The Framing

Eighteen.

January 16th, 5:45am. My bedroom.

I was sleeping when I heard a knock on my bedroom door. I opened my eyes and turned on the lamp on my nightstand then looked at my clock. It was 5:45 and my alarm goes off in fifteen minutes so I had no idea what this was about.

"Hello?" I said. My brother Paul opened the door.

"Schools closed today you can go back to bed," he told me.

"What? Why is school closed?"

"Look out your window," he told me and shut the door. I crawled to the other side of my bed and peaked through the blinds to see that it was snowing really heavily. I crawled back over and looked at my phone. There was a message from Alex from ten minutes ago.

School got cancelled if you wanna hang out today.

Let me go back to sleep. I'll text you when I wake up. I said.

I shut my eyes and feel asleep almost instantly. When I woke up, I looked at the clock on my wall. It was around 10:30 so I decided to get up. I checked my phone but there weren't any new messages.

I got some clothes and went and took a shower. When I got out, I called Alex.

"You wanted to hang out?" I asked.

"Yeah what do you wanna do?"

"Come pick me up and we'll figure it out," I said. After we hung up I went downstairs to get something to eat.

Eventually, I saw Alex's car crawling up the street towards my house. I put on a coat, gloves, a scarf, and my boots and went out to meet up with him.

"Hey," I said as I shut the door.

"I can't believe they cancelled today," he said and drove off.

"Yeah I thought we were only supposed to get like an inch."

"Apparently the forecast changed overnight and we're supposed to get like a foot," he told me. It was still snowing but not as heavily as it was earlier this morning.

"Where do you wanna go?" I asked.

"Well a lot of the roads are closed so I don't know of many places. I just wanted to be with you."

"Awww," I said.

"Shut up," he said, "Thomas didn't feel well and I have no idea what Kevin is doing so I asked you."

"So I'm your last resort?"

"No it's not like that," he said.

"Mhm sure."

"Do you wanna go sledding or something?" He asked.

"I don't own a sled," I said, "do you?"

"Yeah I have some in my garage," he said. He turned the car around and started driving towards his house. There weren't many other cars on the road. We mostly passed snow plows and salt trucks on the way there.

Alex pulled into his driveway and I followed him into his garage. He handed me a sled and we went into his backyard.

"This hill is pathetic," I said.

"I know but I didn't feel like driving anymore," he said.

We went down his pathetic hill a bunch of times but I got tired after a while so we each placed our sleds at the bottom of his hill and sat in them. "I haven't done that in so long," I said.

"Really? I do it all the time," he said.

"My yard is flat," I said, "and we threw all our sleds out a few years ago."

"I love the snow," he said, "I never saw it until I moved here."

"Until you moved here? Where the hell are you from?" I asked.

"I've really never talked about it with you?"

"Uh no I don't think so," I said.

"Oh. I'm from some tiny town in the middle of no where in Alabama."

"So what the hell brought you here then?" I asked.

"Well after my brother died and my parents went fucking nuts I moved in with my aunt," he said, "I haven't been back since."

"You don't have an accent," I said.

"I know it kind of faded away over time," he said, "but it never really snowed there. One time it hailed and another time it was icy but that's about it."

"My whole family has always lived in Massachusetts. I'm pretty sure we go back to the fucking pilgrims or something," I said.

"Do you think you had family in the Salem witch trials?" He asked. We lived like ten minutes from where they took place so maybe.

"Probably," I said.

"I literally lived in a town of like 500 people in the middle of a field," he said, "there wasn't shit to do."

"Kinda like western mass," I said.

"Yeah I guess," he said.

After a while we got cold and bored from sitting outside. It stopped snowing, so we stood up and went inside his kitchen. He made hot cocoa and I sat on his couch and waited for him.

"Do you wanna watch TV?" He asked and placed a mug in front of me.

"Sure," I said. He turned it on and we watched daytime television.

"It's weird seeing what's on TV when you're supposed to be in school," I said.

"Yeah. Whenever I'm absent I always look at the clock and think about what I'd be doing."

I looked at my phone and saw that it was 1:15. "I'd be bored in chemistry," I said.

"I'd be bored in math," he told me.

"Thomas is in my chemistry class," I said, "I asked the teacher for him to be my lab partner so we usually just fuck around."

"My chemistry class is so boring," he said, "I wish I had it with you guys."

"What classes are you taking next semester?" I asked.

"I'm switching my art class for health, and my photography class for theatre," he said, "what about you?

"I'm switching gym for health and finance for music theory."

"Wait when do you have health?" He asked.

"Fourth period room 108," I said.

"Oh shit me too," he said, "I guess we'll have another class together."