I WILL GO ON RECORD AND SAY IT: THIS IS THE BEST NEW YEAR’S SNOW RUN of my life. Big white flakes flutter down and settle on our heads like sprinkles on cupcakes. A passing car hoots and honks, chiming in with our cheers of “Happy New Year!” And the snow has a crispy pie-crust top that lets us walk on it and race a lap around the house in record time—all except Roman, who ends up waist deep in a drift. We have to backtrack and hoist him out by his armpits, which sets everyone laughing.
Kat grabs my arm and huddles up to me, hopping from one bare foot to the other. “Okay, we did it, jerkmuffin. Can we go inside now?” Her teeth chatter, but the corner of her mouth twitches upward.
“You liked it!”
“Shut up!” She scowls, but her eyes twinkle. “I’m going inside!”
“Okay, I’m com—” A force collides with my shoulder and pushes me backward onto a cushion of snow. Grayson’s face is inches from my own.
“Kat, help, I’m under attack!” I call out to her retreating back.
She turns, shakes her head at me. The porch light illuminates the grin that she’s finally given up hiding. “Sorry, but you’re on your own.”
I look up at Grayson. The snow obscures his dark hair, giving him a mane of white, and for a moment we’re both seventy, having just raced a New Year’s snow run together for—what, the fiftieth time?
I’ve never done a snow run with the same people more than once. Last year I probably could have rallied some duplicates; I was at a house party and some girls there had done it with me before. But I didn’t even do one, because I was too busy dancing or something.
Next year, though, I’m doing this again with Grayson. And with Kat. Because I’ve finally figured it out, this relationships thing. And we are going to be a big, happy family forever.
“Forever!” I shout up at the snow or the stars or maybe both.
“What?” Grayson asks.
“Nothing.”
Grayson shakes his head at me, then leans forward and presses his perfect mouth to mine. His familiar heat grazes my lips, skips to my heart, and floods right down to my toes. My feet suddenly burn as if they’ve been stamped with a cattle brand—but one of ice instead of fire.
“Get off. Hurry, hurry, hurry.” I smack Grayson’s arm until he hops up, snow showering off him like a life-threatening dandruff affliction. “So cold!” I yelp, leaping up after him. I grab his arm, spin him around, and hop up onto his back, liberating my feet from their prison of snow. “Mush, mush! Hurry! Inside!”
He laughs, his chest rumbling under my own with each “ha,” and piggybacks me inside to warmth.
KAT
I RAN THROUGH SNOW. SNOW. IN MY BARE FEET. AN ABSURD, STUPID THING to do, but I can’t stop grinning.
I ran through snow in my bare feet, and I didn’t die.
I can do this, too.
I can ask Roman to do our science fair test.
He stands beside me in the kitchen, swirling powdery grains of chocolate into warm milk. The otherwise-empty room echoes with the clinking of metal on ceramic as I stir my own mug of cocoa. Roman doesn’t love LotS like I do, but I know he’s played it before. And it wouldn’t be poaching one of Meg’s subjects; she’s doing all of hers at her family party in a couple of days. Asking him should be easy.
I rest my spoon against the side of the mug and rehearse the question in my head. Would you be willing to—
“Mini marshmallows?” he asks, holding up a bag.
I blink at him. “Oh, um, no thanks,” I say. Which is stupid, because of course I want mini marshmallows. Who doesn’t want mini marshmallows in their hot chocolate?
“Okay,” he says, then starts to hum along with the cheery song that trickles in from the living room radio as he pours a stream of marshmallows into his own mug.
I can just change my mind. Ask for the marshmallows. Though really, I should skip that and ask about our science project before I lose my nerve. But is it rude to interrupt someone when they’re humming?
I grab my spoon and give my hot chocolate another vigorous stir.
We both look up as Roman’s girlfriend, Leila, waltzes into the room. Their relationship is all new and shiny; they smile every time they see each other, like some Pavlovian dog’s response. Leila’s grin makes her high cheekbones and thick dark eyebrows even more striking; Roman’s makes no difference—he’s a teddy bear whether he’s grinning or not.
“You making one for me?” she asks.
He lifts his mug as if toasting her. “This is for you.”
“Aw, you’re so sweet.” She kisses him on the cheek, then takes his hand and leads him out of the kitchen.
I stand there, alone, for a moment or two. Stir my hot chocolate. Listen to the melody of clinks. The cacophony of voices floating in from the other room. Leila’s giggle. The dissonant chorus of multiple stories being told at once. Meg’s cheery “Shut your mouth!” Roman’s hyena laugh. Everyone’s boisterous laughs.
I peek my head around the corner. People are settling in the living room, a scattered mishmash of still-bare feet, snow-damp clothes, and adrenaline-laced voices. Leila sits on Roman’s lap and squeals as he tickles her. Luke is squashed on the couch between Grayson and one of his friends, waving his hands about as he tells some apparently hilarious story. I search for Meg and spot her by the radio in the back corner, wiggling her hips as I swear three different songs come on at once. She’s partly hidden by the tree, which blinks with red and yellow and blue. Every light in the room is on. It’s after midnight, and still the whole place bursts with it—light and noise and chaos.
I’ve had enough. I want to be surrounded by darkness. Smothered by it. Not in a suicidal kind of way, just in a floating-on-a-noiseless-matterless-void kind of way.
One eternity . . . two nonexistence . . .
I pluck my hot chocolate from the counter, step out into the hall, and turn left instead of right.
MEG
I DANCE INTO THE KITCHEN JUST AS KAT DISAPPEARS OUT THE OTHER DOOR. I hurry to catch up to her. We could follow each other from one room to the other—kitchen, hallway, living room, kitchen, hallway, living room—never meeting, if we went at the same speed and in the same direction.
Kat doesn’t turn right toward the living room, though. Instead, she swerves off course, up the stairs. Her blond ponytail waves good-bye before she disappears into the darkness. I want to skip after her, draw her back to me like a kite on a string. But she has rambled on enough times about needing “alone time,” and I suppose she deserves it. She did let me drag her to my party and out into the snow like yetis, with only minimal kicking and screaming.
So I let her go.
I miss her already.
A bag of mini marshmallows sits open on the counter, and I grab a handful. Mmm, sugar.