Life is Liz (LiL, #1)

Chapter 43: Thawed Frost

Hey guys

This chappy did things to me... I hope it affects you the same way. 

Also, I published Chapter 42 yesterday, make sure you read it first!

Enjoy loves! (recommendation: play Already Gone by Sleeping At Last)

Warning: really short, emotional chappy ahead!

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You're gonna catch a cold 

from the ice inside your soul

~Christina Perri, Jar of Hearts

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Ice. Freezing every single fiber of my being into one cold block. Slowly, it spread over my skin. The sensation felt strangely comforting against my warmth, tingling with giddiness. Goose bumps erupted from my skin. The hair on the back of my neck stood on high alert.

All too soon it sent a shiver through my insides. My heart palpitated, pumping warm blood through my veins to make up for the cold, until it too glazed over with an icy layer of coldness. The air stopped in my throat, my lungs frozen over. A ball of ice curled itself deep into my stomach, weighing me down. My feet halted in their tracks, the crystallized water too heavy to lift.

My face went slack before frost, like diamonds pierced my skin and turned me to ice like stone into a statue. My body was a living iceberg.

Seeing him, leaning against his car, looking for me, was what hurled the sensation of ice through my body.

Someone passed me in the school's parking lot. They bumped my shoulder unexpectedly and sent me stumbling but not falling. Pushed out of my trance, my form thawed to life. Reality melting the cold in no time.

I had the strange desire to leave him standing there. To turn around and walk away. And to never look back.

Then his eyes met mine and I couldn't breathe. My feet moved on their own accord. I didn't have any say in my actions. I didn't feel like myself. It was like I was watching this from the sidelines. Maybe it was good this way. Maybe it wouldn't hurt that much.

"What are you doing here?" There was still a piece of ice in me that reality had left behind in solid form. It was in my voice and in my body language.

He stared at me long and hard like he was seeing me for the first time. I realized he was indeed seeing a side of me that he hadn't seen before. The side that was normally reserved for my family.

I lifted a brow. "Sam?" Slowly, he moved his head from side to side. "Sam, why are you here?"

What he did next knocked the breath right out of me. He cupped my face in both of his rough hands and pressed me against the side of his car. My heart pounded so hard against my chest I could hear it in my ears. I could barely hear him over the beat of my heart. "I told you I wouldn't give up," he said just before he kissed me.

I was shocked into ice before his warm lips melted every remaining shred of coldness. Tentatively, I responded with my frost against his heat. In the back of my head I was praying that I was doing it right. There was only so much books could teach you. 

My hands moved gingerly to the back of his neck while he picked up the pace, taking me right with him. Somewhere in between the back and forth we found a rhythm that warmed my body. My cheeks flushed together with every single part of me. My heart soared and palpitated, pumping hot blood so fast through my veins that it made me dizzy. Or maybe Sam was the reason for my dizziness. 

Warmth filtered through every dark corner of my being, filling me with a light that I was sure made me look like a walking light bulb. If this was the flicker of light Miles had been talking about then I guess I found it.

His hands wandered to my waist, spreading his heat not just inside of me but on the outside too. I got on my tiptoes so he didn't have to keep leaning down to my level to kiss me, my hand straying to his muscular shoulder. We were a tangle of heat and frost. Of sun and snow. Of light and dark.

But when you melt ice it turns to water.

And the water needed out.

It came in the form of tears, streaming down my cheeks before I even noticed. I went to pull away, but he cupped the back of my head with one hand while he slung the other around my waist, pulling us closer together.

The tears raced each other down my skin, faster and faster, outrunning themselves.

They came even faster once I realized that not only was this my first kiss but it was also my last. It had to be if I wanted to save Sam not only the burden, the worry and the pain but also the frustration. It had to be if I wanted to save him from myself.

Prying my lips free from his, I took a well needed breath. His eyes were closed as he rested his forehead against mine. "And I told you to stop." My voice cracked as I pushed at his chest and twisted out of his grip. The world was blurry when I walked away, the coldness slowly seeping back in.

Until his warmth pulled me back. He grasped my wrist, swirling me around to face him. The tears kept coming without my consent, causing his face to swim in front of me.

"Sam, let me go," I said, my voice was so thick it was hard to talk. "Let me go or I'll scream." Threatening him cracked something in me that I couldn't understand.

"Liz-"

"Let. Go."

Reluctantly, he let go off me. He didn't have a choice.

I turned back around and walked away.

"This isn't over!"

I dared to face him one last time, several feet apart now. The sob tore from my throat before I could stop it. "Yes, it is."

This time, I ran.

I ran and ran and ran away like I did so often.

I ran until I couldn't breath.

I ran until it forced me to my knees.

I ran until the cold seeped back into my body.