Snow

9 | everybody is looking to party, sí?

❝maybe he's the blood and ink; the time you waste at the bathroom sink.❞

❘❘

I TASTE NOTHING BUT A HOT PROMISE on his lips, fighting off the icy edge that starts to inch through me. A layer of frost and a cool breeze barely conceal the lingering high.

"It's already winter, Neva," Julian breathes into the kiss.

Winter, winter, winter.

A violent gust of raw air bites into my cheeks; a blustering, beautiful snowstorm seizes me.

Foggy windows and heavy breathing chase away the chill lapping at my insides. My car feels sweltering hot in the late-August afternoon, a sticky sweet air clinging to my skin.

A war brews inside of me, a clash of feeling and numbness sweeping me from the shores of reality. I don't feel cold or hot; I only feel his fingers branding me, his lips claiming me, his soft promises tracing the edge of my heart.

"We stretch it well, and we can bail with nearly half a fucking mil, Neva."

Somewhere within me, I feel a sting—a warning.

It's all overpowered by the perilous strands of frosty air and tendrils of leftover smoke. "Yeah?" I ask, trying to catch my breath or my footing or my thoughts. "We'll make it snow in August. You and me."

The words don't make sense, and as I say them, sweat rolls down the back of my neck. In that inescapable temptation, lost in a tug of war between euphoria and misery, between high and low, between hot and cold, I'm unsure of where I really am. Is it August or December? Is it summer or winter? Are we surrendering to blizzards or heatwaves?

Desperate for clarity, I gasp below the surface of the fading high I've been nursing since we parked.

We parked. We're parked in front of our apartment building in Brooklyn, but somehow, we're moving at the speed of light; we're touching and tasting and snorting and kissing, and time stops existing, and only we do.

I can't think, I can't breathe, I can only be.

This is the infinity of it—the careless disassociated action of being. Just floating and fluttering, like ashes of a slow-burning fire.

Julian reels me over his lap effortlessly, and when our hips grind together, I moan. A shock, or a jolt, or a strike of lightning twists through me, blinding common sense as I lower myself onto him. Together, we're nothing; no thoughts, no regrets, no memories; only skin and sparks, the bare bones of a human existence.

I want that. I want nothing.

There's residue between us, there's cocaine on his lips, there's a dusting of snow blanketing every messy thrust that brings me to the edge of ecstasy.

And when the high starts to fracture like a sheet of thin ice, splintering and splicing beneath my feet to reveal the hot, summer pavement, I unravel, crash, and then fucking fall.

It doesn't hurt—not when I find myself in the hollows of an echoing avalanche. We pause; it pounds between my ears painfully, or it thunders, it rattles my bones and stings my lungs with dry, icy air.

The kind that makes you cough.

I sputter, stumble out of the car. Julian catches me, still buttoning his jeans as he guides us to the front door. My keys in hand, victory in his step, a shamelessly sated smile on his lips. "It doesn't last long."

Nothing comes to my lips as an answer. I can't find one because Julian is right. Nothing lasts forever.

All the bricks find a home in his apartment. With chattering teeth and ice in my veins, my gaze lingers on the duffel bag of snow he stashes in the back of his closet. I shiver, gnawing on my bottom lip nervously. "Oh, Neva," Julian coos and rubs his hands down my arms soothingly. His palms are rough and hot. "I thought you liked the cold."