A Cold Day in December

A Cold Day in December Chapter Seventeen

A Cold Day in December

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Unedited, sorry.

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WHERE THE ICICLES HANG

“Are you ready to fall?” Julien asked me from below the roof, a stunning smile on his chiseled face. It was an unusual sunny Saturday in the neighborhood, and as I looked down from where I was crouching, I couldn’t help but notice the way Julien’s skin was giving off a light of its own, as if he was made of pure gold sculpted by a master artisan. The sunlight was making his hair to shimmer, every strand a dazzling proof of the delightful afternoon. His eyes glowed as they focused on nothing but I under his shielding hands, his lips was stretched so wide it was creating soft dents on both sides of his cheeks. Yes, I had noticed them all at once, and they scared me. Noticing them was bad enough, responding to them was just plain awful.

As awful as the turning of the calendar for the month of December.

Julien repeated the question, urging me to give a definite answer. His words, they never spoke so clear to me until that rare day. A day when Gatewood was given an opportunity to lavishly bathe under the sun which was going to hibernate in a few weeks behind the heavy gray clouds. Tomorrow, everything would begin to dress up in its fancy winter wonderland dress. The surroundings muted and blanched of any color and life. Winter was finally setting in. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if for just a brief moment, I relieved myself of life’s insolence and drown in the exquisite feeling of romance for another and express it without haste and restraints? Set aside the living fear that plagued me all my life? To love and be loved freely?

It had been two weeks since I favored Julien. In that short span of time, he never once failed me. We’d come to know each other a little deeper than our calm and crystal surfaces. Running and stumbling in his open arms was a perplexing decision to liberate my impassioned self and submit to my human complexities. I didn’t want it to last. It was our unspoken agreement, but this affair had gone for two weeks already. What happened to the boundary I had long drawn to safeguard my side of the world? Was my toe touching the forbidden side or was it Julien who was creeping to mine?

“Hey! Are you all right there?” The question, was I ready to fall?

I blinked and shook myself out of my reverie. Nodding and returning his grin with a frozen one, I yelled back, “It’s too high!” Still, the question persisted to drill holes in my head. Was I ready to fall?

The sound of his easy laughter filled with rigor and vitality prevented me from sinking in my thoughts again. From dwelling in the unknown world I refused to be a part of. His laughter. I felt like I was doing something right by making him happy. The warm rush of liquid in my chest conquered my whole being in a second, flooding my numbed veins to searing degrees. “Don’t be scared!” He encouraged, cupping his mouth with his hands. “I’ll catch you!”

Falling, such a beautiful word. I closed my eyes, asking myself, was I ready to fall? “Julien!” I called after a while. Was Eriol ready to fall again? “Julien!” I repeated, though he was already looking up, one hand shielding his eyes from the burning sun, the other on his hip. “Catch me, I’m ready to fall!”

* * * * *

He wanted my total submission, and by that he meant all that there was to me. Carnal knowledge was no alien thing, but I wasn’t the perfect person to ask about it either. My innocence, it vanished a long time ago. The constant nudge to grow up so fast as a means of coping through the diverse aspects of everyday living shook me by the shoulders the moment I stepped out of my confinement. I was mature beyond my age. And with maturity comes wisdom. I was wise enough to give a small portion of myself to a few and save the rest under my wing. I may have given Julien my body during our first meeting, but that didn’t stop him from wanting more. Sooner or later, that want would turn into something else. I knew it would happen, sooner than later.