Admit It

21; late autumn snowflakes

When the snow fell in the middle days of December every year in the city, the loud and humid city of businessmen became a quiet and shining white town of silence. The snowstorm had come in the middle of the night when no one but the late night dreamers had witnessed it, but by morning, everyone could see the piles upon piles of snow on the roads, gathering on the edges of rooftops, resting as crystal snowflakes on the wings of small birds. By three in the morning that day, there had been a blackout, and suddenly everything was calm.

For about an hour that following morning, Camila had been wandering up and down the outdoor stairwell to her apartment building, wrapped in her warmest coat, staring out at the scene the snowstorm had created as if it were some sort of wonderland. Nothing quite seemed real if it was that quiet and peaceful and slow everywhere you could look, although things were always that quiet back in the gentle town of Springside Hills. She still hadn't completely processed the fact that she now lived in the same big city that she used to dream about when she was a little kid stuck in a town where it seemed as if 5 years could pass and everything would still look the same. Maybe it was because she only looked forward to sitting in the back corner behind the curtains in her school days, only spent time reading in the dark and empty library, only gave her days to her Mama and the boy with the brunette curls and the sweet smile. She mentally reminded herself to ask Shawn to take her around the city someday. She thought how nice it would be if it could be a day like today or possibly tomorrow, so it would be just them and the snow and the other wandering souls of the city.

She eventually rushed inside because of the cold, although it wasn't much better inside because of the still-going power outage, but inside they at least had their blankets and sweaters and the heat of the electric heater that soon enough warmed the small apartment. Mama hadn't yet awakened and Camila didn't plan on doing that for her, only placing the heater inside of Mama's bedroom and reading quietly while she waited for her phone to charge from the pen-sized charging cube.

The two had a nice lunch of the leftover pizza they ordered the night before. Mama, for once, took the time to have a long conversation with her daughter, who wrote on one of the first notebooks Mama got for her when she realized her daughter wasn't speaking anymore.

By the evening, Camila wrapped herself in her thick coat and took her phone up to the final steps of the outdoor stairwell and showed Shawn the entire snowed-in city skyline. In turn, he showed her the small forest of sugar-powdered trees around his house.

"Sometimes I wish it was snowy like this all the time," the brown haired boy mused so softly it was as if no one was supposed to hear, but the world was quieter and stiller than it had ever been before, and Camila could hear him just fine. "With the sky all grey and white and the ground a few feet taller than it was the night before because of all the snow and the window panes coated with a layer of frost and snowflakes. It always makes me think of my childhood; the way my mom and dad would run around with us two in the backyard for hours, and when we got home, we would watch a Christmas movie no matter what time of year it was, and me and Aaliyah would fall asleep before dinner. I wish it was always wintertime."

'But then there wouldn't be warmth,' Camila wrote on a page of the golden colored notebook, turning the camera around so he could see her words. 'There wouldn't be meadows of sunflowers and long days sitting by lakes and lying in green fields of grass. The oceans and the beaches and the picnics and the meadows, they're made for summer. If summer doesn't come next year, I'll never get to show you the train from Strawberry to Springside Hills and how you can see all of the pink and yellow tulips and the blue skies and the little brown cows on the local farms.'

She turned the camera back around to face her. Shawn was silent on the other end, staring at her through the camera like he'd just seen something worth sacrificing the stars for.