melting.

Chapter 1

I always try to ignore the whispers. The stares. I try to pretend I don't see that wrinkled old lady with the fancy scarf staring at me in disgust as I desperately try to make my way through the airport without running over anyone. Doesn't she see what a hard time I'm having? I hold my head down and just try to focus on getting out of the airport. Shit. Stairs. I sigh with exasperation as I see a few steps blocking me from the exit. So close, yet so far away. I scan the room for a ramp, and come up empty. People don't understand how much of a pain in the ass it is when they don't have a ramp! I turn around and start angrily towards a security guard standing smugly by the woman's bathroom. "Where's your ramp?" I say, my voice laced with anger. He yawns and points lazily. "You'll have to go back to other side of the airport. Take a right down this hallway, and... I think there's a ramp there." I knit my eyebrows together. "Well is there? The other side of the airport is kind of a long way for me." Dick. He sighs and wipes the sweat that had collected on his forehead. "Can we just carry you down the stairs? It's like, three steps." I am filled with joy at the thought of not having to wheel myself back to other side of the airport and nod eagerly. He calls his buddy on a walkie-talkie and before I know it the two are lifting me and my chair over the steps and to the front door. "Thanks." I say as they set me down, but they're already engrossed in a heated argument with another airport- goer. I almost feel bad for yelling at them now. They have pretty bad jobs it seems. I just get frustrated when there's not a ramp. Isn't it even like a law or something? Whatever, I'm out now.

A burst of cold winter air hits me when I push open the door. I've always loved the cold, although I live in Florida. Oddly, the thing I like most about it is how it makes me hair cold. I don't know, but I just love running my fingers through the long icy hair. It's soothing. I see Aunt Sophie waving at me frantically from across the street. I contain my laughter at the sight of her wildly jumping and flailing her arms. I wheel across the street after a family in a minivan finally stops to let me go. I smile at them to show them my appreciation. No one wants to wait for the girl in the wheel chair to slowly inch her way across, so sometimes I can wait five to ten minutes just waiting for someone to let me go. Luckily, this was not one of those times. "Marley!" Aunt Sophie exclaims embracing me in a warm hug. "How have you been?" She says it so enthusiastically it hurts. I choose to take the easy route. "Same old, same old I guess." I shrug and wheel past her to the car. She giggles slightly and presses the button and a ramp extends from inside the car. I stop dead in my tracks, totally awestruck. "You didn't!" I squeel and pull her into another warm hug. She smiles warmly and helps me into the car. "I was hoping it would mean we could spend more time together," she pauses. "I know your dad has been a little... distant lately." Aunt Sophie was my best friend- no wait. My only friend. I told her everything. She was the one person who truley understood what it was like...

We arrived at her large cabin half an hour later. She transferred me to "The Snow Monster" right away. "The Snow Monster" was the special name we had for my snow wheel chair. It made it one thousand times easier to drive in the snow. And it was motor powered, therefor I could be lazy the whole time I was here. It's real name was "Snow Go" or something like that, but my Aunt and I both agreed it needed to be something that sounded a bit more... what was the word we used? Badass. Although a 17 year old girl in a shiny blue wheel chair that she had named "The Snow Monster" was hardly badass now that I think about it.

After a boiling cup of tea inside, my Aunt took me out front to do what we always do. We take the warmest, thickest blanket in the house outside in the snow. We roll ourselves up in it, and enjoy the cold warmth of a blanket in the snow. It's the most amazing thing in the world. As I lay curled up in that warm blanket, I don't have to be the girl in the wheel chair. I don't have to worry about how I'm going to get past that small group of stairs. I don't have to hear the hurtful whispering. And as I'm seeping into pure bliss, I feel it. The melted snow creeps through the material in the blanket and dampens my clothes. I scream with laughter. "Hurry! I felt it!" Aunt Sophie throws her head back in laughter and then quickly lifts me into The Snow Monster. We walk/ride back to the house in silence. That's the only problem with our little blanket snow game. The snow starts melting, and then it's all over.