You Infire Me

Chapter Thirteen: The First Snow

"Well, I know now. I know a little more how much a simple thing like a snowfall can mean to a person."
— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Upon taking your first breath of freezing cold air as you step outside the following Monday morning, you can smell it. Snow. It's coming. You can feel it in the air, see it in the sky. Whitish-gray clouds begin to cover the morning's blue. A sharp wind chills you to the bone. You stuff your nose in your scarf.

It's coming. The first snow of the season.

You rush to campus, resisting the urge to stop by Shadow Café for a steaming cup of coffee. There's no time—you're going to be late to your Senior Capstone, your most important class.

The day goes by as usual. In between classes, you work on your final projects and papers, which are coming along quite nicely—but you're still unconvinced they're good enough. After all, you're presenting one of them at a conference over Christmas break: a big writing conference in New York City. So you revise and rewrite and edit and toil. In between the chaos, you realize that today is the first day of December. The last month of the year. The season that spurs your mind to reflect on the past year: what you accomplished, what you didn't; what you enjoyed, what you hated; what you learned, and what you're still learning.

Your contemplation continues throughout the day. When morning turns into afternoon, and it comes time for your shift at the library, you continue this train of thought as you shelve books back in their proper places.

BX .L23 2420 . . . that goes right here. You shelve it.

(This semester really got off to a rough start, but I feel like I've come so far. I was a total wreck the first week, all stressed and self-conscious. I'm still both of those things, but to a lesser degree.)

BX .L36 4780 should be close . . . there. You place the book in its proper location.

(And remember when Yoongi called me out in front of our whole guitar class? And, oh my goodness, when he saved my life at that Halloween party? And then, of course, there was DC . . .)

BX .M63 7523 . . . where is that . . .

(A good amount of my memories from this semester are about Yoongi.)

BX .M63 . . .

(Probably all of the best ones include him.)

7523 . . .

(Have I really only known him for three months?)

My god, where is the spot for this book?

(My god, what is wrong with me?)

You continue the war within yourself—though this time, it's a good kind of war. It's the kind of war you're supposed to have on the day of the first snow of the season. It's the kind of war that reveals your true feelings. The kind that helps you make big, significant, life-changing decisions.

You finally manage to find the spot on the shelf you're looking for, but then you notice a pair of gorgeous dark eyes glancing at you through the shelf.

"Ah!" You jump back, dropping your stack of books.

His deep, masculine laugh echoes through your entire body. "Did I scare you?"

"No," you smooth out your clothes, regaining your composure. "I knew you were there. It's just that . . . I saw a bug on the shelf."

"You're a terrible liar," he whispers, audible only to you. Then he walks around to your side of the shelf, leaning with one arm against the books, his face inches away from yours. "It's one of my favorite things about you."