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She told me once that winter smelled like Christmas to her and that was one of her favorite things to breathe in. She did something to my heart when she said things like that. I liken it to the inflation of an air balloon. Slow, steady and blistering as it unfolds from its orderly frame and can barely stay contained within my body.
It began to snow on top of us and I followed flake after exceptional flake float onto her lustrous skin and slowly melt into tiny droplets of light watery kisses. The dissolved, silvery trickle would pool at her neck and slide back onto the powdery quilt underneath us. A shivering, tempered wave of warmth kept us more than comfortable. I couldn’t help but marvel at our gift. I had just begun to press my lips to Jules’ when we were sadly interrupted.
“Ahem,” a strange voice said.
It was the track coach, Mrs. Littlebrook. I jumped up and helped Jules to her feet. I dug my hands into my jean’s pocket and dragged the chain out for my watch. It was four o’clock and all the cars had left the lot. It hadn’t even phased us. Mrs. Littlebrook must have been in charge of locking the gate.
“Oops,” Jules said.
We rushed to the cab.
“Sorry Mrs. Littlebrook!” Jules yelled out of the window with a wave. She rolled up the manual window and it was practically frozen shut.
“Are you cold?” She asked.
“No,” I said, surprised. “Are you?”
“Nope,” she grinned. “Told you.”
At Jules’ house, we ran inside to drop off her bag. We were going to the rock bridge tonight. We had no homework and wanted to ‘get away’, as Jules always said.
“Nothing like a fresh blanket of snow,” Jules said as we trudged our way to our little spot. I had the blankets and she had the hot chocolate.
When we arrived it looked like a post card. The snow formed a perfect sheath over our marble. I handed her the blankets and jumped up before her to clear an area. I methodically used the side of my boot to clear a section for us to lay the heavy blanket onto. It was waterproof on one side, we learned to bring one of those the hard way.
I took the blanket from her, spread it out and laid the other one on top along with the thermos. I grabbed her hands and lifted her onto the sculpted rock. We bundled ourselves together and drank everything in the thermos while laughing. We rolled up our sleeves underneath the blanket to get an even more cogent punch of our electricity while holding hands, the inside of our forearms stuck to together like a heated magnet.
Only lately was it that I’d especially found that holding Jules’ hand was starting to feel lacking. It was still just as potent, but we found that we needed it more for longer periods of time to feel satisfied. Every day, I felt like a junkie, always searching for his next hit. It was becoming a problem for Jules too.
Once, at the library she had gone into the fiction section and I into the non-fiction. We were apart for only thirty minutes but I began to feel panicky and raced through the rows until I found her. She reached her hand for mine and when I grabbed it we both let out an audible sigh. We were shushed. Well, we had to leave after that because we almost lost it laughter-wise. I never got the book I wanted.
You can only imagine what it was like in the morning time after a ten hour lapse. Needless to say, I was picking Jules up for school earlier and earlier and my mom ultimately put her foot down at five forty-five in the morning.
We discovered that when we made out that it would buy us more time in between ‘hits’. I clearly took no issue with this type of medicine and neither did Jules. I was concerned though. The next level required to pacify our growing addiction was off limits. Yet another reason to convince Jules she should marry me over the summer.
“Hey Jules,” I hinted.
“Yeah?” She said with the biggest smile on her face, reading every thought I just had.
“What do you say to suckin’ face with me?”
“No,” she teased.
“Why not?”
I still hated rejection, even when she was joking.
“Well, I want to talk to you,” she hesitated at the next part, “about graduation.”
My heart skipped a beat and my mouth began to water.
“Is there anything in particular you’d like as a gift?” She asked, catching me off guard.
She thought she got me there but I had a trick up my sleeve.
“Har, har. Nothing in particular unless you’d like to gift your hand.”
She shook her head.
