Going Away Party

Hopefully the mixture of weed, cigarettes, and beer helped shorten the length of my cold. I'm not too worried about it either way though, that wasn't what got me sick and it wasn't gonna make a difference one way or another. My immune system was slowly broken down by various things; lack of sleep, terrible eating habits, stress. But, I'm pretty sure the thing that got me was the cold car I shared for a few hours and the 10 minute conversation we had standing on her porch. With the wind chill it was probably about 12 degrees. We stood huddled together under the awning of her house wishing we were inside but knew that it wasn't an option. Neither of us moved except to either get closer to each other or to whisper something in the others ear. We would've stood there all night like a statue, a stone cut replica of what was once two living, breathing lovers. Ice would've began to freeze our faces from the beads rolling down from her eyes. Cheek to cheek, our skin would be stuck together. You could hear the wind blowing, barreling over our bodies and whistling through the gaps between our torsos, you could hear our teeth chattering and sharing a conversation of their own, but you wouldn't hear any complaints from either of us. It was out of fear, fear that as soon as one of us move, it may be the last time we would see each other for yet another year or so. So we just stood, like a monument getting worn and withered away by the elements, like a bookmark holding the page of story that was never finished. It felt like an eternity that went by in a little over 10 minutes, the longest and shortest 10 minutes of our lives. I held her hand and felt sorry for those who owned the fingerprints on her body that weren't mine, a years worth of necessary foolishness that mapped out exactly where she had been. I was just as guilty too. I didn't exactly stay put for that year either. I had my own map spread out across my body, down to my hips where most of the prints seemed to gather. However, we both knew that the atlases on our bodies would eventually fade away leaving only one set of prints remaining on us both. They would cover every inch from scalp to toe that only we would see. So we just continued our stand in the snow. I remembered a time when we did something like this once before, a moment when we stood in this same spot but under far happier circumstances, and it made me smile. I wondered if she could remember the moment that brought the smile on. Either way she knows I would remind her if it may have slipped her mind. She began to smile too. For the next few seconds we were almost back to that moment, resting on each other safely in the arms of her home. The wind whistled loud bringing us back to what was actually happening, but we continued to stand there with it all weighing against us. Words were unnecessary and even if we tried to force something out it was masked by vibrating teeth and quivering lips. Just before she went inside the icy weather found it's way deep into our bones but the fire we felt inside was still just enough for only the two of us to know we would never freeze alone.