Snow

7 | dime, julian, is it snowing in here?

❝if she wants to dance and drink all night, well there's no one that can stop her. ❞

❘❘

SOME STRIKING STRAND OF SELF CONTROL had snapped. I stumble into the world without balance, let everything tilt beneath my feet, and surrender any sense of stability.

Days string together into momentary messes; nothingness fades into some strange euphoric freedom, unraveling with every endless summer night.

It's a haze of sex and soft, slurring conversation—with strangers.

Even when I'm sober, I'm not sober.

I'm caught somewhere between blurry lines, trying to find my footing, trying not to trip and fall—trying to avoid everything. I try not to think, but when the thoughts of empty nights and cracked windows find me, I reach for whoever is beside me.

Contact becomes distraction, and distraction becomes that numb, mindless energy buzzing in my veins.

I don't want to think about the sound of my ringtone or the vibrations that haunt me in my sleep; the full voice mailbox or the time I waste with my fingers hovering over Enzo's contact. I don't want to think about the last few weeks of this catastrophic summer or the dissertation topic that keeps hitting too close to what used to be home.

Because as the start of my final year looms, I start sinking—drowning—in a death I put to bed years ago, and memories I know will never, ever leave me alone.

Why didn't it affect Enzo as much as me? Why did the world just keep spinning when I was still stuck in a freeze frame? Why did time just keep moving when it felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest and dragged back to Mexico to die?

I twist my gaze around the glass and try to focus on the dark, sloshing liquid that somehow keeps ending up beneath my fingertips, burning down my throat, stifling the thick sobs I can feel tumbling to my lips.

It burns, but it burns in all the right ways—where memories stray, the twinge of rum chases it away.

My phone buzzes; it shakes and quivers along the bar. It's an incessant throb that tugs my heart up to my lips, ready to spill out with a million concealed emotions. I can't seem to place the frustration from the regret. One single glance proves what I already know, but there's something about the picture that wrenches me from my thoughts.

In a faded, fuzzy snapshot of sunshine, scrunched up together on the beach, Enzo and I are both smiling.

Despite the warm eyes and the sun-kissed grins, something cold sweeps through me at the sight of us. A gust of wind swallows my heart, and flurries of snow dress it up with an ice-cold layer of armor.

Vaguely distant, the memories flicker through me in an infinite reel of lazy days in the sun. When did we take this? When did things change between us? When did Enzo stop being my best friend?

"You gonna answer that, Nev?"

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

My fingers graze the screen delicately, and as my groggy thoughts finally catch up, the smooth surface fucking burns—in all the wrong ways. I pull away frantically and avert my gaze to Antonaccio with a loose smile. "No."

I make my decisions.

His brows raise, but I mirror the gesture, tipping my glass to my lips and challenging him to mention it.

Burn, burn, burn. As it slides down my throat, I bite back a wince, trying to enjoy the way heat simmers in my veins; all it does is melt every splintering fragment of ice within me and leave me open and vulnerable for the next sucker punch.