An extended dialog in a parked car, nearly whispering over the radio and its static. Stories about classes, friends, enemies, parties, work - their subtext (the responsibilities of playing adult, the rural cliché of getting out, the future/our future) obscured like the lights of the neighborhood's houses, upstairs downstairs, glowing through the now-fogged windows. A luminescent braille, for the two of us, blind to what we were really talking about. Sharp elbows under her coat, sharp knees under her pants hugged against her chest; her head on my shoulder. I remember the texture the pattern the weave of the upholstery. Wait, we shifted again. I remember...
She's standing with her back to her house, her parents' house, two steps above me - her face in shadow, her head haloed by icicle lights hanging from the roof. I whisper, "Don't...don't go in, not now, not yet," and I grab a gloved hand that slides thru mine, away, into a warmer coat pocket. A smile, "I have to," she tips her chin down, waits, looks up, down at me, "tomorrow...I'll see you." She turns, I don't. I watch her door open and close, and I breathe out into my cupped hands. There is a sound, low and harmonic, like the hum of ice forming, the blunted hiss of steam rising from chimneys. And snow flakes, fish scales, falling in the cold night air. I'm not alone.
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