A Year Without Snow

-37-

Monday, 9th January 2017

The sky had suddenly turned grey, whatsoever the weather didn't reflect on my mood, I didn't feel gloomy or grey, I felt anger and red. Red that once might have symbolized passion now had turned into passionate irritation.

"Grace?" I asked as I approached him. His hands were on his coat's pocket, his head facing his house, and his face blank of emotion.

"Where are you applying to?" Bryson asked finally facing me.

"What's it to you?" I asked. "But answer me. Have you always liked her? While we were dating? Or is it just to piss me off?"

"NYU? You want to move to New York?" Bryson asked.

"Stop changing the subject!" I demanded anger flowing over me. "Why the fuck would you be with Grace? Why!?"

"I don't know, Daisy! She was always a good friend to me-" He interrupted himself. "But what's that to you?"

"That's a betrayal to me, that's what it is." I simply said. "Do you know how much it hurt? To see you with her? To think you liked her all this time." I said as a small tear fell down my face. "Or even the other way around! To think of her with you, to think that she would simply put our friendship in the trash, for a fucking crush!" I said through hiccups.

I was letting out everything that had been buried inside of me since I found out about them, "I feel like after last year I can trust no fucking one! My childhood friend rapped me! My lifelong best friend didn't have the nerve to stand up to me! And now Grace... Who after everything..."

He started walking in my direction and before I could process it he hugged me. Bryson put his arms around me, "Are you okay?" He whispered.

Those words were enough for me to break down. I put my anger behind me as I cried and let him hug me.

"You've been the most important person to me all my life." He said, but I pretended I didn't listen, "It hurts like hell to see you so broken."

I wanted to tell him to stop talking because his voice reminded me why I hated him. But his arms were safe, and warm and comforting. Arms first symbolized companionship, then friendship, and finally love. Sweet and innocent love that was raised without justification, simply because it had to be.

But his voice sounded in my ears and my unresolved feelings of anger did too, "Don't go to New York."

I raised my head from his chest and finally realized myself from his embrace. "I don't know, I'm still pondering."

I took a few steps back and without saying anything turned my back to him.

As I was walking up my front steps I heard Bryson say from afar, "Just tell me to which colleges you're applying, alright?"

I didn't answer.

As I made my way inside a thought crossed my mind, Bryson was starting to believe in me. Believe that I wasn't lying, that my hurt was real, and that a lot of people I had cared for had betrayed me, him being one of them. He was pitying me. And I simply couldn't say how I felt about it. On one side I was still angry and revolted about everything he had done to me, the most relevant his latest affair with my friend. But on the other hand, I felt a sense of relief because he had finally seen the truth and whether I wanted it or not I still cared about what he thought of me.

As I walked into my house something caught my eyes, a picture I had ignored for some years that stood in an old chest in the living room. My mom had dug it out from the attic when my grandmother died, to honor her. It was a family portrayed as a traditional family in the 1970s. My severe and serious grandfather whom I never knew was looking firmly at the cameraman. My father was a little kid then looked shyly at me, with uneasiness in his eyes. Probably due to the man that was standing next to him. And finally Audrey Ryland, my loving grandmother, the most genuine and truthful person I had ever known, sat there looking flawless and happy her face clear and ageless, next to an abusive husband and what would be an outcasted son. Saying that I missed her seemed to demonstrate so little of what I felt when I thought of her, but I had made my peace with it.

A tear fell down as it was bound to as I realized this would not be how she had wanted me to feel, so I cleared my face and turned away going up to my room.

To find my phone with an unreasonable amount of notifications from a group chat I had been added to called "SNOW TRIP". It had been created by Dallas saying that the guys from the basketball team had decided that the trip was going to be to a Snow Resort.

I shook my head disapprovingly, those guys thought they were on top of the world for simply shooting hoops. They had the "nerve" to decide where the whole class was going without asking anybody, I toss my phone on the bed and didn't think much of the matter sure that Scar and Melanie would take care of it.

It didn't really matter to me where we were going honestly. All I cared about was spending a good time with my few remaining friends. And that the money we made on Zeus would be well spent, I didn't go through all that drama to end up in a road motel, in reality, I should spend my part of the money on some therapy.

Because my mom was working the afternoon shift I got into my pajamas and went straight to bed, I knew that I should study, but my mind was elsewhere.

That night I fell asleep with thoughts of New York, college applications, Bryson and Grace, my grandma, and snow.