62
Lillian
In the snow, they look brand-new.
In the snow, my eyes lock on their mouth grabbing at the air.
Every part of me is cold except where I’m touching them.
63
Sasha
But Lillian’s already scrambling to her feet.
“To the pool!”
And she throws herself back in with a twist, looking at me as if she’s pulling me with her.
When I hit the water, the snow clinging to my skin dissolves around me. My skin falls asleep all at once, wakes up, gets reborn.
Lillian’s laughing at me.
“You had to have been able to see that coming.”
“This is like the second time I’ve ever been in snow. I don’t see anything coming.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You’re used to golden beaches I’m sure.”
She’s the least sorry person I’ve ever seen.
She’s crackling with energy right now.
It’s been growing all night, though I’m not sure why.
Like she’s nervous but excited.
Like it’s keeping her afloat.
“This time I’ll go inside,”
she offers.
“No more tackles. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Because I’m sure crossing your heart carries so much weight for you.”
“I’ll have your towel ready and waiting.”
When I make it inside, Lillian’s thrown a hooded bathrobe on over her soaked clothes. It’s white with gold embroidered letters on it, and it’s too big for her. She’s wearing it like a boxer, untied, hood up. She’s holding out a fluffy towel for me.
“See, I can be trusted,”
Lillian says as I dry my hair and wrap the towel around me just under my armpits.
“I’ll prove it.”
She rummages in her backpack on the floor, around a change of clothes and a book and a quarter-to-quarter cable that lives there just in case. She emerges with a small rectangular present wrapped in heavy cream-colored paper with a big purple bow on it that she has to poof up.
“It was better before. I should have put the bow on after I put it in my bag. I’m usually more of a wrap-it-in-duct-tape-and-laugh-as-they-struggle sort of gift giver. Anyways, happy birthday.”
“It’s not —”
“Well you wouldn’t tell me. Last time it was your birthday, I didn’t know it was. So this is to make up for that.”
“You hadn’t even met me.”
She sings.
“Happy birthday, dear Sasha / happy birthday to you”
and hands me the present.
I’d like to always be her dear Sasha.
Inside, there’s a mix CD in a clear plastic jewel case. She’s made liner notes, a little booklet with a drawing on the cover of a skyline at night and swirling letters above it.
If I Fall, I Blame You
I handle it like treasure, looking at the stars on the CD and drawing out the liner notes, flipping through them and stopping for a long time on each one.
Every page is for a different song, each with a sketch to go with it.
Her figures are stick people drawn with bright pencils. Black outlines with splashes of color.
And each song is about me. About us.
The song she sang on the edge of the parking garage paired with a drawing of us sitting side by side, our bikes leaned against the concrete and our feet dangling.
Her and I on the back steps of the school, with her wearing my headphones, listening to the same Monochrome Stoplight song that’s on the CD.
There’s us on her couch with a song from a movie we watched together, and one labeled Bonus Track with a picture of Wavelength in a huddle.
I know what that is.
There’s the acoustic EP version of the song I played for her on guitar.
My pink jacket hanging on the back of her bedroom door with the karaoke song I sang.
And a few songs we’ve sent each other with drawings of each of us lying in our beds, listening to what the other person chose.
Packing Boxes, with her holding my hand, leading me off the floor, the only figures drawn in color.