Goodbye, Summertime Girl.

The air is damp and chilly and it drifts through my coat. I don’t like the lingering cold that stains my cheeks red and stings my skin with icy fingertips. Ryland’s car is covered in snow when we walk outside; he holds the door open for Alex and I, and as my feet crunch through never ending snow drifts, I shiver. The feeling is static. I feel it in my bones.

There’s something in the bottom of my stomach. I don’t know what it is, but it lingers and it’s awkward. I don’t like it much.

Alex pushes his glasses up his nose with one hand as his other rests on the door handle of the car impatiently. I wonder why he’s so brave as to stick his bare hands from outside the confines of his warm winter coat because of the temperature.

It’s icier than last night.

“We all chipper and ready to go?” Ryland asks, approaching the car with a smile. The coffee seems to have done him a world of good because his disposition seems fueled. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys, jingled them until he found the one that fit into the driver’s side door, and slid it into the keyhole. The door unlocked with a loud snap and, as he took his seat in the car, slammed the door shut behind him and pressed the ‘unlock’ key near the window controls.

Alex grunts in reply and I almost smile.

The two of us hurry and open our respected doors - Alex in the front and me behind Ryland - and we close them before we can allow the unwanted chill to enter.

Ryland revs the engine and, in a burst of energy, the machine jolts to life, rumbling, growling, hissing at the winter air just outside the car. I glance in the passenger’s side rearview mirror to find smoke growing in the cold as we reverse our direction and pull out of the parking lot. When my eyes flip to Alex’s position in the car, his eyes meet mine and almost immediately he looks away.

The fluttering ensues.

I try to occupy myself with buckling my seatbelt, but after a moment of trying to work up the courage to stick my hand out of my coat’s sleeve, I fall short and resume my position in the backseat, shaking like a leaf because of the stationary frost.

The ride to Alex’s doesn’t take us long. Ryland tries to drive at a cautionary speed because of the condition of the roads, but Alex urges him to speed up at times because of his restlessness. And I don’t blame him; I hate sitting in the cold of the car, which somehow feels even chillier than the temperature outside. I swear to God.

I suddenly feel very tired and the cold isn’t helping any.

We pull into a driveway of a small house in the middle of a long, narrow street. There are cars parked all alongside the road at the house next door and there is Christmastime music being played loudly from just inside. At Alex’s, there is no music. The house looks dark and empty and the snow comes up nearly a foot in the driveway. He must’ve gotten snow since the previous night at Ryland’s. Either way, Alex doesn’t really care; I watch his face and he shows no signs of any real emotion one way or another.

A couple leaves the house next door holding hands. I watch them before I get out of the car as they pause in the street and share a kiss. There is a sudden aching in my chest and it pounds in my eardrums. And then I realize that it’s nothing new, and that I’ve just now noticed its existence. It’s always there, though, it’s just that sometimes I notice it more than others.

My footsteps leave thick footprints in the snow, and I follow the tandem trail to the front door. My eyes meet Ryland’s and he offers me a small smile. I send one back and turn my eyes back to my shoes.

It’s so damn cold outside, I swear that if Alex hadn’t gotten that door open a moment later, I would have frozen solid. I think he notices how cold I am, because as soon as I walk inside and take my shoes off, he makes his way over to the thermostat and cranks up the heat. I’m sure he can’t afford to pay a high bill and I feel bad, but it must be at least below zero degrees. My teeth chatter.

“Sit down, make yourself comfortable,” he says, then heads off toward a room down the hallway. I take off my bulbous coat and hang it up on the coat rack, right next to Ryland’s. I look up at him and he motions for me to follow him to the couch, so I do, and I sit next to him with my head on his chest as he wraps an arm around my shoulders.

His chest heaves a heavy sigh. “Those damn neighbors really find it necessary to crank up the Christmas jams a week early, don’t they?”

I nod, smiling a little through clenched teeth. This proves difficult, so my mouth forms some kind of funny, oblong structure with my lips. He laughs at me and my face relaxes a little. Across the room, there’s a fireplace that isn’t lit, but it’s full of black logs. He must use it regularly. The air smells vaguely of smoke and I sniff back the snot that threatens to run from my nose.

Alex’s footsteps are heavy and as he rounds the corner, I see he’s put away his coat and scarf and shoes, and in his hands, he carries a large cardboard box. From the way he strains his face and the way his arms shake slightly, he looks pained. It must be heavy.

“Those the CDs?” Ryland asked, tilting his chin upward and looking over his shoulder to get a better view of Alex.

The box hit the ground in the middle of the living room with a loud slam. “Yeah,” he said, “Hundreds of them. I printed them all last week.”

I lean closer to the box and look inside, craning my neck to catch a glimpse over the side of the cardboard. There are at least a hundred CDs all stacked one on top of the other inside; they are all blank. Also in the box are envelopes and stamps, all by the roll. I can’t even count how many rolls there are. It must have cost a shitload of money to get them all, though, and I look up wide-eyed at Alex.

“So you two are serious about this?” I ask.

He nods. And, through his glasses, I see something that wasn’t there before. Determination, I think, and before I can stop myself, I start smiling.

And I can’t stop.