After All

Chapter Sixteen

The two weeks Ryan and I spent at school on a nearly empty campus were almost like a honeymoon. It was the little things I began to love, like the way my hair would smell like his bed the next day. We'd have breakfast together before he went to practice or the gym. Then I'd spend a few hours in the art studio. After we finished our work for the day, we'd go out to dinner together. We tried a few new restaurants in the area, but made sure to visit our new friends at the little Italian place the most. Every night ended with us snuggled up in Ryan's tiny bed, having now broken down all physical and emotional boundaries between us.

One day I was waiting in his room for him to come back from practice. I'd arranged a few of the knickknacks found around the room on his desk and was sketching them for an abstract piece I was working on. Suddenly the door banged open and Ryan burst in, out of breath. "Lily, come quick," he said, grabbing my coat off the bed.

"Ryan, what's wrong?" I sat up from my slouched position slowly, concerned about his frantic behavior. What could have happened to make him act this way?

"It's snowing!" his whole face lit up in a grin.

I shoved my feet into my new boots and threw on my coat as we ran down the hall, laughing in relief that nothing was wrong and filled with an intense anticipation of finally getting to see snow, up close and in person. Ryan pushed open the front door of the building and I rushed out behind him before stopping cold in my tracks. Huge, puffy, white snowflakes fell from the sky, coating the ground in a glittery blanket. I lifted my face upward, letting the soft flakes coat my hair and eyelashes.

"It's beautiful," I spoke barely above a whisper, afraid to disturb the stillness. I turned to look at Ryan. Tears of pure joy rolled down my cheeks. "I can't believe it. It really is like magic." I bent down and scooped up some of the accumulating snow into my hand. As expected, it was cold and wet. I looked at it closely, inspecting each individual flake. They really did resemble the paper ones we'd made in elementary school, each of them unique in its shapes and angles. They shimmered in the moonlight, so much so that it looked like I was holding a handful of diamonds instead of just frozen water.

I threw a handful up in the air, spinning underneath it as it sprinkled back down over me. I giggled, unable to stop the pure euphoria radiating out of me.

"You're adorable," Ryan finally said. He'd been standing off to the side, just watching me take in this moment. With his hands secured firmly in his pockets, he sauntered over to me and kissed my forehead.

"I just can't believe I'm finally seeing snow. It's even more amazing that I thought." I grabbed his arm and pulled him next to me. "Come on, let's take a walk."

He laughed at my childlike antics, but went along with it anyway. Arm in arm, we walked all over the nearly empty campus, trudging through the rapidly accumulating snow. I loved everything about it, from the way it sparkled on the bare branches to the footprints left behind us. Ryan wasn't quite as impressed as I was, but still indulged me for two hours. He said that watching me experience it for the first time made him appreciate it a little more, and see it through new eyes.

I could not stop myself from talking about it with every step we took. It was even more elegant than I ever thought it would be. The most surprising thing was the silence. The snow acted as a blanket, muting the normal sounds of cars whizzing by and students shouting to each other. It was as if the whole world was at peace while it snowed.

We made snow angels in the quad, soaking the backs of our heads in the process. We made tiny walls of snow to hide behind while we threw snowballs at each other. Sneaking into the cafeteria, we stole trays and used them to slide down the gently sloping hill near the entrance to the gym. We played outside until we looked more like snowmen ourselves than humans. Even though Ryan kept telling me it would soon lose its magic, I knew that every year the first snow would forever remind me of him.