Mom was knocking on my door, way too fucking early. Really, mom? Really? Can't I have five more fucking minutes of sleep? Damn. I wiggled further under my icy sheets. I hate winter...
"Jeff? Honey? The school district office called. School's been canceled today... I guess because of the snow." I heard her voice through the door. Snow? What snow? There was snow? I opened an eye and stared through the blinds, forgetting that I couldn't see out the window. Shuffling across the cold carpet, I crossed to my window and peaked out through the blinds. Sure enough, mom was right: a thick white blanket of snow covered everything in sight. Our bushes were buried under white mountains; I could hear the blue jays in the bush protesting against the weather angrily. Huh. Well what do you know?
"I gotta get to work, ok?" Mom stuck her head in my room. "Your brother went out to play in the snow with Andy up the street. There's food in the freezer, or if Pizza Hut is open, you can try ordering, ok?" I rolled my eyes, but still maintained my level of cool.
"Gotcha, Mom." I got back into bed and rolled over away from her. Just go to work and let me go back to sleep, ok? I heard my door shut quietly. Her footsteps padded down the hall. A snow day, huh? That didn't happen that often. I mean, we got the occasional inch or two, but all that shit out there looked like at least 4 inches, maybe more. And it was still falling; the sky was pure white, just like the ground and everything else. Oh well. What did I care? Meant I could sleep until whenever I wanted, and I could put off doing Mr. Walsh's English assignment. Which was good, because it was only half-done anyway. I rolled over, and shut my eyes.
Now I was wide awake. Fuck.
Fuck me fucking sideways. This always happened every time I was woken up. Damn it. So much for going back to bed. I shivered in the cold sheets. And why the fuck did Mom turn the heat down again? Was she trying to freeze us all? I yanked the covers up over my head irritably. This was pissing me off. According to my beat up alarm clock, it was just after 7:30. First period would be starting in a few minutes. If we'd had school. Ms. Baumgardner would be starting her drone about dividing by irrational numbers right about now...
I drifted into sleep. Then I heard tapping on the window.
"Fucking hell!" I moaned, flipping back the cold blankets and shaking my head like a dog so I could actually see. Now the blue jays were pitching a fit about the weather, and taking it out on me. Little fuckers. Next time I saw one of them, they were dead. Every last one of them. Cursing and grumbling under my breath, I stomped towards the icy window and pulled back the blinds. But it wasn't a bluejay. I blinked and rubbed my eyes to make sure I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing.
It was Bill. His face was rosy pink with the cold, and he looked like he was shivering; his breath fogged up the glass. His emerald-green coat was buttoned all the way up to his thin, white neck, his red hair barely poking out under it. He had a blue hat on, covering his forehead. Snowflakes dotted his hair. He looked like he had a bad case of dandruff. When he saw me, he waved. I laughed and waved through the glass. Suddenly I didn't feel quite so cranky anymore. I unlocked the window and pushed the screen up to let the Eskimo in.
"Hey, man." He smiled, his teeth chattering, even though he was (sort-of) out of the cold. He tracked the snow in with him, drops of water clung to the fibers of the carpet. Without even waiting for a response, he started stripping off his wet and cold things, and dropped them on the floor next to my bed. Totally normal. I smiled and shook my head. Something inside of me glowed at seeing him. That was normal. Right?
"Well, good morning to you too, fucker." I smirked, brushing my hair back. I kicked his wet things into a corner where they could just lay, wet and cold. I didn't care, and he didn't either. We were 16. The only things we cared about then were fun, booze, pot and getting laid. Those were some good times... "I guess you got the memo about school being canceled?"
