Snow
My creative writing final. Incorporates Taming The Muse prompt "The Underground" as well as the one my teacher gave me when I told him I was stuck which was "cranberries". He is slightly odd. It's a rewrite of a shorter story I did earlier in the term, though I couldn't tell you which I like more. I'll probably post the original at a later date. I wanna get this one in now for Taming the Muse... Happy reading! There's also an annotated version floating about that I might post as well since the stuff I babel about symbolism and such is kinda fun. Lemme know if you're interested in reading either.
Snow
The girls lay still in their snow angels, not speaking but thinking the same thing. There wasn’t much snow, but enough to play in like they were seven instead of seventeen. It was the middle of February, but they were still getting winter weather. Jessica ate snow out of her hand, green eyes trained on the sky. She’d always found it amusing how much brighter the sky looked when there was snow on the ground. Logan kept her eyes on Jessica.
“That make your stomach hurt?”
“Only if I eat a lot of it.”
“Been eating it all day.”
Jessica looked over at Logan and realized she was right.
“We did this wrong.”
“Should have taken turns… they’ll look all lopsided when we stand.”
“At least one of them will anyway…” Jessica stood up, ruining her snow angel in the process. She shrugged it off; they’d be forgotten as soon as Logan stood up anyway.
Her scarf fell halfway off when she bent over to help her friend out of her angel in the way they’d perfected after that huge snow storm when they were nine and there was nothing to do besides play in the snow because school was canceled and the cable got knocked out and couldn’t be fixed until the cable company could get to the lines safely. Logan stood and stepped away from the snow angel, gloved hand still in Jessica’s.
“Fingers are nearly frozen.”
“Somewhere besides my place if you want food, then. Mom’s resolved not to kill me for making a mess of the kitchen, but I don’t wanna test that this soon after New Years.”
“Mm… Starbucks in twenty?”
~*~
“Still don’t get it.”
“I wouldn’t love you as much if you did.”
“Funny.”
“You love me.”
“Lucky you. Most people I love wind up dead.”
Jessica frowned. This wasn’t where she thought the conversation was going to go. Usually they could joke around like this and it would stay light hearted. And usually she knew the response she was going to get from Logan. Thinking back, Logan had been distant all day. And then she realized.
It was the sixth. Of November. How could she have forgotten?
~*~
Expletives were all that came to mind when she pulled her glove off of her thumb to control the wheel on her iPod. The rest of her hand stayed snug and warm while her thumb braved the biting snow for the sake of music. She looked up at the walk light. Still that annoying red hand. She turned her attention back to the important task of selecting music. Obscure Indie band after band disappeared from the top of the screen as she scrolled through them. Logan was always trying to get her to listen to some variety but she knew what she liked and stuck with it. Satisfied with one, she hit the play button and shoved her thumb back in her glove.
Snowflakes clung prettily to her wool coat. Picture perfect. No wonder she got those looks from the boys on campus even though she was still in high school. In her head, she posed for a camera that she knew wasn’t there. It made her feel good to pretend there was, though. Made her feel like she was somebody. Somebody important. A model or an actress or something. Someone people took pictures of that then got printed on those glossy pages in the gossip rags and fashion mags. Pictures that looked candid but were perfectly staged, down to the last flake of snow.
Except this was reality and the snow wasn’t staged, but it was perfect enough that it could have been. Flushed cheeks, snow on her black pea coat, hounds-tooth scarf, white fuzzy gloves… iPod ear buds playing an obscure Indie band as she watched the walk light on the corner…
Jessica crossed the street as soon as she saw a break in traffic instead of waiting another three seconds for the light, breaking the moment. Logan always waited for the light. She was safe. Sensible. But not Jessica. Jessica did stupid things like drink too much at parties and still drive herself home. She smoked marijuana. She took ecstasy. Crossed the street before the light. And she never thought twice about it.
~*~
They stood in Jessica’s back yard with their tongues turned to the sky waiting for snow flakes. The moon was hidden behind the clouds but you could see all the important stars, which was only one according to Logan. The one they’d called theirs since they were eight. Jessica had different ideas. Ones involving constellations. You couldn’t make a constellation with one star, she said. You needed the rest of them too. Logan nodded like Jessica made sense, but in her head she knew that the only really important star was theirs.
She kept her eyes on The Only Really Important Star while Jessica kept hers closed.
“So, what’d ya get me?”
“Not tellin’.”
“Dammit, Logan, I wanna know.”
“Why I ain’t tellin’ ya.”
“I hate you.”
“Love me.”
Jessica sighed and turned her attention back to the first snow of the season. Christmas was three days away, and Logan still hadn’t let slip what she was getting her. It infuriated her. She hated surprises. Ironic, really, since she did so many wild things. Most people thought she would have loved surprises, but the truth was she only did all those crazy things because they were a rush in the moment. She wasn’t getting anything out of a premeditated surprise, like a gift, so it wasn’t worth it. She’d rather just know and wait for it.
~*~
“Late.”
“I know… and I don’t even wait for walk lights.”
“Don’t remind me. Get yourself killed one of these days.”
“Order yet?”
“The usual.”
Jessica settled onto the leather couch next to Logan after shedding her snow covered coat and picked up the discarded “World” section of the newspaper her best friend was reading. Logan was the type of girl you expected to read the World section of the news paper, which was the exact reason she didn’t. Jessica was the type of girl you didn’t expect to read the World section, which was exactly why she did.
~*~
Logan lounged on Jessica’s couch watching The Labyrinth. David Bowie was so awesome. And Jareth was a total fox. And his costume left, like, nothing to the imagination. Jessica wandered into the room, having finally given up on homework. She did have the rest of break to finish it, after all.
“Ooo, I wanna watch the beginning.”
“Just like that song… Wassit called, again?”
“The Underground. And so what? It’s a good song…”
“Have it on your iPod.”
“But I like the rain and the owl and Sarah’s dress…”
Logan rolled her eyes and skipped back to the first chapter of the DVD. Jessica settled down on the couch next to her, stealing half the throw Logan was snuggled under. She always did that. Logan curled her feet up with her best friends and turned her attention back to the movie.
“Seriously, who would turn down a guy like that? Stupid girl.”
“Stole her baby brother. Not a good guy.”
“But… hotness!”
Logan just looked at her. Jessica looked away, instead looking out the window at the snow that blanketed her back yard. Logan turned her attention back to the movie.
“You have to admit you want to bang him.”
The pair erupted into fits of giggles.
~*~
Logan glanced at her watch. “Gotta run soon”
Jessica frowned. It was Saturday. “Work should be illegal on weekends. Weekends are for parties. You coming tonight?”
“Probably. Need to keep an eye on you, after all.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m old enough to look after myself.”
“Doesn’t mean you wind up doing it.”
Jessica simply sighed. Logan grabbed their mugs and took them up to the counter.
~*~
“Always kinda wondered what it’d be like to have a whole family. Instead of just a mom… Wish I’d had the chance.”
Jessica continued braiding Logan’s hair as she talked. They’d elected to stay in for New Years instead of going out. After getting upwards of forty texts asking her where she was, Jessica had turned off her phone. Logan was in a weird mood and it was awkward to text people she wasn’t that close with when her best friend needed her.
“It’s not that great, really… I have to fight dad for the remote on nights when there’s football… But I know.”
Logan turned around and looked at Jessica. No one knew her like she did. She silently prayed that she didn’t lose her too.
~*~
Jessica pulled up to the house around ten o’clock. The party was already in full swing. She tossed her keys into the glove box in favor of the single car key stashed there. Carrying keys around all night was a pain. Slipping her phone and the key inside of her pocket, she slid out of the car and locked the door.
Logan should have been there by now, but Jessica couldn’t find her anywhere. She asked around and no one had seen her yet. Taking out her phone, she texted a quick question mark to her best friend and grabbed a beer. A half an hour passed before she decided to worry that she hadn’t gotten an answer. She stepped outside to find a quite place to call her and hit the 1 button her phone followed by “send”. Speed dial was a gift from God.
No answer.
She tried again an hour later to no avail. It was nearly midnight. Jessica brushed a snow flake off the screen of her phone as she searched for Logan’s work number to see if she was still there.
No, she’d left an hour and a half ago when her shift normally ended, according to her manager. Jessica frowned and tried Logan’s number again. Shivering with cold, she gave up and went back inside. She’d probably just gotten stuck at home longer than she planned.
~*~
Logan poured Emergen-C into her cranberry juice and stirred it while watching the snow fall heavily outside. Who decided that cranberries were edible, anyway? They were gross. And sour. And not fit for human consumption unless mixed with a whole lot of sweet things. She picked up her phone and dialed Jessica’s number.
“Cranberries are so gross.”
“You know, you really don’t have to drink cranberry juice just because it’s in the ‘fridge.”
“Meh, Emergen-C makes it all fizzy and sweet and delicious.”
“You are so weird.”
“Gonna have a snow day tomorrow. Long weekend’ll be nice.”
“Are you coming to the party Saturday?”
“Possibly. Dunno yet. Gonna be all snowy and the roads’ll be bad. ”
~*~
Bleary eyed, Jessica looked down at the white specks of snow on her black coat. All they looked like were little white balls as they clung to the wool. She tried to brush them away but it was pointless because more were falling and taking their place. On any other day she would have grinned into the lens of her imaginary camera -- the perfect picture of winter fashion. Flushed cheeks, black pea coat, hounds-tooth scarf, white fuzzy gloves… iPod ear buds playing an obscure Indie band as she waited for the walk light on the corner, star bucks cup in hand. Today was different. There was no star bucks cup, walk light, or ear phones… Just her, the annoying specks of snow, and a door between her and her best friend’s funeral.
Logan wasn’t the kind of girl you would expect to have been dead by the age of seventeen. She was smart. She liked people. She wasn’t a total outcast. She didn’t do drugs. She didn’t ever have more than one drink at a party. She was Going Places. And then, suddenly, she wasn’t. Logan would never go anywhere besides six feet in the ground ever again after today.
She swallowed hard and pulled the door of the funeral home open.