The flakes are settling on his hair, on his eyelashes. They stay on the collar of his damp shirt. They wet the angle of his jaw, stick like droplets on his cheekbones and lips. I even see a few drops run down from his forehead and get into his eyes.
But instead of blinking, he keeps watching me. He keeps staring at me like he’s… still so riveted. And yet furious at the same time.
The boy I love.
So cold with the snow but so hot with all the things inside of him.
I wish I could do something about it. I wish I could do more for him.
But I can’t, can I?
I can’t save him if he’s unwilling to save himself. I can only love him.
Turns out though, he doesn’t want that either.
So this is it then.
This is all I can do.
With one last look at him, at his tall dark form, I take in a deep breath and turn around.
I take my love and leave like he told me to.
I trudge through the snow. The beautiful, hateful snow.
God, Ihateit.
I hate everything about this stunning, gorgeous thing. So much so that somewhere between scaling the fence and getting inside the back door of the dorm building, I’ve started to cry again.
I’m not outright sobbing though.
Not yet.
I don’t know why. Maybe I need another push.
A bigger push. A more forceful push.
A push that will jar me back into reality that what just happened, really happened. I told him that I loved him and he told me to take my love and get lost.
I told him my biggest secret and he rejected me.
A few seconds later I get that, that last push that thaws this chill and numbness that I’m feeling, when I sneak back into my room, all wet and shivering, and stumble on something.
It’s one of my soccer cleats. The ones he bought for me.
I usually stick them under the bed, but somehow I must’ve forgotten to and so now I trip and stumble because of them.
And then, I just can’t stop crying into my pillow as the love bite he gave me throbs painfully on my neck.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Broken Arrow
Iwrite you letters… I have shoeboxes full of them…
That’s the one thing echoing in my head as I ride back to my motel in the snow and tear through the door. I march over to my nightstand and snap it open.
And there they are.
