Snow

37 | es todo

**TRIGGERS. THIS IS MY TRIGGER WARNING FOR ALL OF YOU. PLEASE READ CAUTIOUSLY.

❝barely conscious in the door where you stand, your eyes are fighting sleep but your mouth makes your demands. you laugh at every word, trying hard to be cute. i almost feel sorry for what i'm gonna do.❞

❘❘

"YOU EVER DONE HEROIN?"

Numbly, I shake my head.

Jesse smiles. "You'll love it."

Butterflies storm through my chest, an unstoppable stampede of anxiety and excitement fluttering free. "More than I love snow?"

"Snow," he snickers, mischief glinting in his dark eyes, light caressing sheets of black ice. "It's cute that you call it that."

A gentle breeze weaves through my hair, spilling onto bare shoulders and sinking into brittle bones. I shiver. "Why?"

"Because it's not cold, Neva." Slowly, fingertips trace up my wrist, a chill chasing the soft motion. "It makes you feel like you're on fire."

Jesse hums lazily, catching a lock of my hair between his fingers, twisting, tugging, teasing me closer to him. My breath catches, and when our eyes lock, I'm stuck swimming in the faint tendrils of air billowing between us in a wild clash of calor y hielo.

"It's cold, isn't it?" he drawls so fucking softly, lips moving, pero las palabras shifting, slipping... away... "It's cold tonight, Neva."

Draping an arm around my shoulder, he tugs me into the dim, dirty corner. Together, tucking the iron table against the bricks, shielding it from the wind, Jesse and I are a wall. We're still and strong—baring weather and worry, gazes falling to the untouched lines cut across a black surface.

"It is cold," I finally exhale, a weak whisper withering into nothing. "It feels... cold, and creo que... I think I..."

Creo que me encanta; creo que me encanta más de lo que nunca he amado nada.

Jesse doesn't even look at me. "You do. You love it so much that nothing else exists."

My cheeks warm. "I..."

"It's supposed to snow next week, Neva."

Another flutter erupts in my chest, stirring my heart into those fucked up romanticized expectations of invierno. ¿Es sólo otra mentira? "Really?"

"That's what they're saying."

I don't know who they are, pero se siente como una promesa, a stinging, self-destructive sentiment for something surreal. Still wandering in the haze of crisp air, blinking dreamily, all the cold, cut shadows sink and skew into fantasies of endless snowstorms.

I shiver again, but it's raw and unfiltered, ready for a brutal blizzard, or... anything to ice over the lingering memories of warmth, abandoned in a Florida thunderstorm.

Anything to steal the taste, that trace of gravel on my tongue.

Jesse snatches the straw from my shaky hand, separating to saunter around the brick wall. Alone, a little afraid, I let my gaze drift over the backyard, vision sharpening to take in the empty picnic tables beneath trembling umbrellas and the iron black tables that close the gaps in a labyrinth of empty space.

"Everyone cleared out."

I whip my head around to find him, lost and lunging for our little corner, palms trembling and bloodshot eyes darkening. Darkness dances across hollow cheekbones; shards of light catch twisted strands of hair. A smile surges from the shadows.