But Liam already looks far too pleased with himself. It’s too late. A snowball flies and hits her square in the shoulder.
Chaos follows.
Lilia shrieks and dives behind a bench. Bea lets out an intimidating, “Oh, it’s on,” before lunging toward a mound of snow. Kym, still sputtering, retaliates by pelting Liam in the chest.
And just like that, the courtyard explodes with laughter and yells, snow flying through the air in wild arcs.
I’m running before I realize it, ducking behind a stone bench as a snowball explodes just past my shoulder. I whip around and spot Will smirking as she launches one at Lilia as well.
I spot Kai as a snowball hits him directly in the face.
He blinks, then slowly turns.
Lilia freezes, hands up like she’s caught.
“Oops?”
Kai crouches smoothly and scoops a handful of snow.
“Oh, no,” Lilia whispers.
He throws, and it hits her in the exact same spot she hit him.
Lilia shrieks.
I laugh, really laugh, and something lifts in my chest I didn’t realize had been buried so deep.
And then Kai looks at me, snow in hand.
I back away, hands raised. “Don’t you dare.”
His mouth lifts. Just slightly. Just enough. Before cold explodes across my shoulder.
I scream, grab snow, run at him.
He dodges, catches my wrist, and for one second we’re close, too close. Breathless. Laughing.
His hand is cold around mine, his smile barely there, but real. Real enough that I can feel it in my chest.
And around us, the screams don’t lessen.
Bea shrieking as Will chucks snow at her from behind a bench. Kym launching a snowball with terrifying accuracy at Liam’s back. Lilia slipping, screaming, laughing harder than I’ve ever heard her.
We’re loud. We’re ridiculous. We’re soaked and freezing and out of breath.
And yet, the world couldn’t have been quieter. Like the snow’s swallowed up everything else. The fear. The grief. The questions. All of it muffled under layers of endless white.
And for a moment, I feel as though we’ve been here forever, like we would always be here. It won’t last, some part of me knows that, but for now it’s enough.
Enough to make me wish, just for a little longer, that it could.
***
Lilia eyes me warily through the mirror, her gloved fingers hovering above the bowl of dye. “Are you sure about this?”
I nod, steady. “I’ve never been surer of anything.”
Because this hair, this colour, this particular shade—I’ve never liked it. Never felt like it belonged to me.
