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“It was fun,” he admits. “I kept correcting people—they wanted me to be Minnie and I was like, no, do you see any bow on this head? I’mMickey.”
Ryan reaches for his hand. Holds it.
“But you’re so muchcuterthan Mickey.”
Avery laughs. “Oh, thanks!”
The photograph no longer has their attention. Now it’s their hands, their fingers. The epicenter of their calm, the point of most connection.
Each in his own way experiences a small shock of surprise within the comfort of their pleasure. When you have to fight for your identity and win your identity, there is always a part of you that thinks there has to be a trade-off, that by stepping away from the norm you have been sentenced, you risk stepping away from happiness as well. You feel you will have to fight harder for someone to love you. You feel you will have to bear the risk of more loneliness in order to be who you need to be.
And yet.
Much more often than not, with that small shock of surprise, the fight will come loose, and the risk will fallaside like a broken cocoon, and you will find yourself completely unalone, not only seen by someone else, but felt. This was part of what you were trying to get to, and now it is here.
Avery closes his eyes and leans into Ryan. Ryan closes his eyes and leans into Avery. For a few minutes, they let that be their lives. From the parents’ bedroom, there is the indistinct sound of some TV show. Outside, there are the fairy footsteps of snow. Avery can feel Ryan breathing. Ryan’s eyes are closed, but in his mind, he is seeing them on the couch, is imagining what it looks like with Avery’s head on his shoulder.
Then: a squeeze on Ryan’s hand. Avery sitting up. Ryan opens his eyes, turns to him, and sees him smiling.
“Outside,” Avery says. “We need to go outside.”
—
There is noway Avery’s old boots will fit Ryan, so Ryan borrows Avery’s father’s. (Avery swears it’s okay.) They bundle one another as best they can—Avery wrapping the scarf around Ryan so fervently that his neck is temporarily mummified; Ryan insisting on zipping Avery up, on putting the hat on his head. Just so his hands can linger on Avery’s cheeks. Just so it can lead to a kiss.
All the paths—even the driveway—have disappeared with the hours. When Avery and Ryan step outside, it is into a crystalline silence, a white darkness. The snow still falls, but almost as an afterthought, a gentle patter.
Avery takes Ryan’s mitten in his own mitten and leads him into the yard. Ryan thinks for a moment of the neighbor across the street, of any neighbor…but then he chooses to put those thoughts aside. He focuses on the way his boots sink into the surface with every step. He focuses on the frosty filaments that land on his cheek. He focuses on mittens, and Avery, and the depth of the quiet around them. This is a world without cars, a world without any alarms set for the next morning.
Avery lets go. He can’t help himself—the snow is just too perfect to be ignored. Ryan doesn’t understand until too late what he’s doing. By the time Avery has formed the snowball, Ryan is only just reaching for his own scoop of ammunition. Avery takes aim. Fires.
Bull’s-eye.
Ryan retaliates, but Avery dodges, then fires again and hits. Ryan assembles a snow boulder and moves closer to pounce. Avery tries to wrangle away, but is only half successful. More salvos are lobbed. More footsteps cover the yard.
Finally, Ryan can’t take it any longer, and tackles Avery to the ground. Their coats are so thick, it’s almost like a pillow fight, only with the boys acting as the pillows. It’s a soft landing, a soft tackle. Avery tries to wriggle out of Ryan’s grip, and then he stops trying. He lies there in the snow and Ryan lies there next to him, and then they are kissing again, snowflake eyelashes and cold-flush cheeks.
Ryan rolls onto his back and they both face the sky, watching the snowflakes fall. Like stargazing, only the starscome when they are called. Ryan’s head is next to Avery’s head, his hip next to Avery’s hip. Avery puts his legs together, in the shape of one leg. And Ryan, knowing what Avery is doing, does the same. His left mitten finds Avery’s right mitten and they hold. Then, on the count of three, they extend their other arms, lift their way to wings. A single snow angel, larger than either of them could be on their own.
“This is not what I thought I’d be doing right now,” Ryan says. On a regular night, he probably would have been driving back at this hour.
“I know,” Avery whispers.
Ryan can feel the damp cold seeping into his jeans. He can tell his nose is unpleased and ready to run. The crack between the back of his hat and the back of his coat is allowing an unkind chill to set in at the back of his neck, despite the scarf. But still, he has no desire to move.
Avery blinks away the snow that gathers around his eyes. He listens hard and can’t hear anything but snow language (faint), tree language (fainter), and the tiny rustle of Ryan’s jacket against his.
“We are the only people in the world,” he says.
“We are,” Ryan agrees.
They move their legs. They pull in their wings. They turn in to each other. And as they do, they lightly alter the surface of the ground, the shape of the world. They don’t realize this, not in these terms. But they feel it nonetheless.
Strands of pink hair peek out from underneath Avery’s hat. Damp pieces of blue hair cling to the side of Ryan’sface, curving around his right eye. Ryan wants to kiss Avery again, but his nose is now too runny. Avery is happy to listen to the quiet, to look at this boy in front of him.
They hold there.
Snow absorbs into their jeans. Snow gathers on their coats and their hats. Ryan wipes his nose with his mitten, then wipes his mitten off in the snow.
