The Ache of Newly Fallen Snow

I’m on a bench outside of my favorite donut shop, except I can’t say for sure it’s my favorite anymore, because a few hours ago Milo broke up with me inside of it. The air is crisp—it moves quickly, like the lashes of an iced whip against my throat, my nostrils, the gloss of my puffy eyes. The cold is a scythe, frigid, slicing across my flesh so that I feel raw and bloody. I rub my finger against my nose, sniffling. It burns, in a sharp sort of way, like when you hold an ice cube for too long and it begins to sting. 

The snow stopped a while ago, and it lays across everything like a stark white blanket of nothing. That pretty much describes what cold is: a lack of feeling. After it cuts and pierces, it leaves a stiff numbness, all consuming, in every piece of you until you’re full of nothing but the absence of something. Cold is kind of like heartbreak, I think. There, bursting to full, and so empty, all at the same time.

I stay on the bench in the winter frost because Milo’s stuff is still at my apartment. I don't want to look at it, registering the form of his clothes and trinkets for the last time—saying the little goodbyes to pieces of him. It’ll be there for the next few days at the very least, so I'm not sure what my game plan is. All my time at the gym has chiseled my body fat percentage into something unsuitable for the cold. I’ll be dead by morning. So what’s the plan? 

I glance back at the donut shop window and connect eyes with Julie, who I know by name not because of her nametag (anymore), but because of my familiarity with the shop. She always gives me extra donut holes, and did so even today. Normally I’d share them with Milo, but they sit in a paper bag between my stiff fingers, growing stale. She seems concerned, and I can't blame her. I probably look half frozen already, pretty much corpse adjacent. Finding a different donut shop is gonna suck. I wish Milo broke up with me under an inconspicuous bridge or something, better yet I wish he slit my throat and hid me under some piles of garbage. It would have been a greater mercy. 

Now I have to find a different donut shop. 

Milo started going to my gym, now I have to find a different gym. 

Milo lives in this city, now I have to find a different city. 

What’s the game plan? 

I wonder what he’s doing now. I'm sure he isn't stupidly glued to a bench, giving in to the stinging freeze of tonight’s chilled air. My skin feels pulled taut against the dried salted trails down my cheeks. My ears ache red, the blood in them rushing to fight against the biting wind. I glance at Julie again, but I don’t think she notices this time. I wish it was a different cashier today, maybe it’d feel less sad somehow. 

I want to dial Milo and say I’m afraid, if he could just come back and warm me up a bit, because I’ve been stupid and sat in the cold. I’m scared and I don't know where to go, and I’m not certain where the bits of my life end and his begin, because they’ve intermingled for so long, mixed like the ingredients of a giant cake, and what of the cake now? If I was the sugar and flour, where have I gone? 

The cake is sitting and spoiling, and what do I do, Milo, if I am sitting on a bench and I’m cold and there’s no one here except for the lack of you? And I can’t go to my favorite donut shop anymore, and I won’t see Julie again for extra donut holes, and I need to find a new gym. 

More tears plunge from my eyes, steaming against the dense ice of my skin. I thought I’d run dry, but I’m relieved to get some warmth, even if just a little. 

It’s dark outside now, although not truly, because the moon reflects off of the surrounding white of everything. The donut shop should be closing soon, and Julie saw me sit out here all that while, looking insane. I make a secret wish that she leaves from the back door, avoiding me and my pathetic display altogether. I didn’t want to say the little goodbye to her either. I hate the feeling of loss, of things that go away and fall into place somewhere else, distant from me, carried on the wind chill. Cold is like being left with nothing. 

I resist the urge to lumber my arm into my jacket pocket and scan my phone’s notification tab. I know Milo’s name won’t be there, and confirming will only make me feel worse. I lick my lips; an embedded sting of fire has already lined the outer edge.  

I feel something warm touch my cheek and I wince, startled.

“You look cold,” says Julie. A plastic cup in her mittened hand, the source of the warmth, hovers close to my face. “Coffee?” 

“I’m okay.” My voice sounds unlike my own—shaky, and worn over. 

“You’re literally almost blue.” I shuffle uncomfortably and she presses the cup to my face once more. “Take the damn cup, Fen.” 

I take it, trying to hide my eagerness, and give it a long sip. The warmth hums inside of my blood, spreading through my veins like a hot sunrise over simmering rocks. My chest goes ablaze, and I take another sip, welcoming the burn of life into my body. Sensation starts to return to my toes, and I wiggle them, trying to keep the heat going. I raise the cup at Julie, managing a soft ‘thank you’ in between sips. 

She sits next to me. “The cold feels clean, doesn’t it?” 

I raise an eyebrow. “Clean?”

“Yeah! When the air pulls over my skin, it’s like-'' she runs her hands up and down her arms, “i’m being washed. All of my pores close up, and everything is compact. Simple. Clean. It’s the opposite of being sweaty, basically.” I give her a sideways glance, pressing my nose against the coffee cup. She sucks her teeth, shrugging. “The cold is like becoming new.” 

I stare across the sheets of snow, purely untouched, blanketing and quiet. I let out a long sigh, one I didn’t even know I’d been holding in. It blows up like smoke against the frozen night air. 

“Sorry,” Julie says. “It must sound really silly to think of it that way.” 

“No, I like it.” Despite myself, I curl my lips and give Julie a smile. It’s weak, but it’s there. Cold is like becoming new. “Thank you,” I say.

“It’s just two dollar coffee.” 

“Thank you.”

Julie looks ahead, holding silence for a moment as the air lies still for the first time in hours. The night takes a soft breath. “You’re welcome.” 

I hand her a very cold donut hole, and though I’m sure it looks unappetizing, she pops it in her mouth. There is no plan. I sit with Julie and let the cold wash over me just a little bit longer.