Snow

1 | i'm not coming home

❝nothing matters: the importance of nothing. that's what you taught me while i was barely listening.❞

❘❘

NOTHING CAN HURT YOU if you're numb. Nothing matters if you just don't care.

Whispers of the soft summer rain just barely numb the sounds of a party next door. Tendrils of smoke twist within my lungs carelessly. It works like a fucking charm.

"Neva..."

A bass pumping.

"It's the wedding, Neva."

Like a heartbeat, it echoes between my ears. A dull pounding that keeps me from focusing on my own heartbeat—or the voice on the other end of the phone.

Thump. "...miss you..." Thump. "...she'd love it..." Thump. "...away forever..."

Faded lyrics filtering out windows; distant, drunken laughter.

"Neva."

A ragged breath, torn to shreds and left out in the sudden summer storm. I barely feel the words tumble out, "I'm not coming home."

His sigh tastes bitter, so I drag the cigarette up to my lips to replace the aftertaste of that infinite disappointment. When will he give up?

"Hermanita, por favor."

I melt an ounce at the familiar endearment, the soft plea in his voice. My brother knows my weaknesses better than anyone and that pisses me off.

In the wake of his pathetic attempt, I grit my teeth together. "Enzo. No."

"¿Por qué?"

"Because," I pointedly state in English, "I don't want to come home." Damp strands of hair sneak past my vision and I sweep them away impatiently. "This is my home now."

His silence is deafening, despite the unwavering sound of Latin trap bleeding through the air.

Guilt claws through me as I mull over the idea of hanging up again. My eyes drift down through the gentle rain to look at the Newport. Clutched between shaky fingers, dotted dark with rain, burning close to the filter.

I told myself I'd give him as long as it took me to smoke a cigarette.

Because I know that Enzo can't convince me to come back to the fucking sunshine state in a ten-minute conversation.

"It's been two years, Neva."

Exactly. If he couldn't convince me in the past two years, he sure as hell can't convince me with this half-assed plea to come for the wedding.

I almost want to laugh at his resilience. Enzo has always been the more determined one in our sibling rivalry. Sidestepping the disappointment in his tone, I try to make a run for it in a completely opposite direction. "I start school in September."

"I thought you didn't have a place."

"I found something." I gnaw on my bottom lip, wary of telling Enzo that I've moved from Brooklyn to Queens. "In Ridgewood."

"How is it?" His response is meek, but I know that the older brother in him is memorizing the name to look it up later.

I smile at the curve in the conversation and decide to let the ember burn longer. "It's rough," I admit, my eyes sweeping over the new neighborhood.

Buildings climb along the diluted sky, silhouetted against an unexpected crack of lightning. The M train looms over the horizon in a streak of darkness, and it grinds to a halt with a distant screech. In diluted, defeated shades of grey and flickering lights, the city is still alive.