legit feel an energy I’ve caught waves of it coming off her every time I’m around her, but it’s been like this all day. She’s still holding back, which is cool; I just hope to get to see her fire ignite when all that passion she feels for so many fucking things is focused on whatever she decides her true purpose is. For now, I get to relish in the fact that I’m sitting front row, watching it all come together.
“Pretty sure we’re good.”
She nods and sits back.
“Favorite season?” she asks.
“Summer and fall.”
“If you had to pick one?” She says the same shit I’ve been telling her every time I ask her a question and she gives me a not so precise answer.
Was always summer, but that’s recently changed. “Touché. Fall. You?”
“Winter,” she says without even thinking.
Not going to lie, that’s definitely not what I was expecting. “You like cold and snow?”
“I like the season in general.”
“Care to embellish?”
“I like snow, because it covers up the dead and rotting mess fall leaves behind. I like the landscape, the bone structure of winter, if you will. It’s a time when even the trees seem lonely, but they still stand, which breeds inspiration and hope. It always seems that, after the holidays, everyone seems to slow down a bit. Like the pressures put on them by society lifts off their shoulders. The cold, the snow, and then the real cold, it tends to literally chill people out, makes people less nasty.”
“Makes sense. Not many people want to be out in it, so no one is clawing at each other or climbing over top of each other to reach that ladder they perceive leads to success. They aren’t chasing the dollar; they’re reflecting. A blank canvas. Interesting … I get it. I like it.”
She leans back and smiles, looking out the window.
“Favorite representation of winter and why?” I ask.
“Snowflakes. Anyone who doesn’t see their beauty hasn’t stood in the cold nearly long enough, which causes them to misunderstand the splendor of the first flowers of spring or appreciate the heat of the summer sun.” She turns and looks at me. “Have you stood in the cold?”
“No longer than it takes to build snowmen, shovel a path to a vehicle, or clear a sidewalk.”
She cringes. “Ouch.”
“But I will now. I look forward to it, actually.”
She turns and looks thoughtfully out the window again. “Promise me, when you look at a bare tree, you won’t feel sad for it.”
“Why would I?”
She looks back at me inquisitively.
“I see how strong they are.”
“When snow covers them, don’t feel sorry for them either.”
“Why would I?”
She cocks her head to the side in question.
“It gets the first kiss of the snow and blanketed in its beauty.”
She smiles and turns away.
Lying beside her in my bed, a bowl of popcorn between us, remote in my hand, I look over as she scrolls through the pictures thatI took on my phone and deletes most of them.
“Why aren’t there more of you?”
“You didn’t take any.”
“I don’t have my phone.”
“Yeah, about that. You—”
“We’ve been through this twice already. I got it. Don’t leave my wallet and phone in an unlocked vehicle. I’m smart. I retain information easily.”
“Yeah, well, you left keys off the list.”
“If they steal it, there’s insurance, and I won’t have to keep putting a quart of oil in it every time I drive it or—”
“Sell the thing.”
“Or feel guilty about selling my mom’s prized possession.”
“If your mom’s passion was power and freedom, and … Was it gardening or living off the grid?”
“Little bit gypsy and little bit hippy.”
“Love that. Add a little bit savage and that’s the outer you.”
“The outer me?”
“I think, yeah. We show people what we want them to see, and the passion burns inside until it’s ready to be released.” I point to her phone, charging beside the bed. “And keep that charged and on you.”
“Anything else?” She rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, stay. Stay for the holidays. Just stay.”
“No. I have plans.”
With the other females in my life, I step back. It’s so much fucking harder with her, and not because I like her, really like her, but because it’s not right. Not at all. She has no one. All the people she had let her down or died.
“Are you going to turn on the TV?” she asks, pulling the blanket up to her chin.
“Yeah.” I turn it on as I lean back against the headboard and push play.
She doesn’t last three episodes and she’s out, watching TV,