It was now December. Mikey and I have been dating for several months and no one else knows about it. We were walking around late at night. "Why did you want to go out walking? It's dangerous at night," Mikey said. He was wearing his purple beanie, the same one I gave him for his birthday, along with a scarf and a warm sweater. He just recovered from having the cold for two weeks and he said he doesn't want to go through that again. I squeezed his hand lightly.
"Scared? Even when you have a tough girl like me to protect you?" I teased. He rolled his eyes. He wrapped his arms around me and gave me a small kiss.
"Not that. I know you can protect yourself and hell, I'll even admit you can protect me," he said. We both grinned. "But that still doesn't mean you can't get hurt." He was right. My left wrist is wrapped because I was pushed down the stairs in school. I turned around to face him. He wrapped his arms around my waist and I stood on my toes to kiss him. "But seriously, why are out past eleven at night on a freezing cold night?" I laughed and started walking again.
"Because I need to mail something and I wanted you to be with me," I said with a grin.
"You couldn't do that tomorrow morning?" he asked with a frown. I rolled my eyes. "I'm just kidding. What are you mailing?" I hummed a little tune instead of answering. "Iris, what are you going to mail? I think I deserve to know since you dragged me out to the cold night."
"I'm sending in a story to this writing program," I said. "And I'm finished with it so I want to mail it now. I have the chance of getting my story published and winning money. Along with scholarships options, but who are we kidding? No college would ever accept me."
"That's not true," he said with a frown. "You don't know that. You're very smart; I'm sure some colleges will look into that."
"But that's the thing; I do know that." I sighed and a kicked a rock out of the way. "I've been kicked out of too many schools. I've gotten into hundreds of fights. I've even had to go to court because I "assaulted" a girl. I did no such thing. I just hit her with a rock."
"Did she hit you first?"
"Of course she did, you know I don't start a fight. She threw a brick at me. It hit my leg, but the rock hit her head and cut her forehead." He smiled and shook his head at me. "You signed yourself up for this when you chose to be my boyfriend." He smiled wider and kissed me.
"And that means I'm still going to be here." We arrived at the post office. I grabbed the envelope containing my story and slid in the mailbox. "Are you going to tell me what it is about?"
"No." I paused for a moment. "At least not yet." He pouted, so I just gave him a quick kiss. He picked me up and spun me around. We fell on the cold grass and he started tickling me. "Mikey!" He sat on me and kissed me. I rested my hands on his shoulders and he leaned in closer to me. I sat up and threw snow at him.
"Hey!" he exclaimed with a laugh. He threw some snow back at me. We had a small snowball fight before collapsing on the ground again.
"What are you doing for Christmas?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.
"I'm not sure. We're either going to visit my grandparents or just stay here. Why?"
"Because I asked, you dork." He stuck his tongue out at me.
"What about you?"
"I don't know. We don't have much family. My mom was an only child and my grandparents died a long time ago. And we don't interact with my adoptive dad's side of the family." I took his beanie off and placed it on my head. "Let's go home. I'm starting to get cold." He lifted me up and we began walking while holding hands.
