Snow

42 | el verano ya casi termina, julian

❝everything is grey.
his hair, his smoke, his dreams.
and now he's so devoid of color
he don't know what it means.❞

❘❘

CREO QUE ES DICIEMBRE, y creo que estoy solita.

I don't know how long I cried, and I don't know why I cried. I just... did. Maybe it was guilt, or disgust, or loneliness.

Because without Julian, I didn't know what to do.

When the sirens bled into the night, lo dejé. When a haze of red and blue fluttered across the sidewalk in a watery glaze, painting him into a still silence, lo dejé. When the icy reality of stolen snow caught up to us, lo dejé.

Fuck ride or die. Survival is single-minded. It's every woman for herself in this world.

"It's a harsh world out here, Neva. If you wanna be on top, you've got to be fucking cold."

I never wanted to be on top; I just wanted to stop feeling, stop breathing, stop existing.

So why was it him and not me?

"Please, please, please," I sob, my nails digging under the sheet of metal desperately. With another shaky cry, I fall back, numb fingertips prying at the license plate. I just need to get it off.

Hace demasiado frío, y estoy sola.

When I scramble onto my knees on the concrete, it isn't a violent memory; it's distant, dizzy, fluttering faintly beneath a sheet of thick ice. There's nothing hot in the motion anymore, no trace of midnight gravel on my tongue, no raw knees, no stinging eyes, no burning palms. All I can taste is smoke, soft and sensual, the ghost of a breathless, bloody kiss—cold lips, cold skin, cold hearts.

I can taste him, but I can't feel him. I can't really feel anything.

My fingers are numb, my cheeks are numb, my body is fucking numb. I always wanted to feel nothing, even for a few moments, but as wisps of winter air caress my cheeks and trace my veins into ice, it feels like cold chaos.

Loneliness.

The sheet of metal bends.

"Florida plates, baby. Knew we'd find you."

Grinding my teeth together, I lean closer to fiddle with the screws, to do anything about the Florida plates that will get me killed.

Nothing stops.

It took seconds, minutes, hours, days, for that truth to finally sink in. Each night surrendered to a soft sunrise; each morning sky felt sluggish, but inevitable. Like a heartless, hopeless reminder that this city keeps beating and breaking, living and breathing, even when I don't want to. As I took in the sunset behind the Brooklyn Bridge from the foggy back window of my car each day, tucked into blankets, inhaling nothing but him, I waited for it to end.

No puedo quedarme aquí. I can't stay here, sleeping in the back seat of my car, parked on Adams Street, just living off of the cocaine Julian Rivera left behind.

Pero no sé a dónde ir. I didn't know where, or what, home was.

A billowing gust of air lashes at my cheeks, freezing tears and fracturing the memories of some existential fucking crisis. Collapsing to the ground in defeat, I close my eyes and cry.