Kiss Like Snow

By the time the two rounded the corner of 8th and Grant, the snow had long since fallen and been long pressed into a muddy ice flat. While the roads were freshly salted and glittering in the streetlights, the sidewalks hadn’t been so treated and threw light between sharp ridges of ice melt in the shape of footprints.

The couple had been hurrying fast to get to Helaine’s house before more snow fell, however, and rounded the corner with some haste, and as such fell with some haste, jolting up to their elbows with the force.

For a moment, they laid on the ground and looked at each other. They tangled their hands between their bodies and heaved their breath up like well water, and Helaine thought her lover may cry until there was a laugh.

“Ow.” The other muttered and frowned. Helaine laughed, too, and pulled herself off the ground and her date not long after. There was some more staring, and then some hovering hands sweeping snow from the backs and sleeves of coats. There were some lingering hands, too, but the weather was not inclined to romance and gnawed at their hands out of their pockets.

A gray cloud mass that had been hovering at some distant apartment block drifted closer in their downtime and gave a deep growl.

“I think that’s our cue to move on, love.” Helaine tugged at the other’s hand, then took the initiative and linked their elbows together. Her thumb rubbed itself against her palm in her pocket, and she imagined her lover doing the same. “I know it’s not popular, but I think winter may be my favorite season.”

“I can see that. Is it the snow?”

“Hm. A little? But I actually really like the cold. Or, I like being inside while it’s cold outside.” They’d been shuffling forward during the exchange, though much slower than before. Their shoes made a quiet scritching sound where they coincidentally met the concrete.

“And you have a blanket wrapped around your shoulders and your feet tucked under you?”

“Yeah, you get it. It’s, the, uh…”

“The contrast? Juxtaposition?”

Helaine laughed. “It’s almost like you can read my mind sometimes.” Her love hummed amusedly beside her, then fell into a fumbling silence, alternately picking up and dropping different threads of conversation. Helaine let the silence sit and bubble and watched as water dribbled in the ridges of tree bark to her right. When it met the ground, it did so with a tentative reach and then slipped between the frozen wood chips and her view.

“It’s been a really nice night.” At the sound of her love’s voice, Helaine looked over and felt her heart spill over with affection. She traced the lines of that graceful body, poised just so to have a clear sight of the stars, winking between layers of cloud drift.

“Yeah?” She whispered.

“Yeah.” Came the quiet reply, and Helaine took that as her cue to sidle next to the other, feeling foreign body heat pressing against her from every point of contact. The clouds swept through in an ebb and flow of tides, at once cradling the moon in down, then skittering away in the next moment. From some distance, a car alarm startled a flock of nesting birds, and with each wing beat, their feathers brushed the stars. Then, the night was silent. Then, the snow was a gentle lover kissing her face, and not a silent killer.

“We should keep going.” The other interrupted, “We’re not far from your apartment now.” Helaine nodded and let herself be pulled along, the snow rising in intensity around them, catching on the tips of their shoes and pressing muddy into their tread.

They carried on and passed by surrounding houses at a fast clip, lit windows pressed like sheets of gold into the siding. In one window, a mother sat with her child in front of the parted curtain and traced flowers in the condensation of her breath.

Before long, the two had reached the stoop of Helaine’s apartment and lingered there.

“You could come in,” Prompted Helaine, “It looks like it’ll be a cold walk back.”

“Hmm…”

“Stay the night?” She rested a hand on her beloved’s arm and drew herself close enough to touch the sides of their feet together.

The decision set a bitter twist in her love’s face. “I really think…I really think I should get going.”

Helaine frowned. “Alright, love. Get home safe?” Her love blinked with deeply weary eyes, and she felt a hunger to run her thumbs in the shadows beneath them and have them rise from the skin like dust. She tentatively raised a hand and felt a jawbone brush her hand when a cold wind tore through them and left their teeth clattering in their mouths. As if in reaction, the other closed the gap between them and brought her into a kiss.

Fireworks didn’t explode in the back of Helaine’s eyes; she didn’t feel her toes curl and press into the soles of her shoes. It was too cold for any privilege beyond a muted warmth where their hands and lips met. She felt like they were two corner puzzle pieces, she felt like drywall tape straining its lattices to cover a widening hole. But still, she gave, and she took, and she felt those jagged edges catch and thought nothing of it.

Later, she’d find herself inside and under her bed covers and touching her lips and feel so warm she’d think to describe the kiss like a first snowfall. It was cold and wet, and a little miserable, but at the same time, almost pure—almost sanitized.

In the snow, though, she was the first to pull away. She was the first to step back, and she felt the cold gnaw on her wet lips and ghost over the ridge of her cheekbone.

“It’s only going to get colder.” She worried. “Are you sure you’re not going to stay the night?”

Her lover only smiled and walked her up the steps. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

In the entryway, she unwound her scarf from her neck and knocked her boots against the welcome mat. The door stuck in the frame when she went to close it, and the deadbolt struggled to stay latched.

After she’d gotten her coat off and her scarf tucked in her pants pocket, she peeled the blinds away from the window and watched the snow fall in dizzying eddies. Just beyond the porch—as if having taken a few steps, quickly regretted it—her love stood in dark silence and watched with her as the snow fell on. When her beloved’s coat finally turned a corner and passed from her view, Helaine dragged herself up the stairs to her apartment.

In the kitchen, she made herself a cup of chamomile tea and brought it with her to the couch. The storm had reached its peak, now, and snow heaped itself high on the rooftops. Helaine pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders, looked into the murky depths of her tea leaves, and wondered at how the sun would rise tomorrow, red and brilliant against the freshly fallen snow.