saw Miriam staring at him peculiarly. He gazed at her before shaking his head and replying to her unspoken question.
"I'm alright."
The café was empty save for a few people who were taking advantage of the free wi-fi that happened to be offered. Max sipped at his latte while Miriam took big gulps of her coffee. Both sat in silence, not speaking a word.
A coffee cake was shared between them, and as Miriam reached for the remaining piece, Max spoke.
"Do you think… that maybe the reason why she broke up with me is because I'm not the man she wanted me to be?"
Miriam's hand floated over the cake.
"What do you mean?"
He looked down into his cup, almost seeming to drift in and out of a daze. He felt nausea.
"I don't know… sometimes I think that people take me lightly… all because of my carefree attitude and my kindness…"
The hand came down upon the cake and lifted the morsel up to the mouth. She bit down, chewing thoughtfully.
"Well, if that's the way you feel," she took a sip of her coffee. "Then why not just tell her that?"
"Because she's a complete asshole when it comes to telling her stuff like that. She's too hardheaded and unstable in a relationship… I mean… she complained because I was ten minutes late to answering her text… I told her I was in the shower!"
Miriam's voice rang out like bells as she laughed, holding her sides. Max breathed in, smiling to get his face to move from his frowned position.
"Yeah… I guess that is pretty ridiculous."
Miriam nodded her head, replying back to him.
"Ever think of just dating someone else? Like staring fresh with someone you haven't seen in a while?"
Max shrugged his shoulders, peering out into the streets. Snow flurries whipped up in the air, sending a few people to reach for their scarves. He sighed, watching as a bird flew overhead and thinking of Emily's eyes and how angry they were towards him when they had their argument.
"What… did you fight over?"
Miriam's voice was almost too quiet to hear, but Max managed to catch her whispers. He rolled the latté cup in his hands back and forth, thinking. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about her, and the VERY last thing he wanted to do was bring up what they argued about.
I mean it was a whole mess of things… a whole lot of things went wrong… everything about our relationship…
"It was fake I guess."
"Fake?"
"Yeah… like those movies that you see where the pretty girl is dating some dude who's just in it for the sex… but for us it was different… I guess I was more into it than she was…" he smirked and crushed his cup, throwing the cardboard into the trash.
"When someone can't provide you with what you want… then you can either deal with it, or you can just… up and leave. And that's what she did…" he murmured, shaking his head and ruffling his golden hair.
"But in the end I guess it was best for me… after all… I guess everyone wants THAT."
Miriam stared at him until he got up and dusted himself off, putting his jacket back on. He tapped his left foot twice, thinking to himself mostly.
She wanted it so bad too… but I could always just… no… I can't go back and beg her to come back to me… again… I was in it more than she was… and she didn't seem like she wanted to do anything BUT that… I said no so many times… but no matter how many times I said no she always wanted to go and do it…
Frozen flowers… sands of time… everything moves on… spring comes… everything keeps moving on and on… I can't stay in one place… but…
Tyson seems to be in just a bad place as any one of us… Ray got dumped… I got dumped… Kai's completely uninterested in girls and… there just seems to be so much going on… in our heads. Outside we seem completely fine… but what about our hearts? What about what's happened to us? Our memories, our doubts, our fears, our loves? Everything we ever came to know and cherish…
We share that with one person and then they go and break your heart? What is that? Is that what love is? Is this what heartbreak feels like?
Max put a hand to his stomach and stopped, seeing that he had walked into some snow.
I feel like I got punched in the stomach, but nothing more than that. I feel like I had just got hit… just got hit… maybe it's more pain than this? Maybe love is more painful?
Soft fingers grasped his hand, and as Max snapped out of his train of thought he spied Miriam smiling at him. His blue eyes bore into her, his heart warming at the sight of her smile.
"Sometimes we have to move on from those things… sometimes we forget what's really important in life…"
Letting go of his hand Miriam walked further into the snow, speaking to him.
"If we forget what it's like to be loved, or to really and truly love, then how can we grow as people? How can we move on from what we haven't learned? We stay in one place. We can't ever move."
His hands curled into gentle fists, stretching his fingers.
"That's the same as being trapped in a cage… isn't it?" he asked.
Miriam shook her head, spinning around almost gracefully to him.
"Being trapped is against our own will… we long for the outside if we are caged… but in contrast, if we cage ourselves… if we chose to live in that cage… is that really someone else's fault?"
Miriam…
"Hey," his ears perked at her voice.
"Yeah?"
"Look."
The sky above them had turned a deep grey color, Max holding out a hand to catch a snow flurry that drifted down towards him. He watched as the flake melted in his hand carefully, forming water and riding off into the snow. Again and again flakes landed on him, and one by one they melted.
We are all like little drops of water… we change… we move… we go on. We exist. We live. If I can find it in myself to move on… and realize what she did… then maybe… just maybe… I can find myself again.
"Heads up!"
Before he had a chance to react his face was pelted with something cold and wet, sending him flying onto his back in the snow.
"What the!"
Miriam's laughter made him sit up, seeing her with a snowball in her hand. Max blinked a few times before a sly smile overcame his face. He chuckled and grabbed a handful of snow, chucking at her.
Miriam ducked around the snowball, but not before Max had another one hurling at her. The snowball hit her hard, and she was sent sprawled on her back. Max laughed heartily, holding his stomach.
"Got you!"
The woman sat up and glared at him, hurling another snowball.
"You're gonna pay for that!"
Together, they made footprints in the snow, their bodies warming up the snow and melting the flakes as the sky rained down upon them. Frozen snow was turned into warm water as they rolled around, laughter ringing in the air and snowballs flying left and right. They howled with laughter and eventually their joy died with the sounds of evening wind.
Max lay on his back next to Miriam, who had some ice stuck to her hair. He breathed in and out heavily, gazing at her.
"That was fun."
"Figured you could use some fun."
"It's been a while since I really laughed like that."
"Figured that too."
Max smiled and breathed out, letting his warm escape his body.
"Thank you, Miriam."
The woman chuckled, shaking her head.
"Thank you, Max. For making me feel better too!"
They laughed and laughed again, their voices ringing out like Christmas bells. Eventually Max turned silent as he felt something warm in his hand. His eyebrows furrowed as he looked down to see what he had managed to grasp a hold of.
His heart began to feel warm, his body spreading the warmth and making Max feel like he had just curled up into bed for a good night sleep.
This feeling… it's so warm… and so comforting… what is this?
His eyes drifted down to his hand, and for some reason Miriam was staring at the same place as he was. Max's cheeks erupted in bright red, his eyes locking on his hand. He could see from the corner of his eye that she was blushing too, seeming to feel the same way that he did.
Their fingers were intertwined.