Snowy Gestures and Summer Love

It was three-thirty. I sat there at the table, staring at the note that was written in his scrawled boyish handwriting. I wasn’t going to lie; I had taken the heart-shaped snowball and had stuck it in the freezer. Still, it hadn’t made me sure of whether or not I was supposed to go and meet him. My head and my heart were both at a standstill; neither knew what was in store for me.

Mom had seen my note in the early morning when they had arrived drunk and tired from their party. She had asked me about it in the little interlude between sleep for a “pee break.” She at least had some vague idea of where I would be located if I had chosen to go.

That was where I was still stuck… The old Shakespearian line: to be or not to be? – Or in this case: to go or not to go? I was left with only a half an hour to decide; otherwise the two-hour drive to the lake would miss him at six. I could see him standing there if I didn’t show up: sad, dejected, upset that I had chosen to not inquire what it was that he wanted. Or maybe I had been reading too much into it… Maybe he was going to tell me that he had caught me staring at him and “Calli”. Maybe he was going to say I had better stop it if I wanted to keep a clean reputation… I wasn’t sure which scenario hurt more in my head.
I wanted to call Maddy and ask her opinion. She seemed to always have the best advice – especially when it came to Christmas and she was in the mood for “giving”. But I couldn’t do that; I had to do this on my own because that would mean I wouldn’t have to explain anything to her in the end.

The 3:59 blinked onto the clock and I stared in disbelief that I had wasted a whole day in complete doubt about both possible choices. The hell with it, I thought. Because of course, I would only regret it if I had let the time slip by…

The lake was surely a fine sight, even at the winter. Everything there was in a pure serenity in a white blanket. The lake itself looked gloomy in the distance from the top of the trail. Its top had a thick layer of ice that illuminated the darkness underneath. I had never been up here during the winter, and it was much more of a sight than I had imagined – especially with the shadowy figure standing on the snowy dock, his back toward my trail.
I still didn’t know if my heart had propelled me to make the right choice here, but I proceeded down the icy trail. In all of my clumsiness, I slipped twice. Luke had to know that I was there – with all of the noise that I had made – but he kept his back to me until I was right behind him.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” his warm voice said as he turned around. I actually caught him biting his lip – something that Mr. Pretty-Boy that was so confident never did!
“I didn’t think so either,” I breathed heavily. I recognized the arrogant smirk that filled his eyes; it wasn’t the smirk that most people saw, it was my smirk – the one that I had ever seen when he was talking to me.
“I-I don’t even know what to say to you. I had this whole long speech rehearsed and, yet, I get in front of you and not one word of it is right for you. There’s nothing I can say that can justify what I did to you?” He had a mini-tantrum and kicked a foot-full of snow onto the ice-covered lake.
“Justify what?” I questioned.
“Hurting you like I did!” He snapped and turned back away from me.
“Why did you do it?” I asked quickly, speaking fast to avoid my quivering lips from being evident in my speech. “Why did you lead me on? Why did you pretend like I mattered to you?”
“I didn’t lead you on! You did matter to me!” He screamed. “It was just that…”
“Just what?” I cried, letting the tears rage down my cheeks.
“I flaked! Okay?! I admit it! I flaked once we left here. I was the popular guy; you were the girl who thought you were invisible to the whole world even when I couldn’t wait to see you every day! When we got back here, I wanted to scream it to the ends of the earth that you were mine. That Willow Nicole Tyler was mine! But then I didn’t know what people were going to think about me, so I flaked! I thought it would be easier if we had never met. Then you wouldn’t have to go through the torture of being the girl everyone looked down their noses at because they all thought that they were better than you because their families’ have money! And I – “
“And you wouldn’t have the burden of being that guy – being that guy who chooses some frumpy girl over the other popular sluts that fill up the school.” I yelled. “Go ahead, I know you were ashamed!”
“No,” he cried, “NO! It’s me who anyone should be ashamed of. I’m a coward; I never did deserve you in the first place. All those first few nights that we were back in the city, it finally occurred to me that I didn’t deserve someone as genuine and beautiful as you. I was a coward who thought that life was just better the way things were. I never imagined that it would hurt so much to let go of you. Baby, please forgive me!”
I didn’t know what to say for a few moments. “Did you know how much I hated myself for it?” I sobbed. “Do you know what that feels like?! I kept trying to blame you – that you had led me on and you knew I wasn’t worth your time, but I COULDN’T. The only person to blame was myself! I hated thinking about how I had spent so much summertime with you, and you had just thrown it all away at the first glimpse of our familiar city!”
“I’m sorry baby!” He whispered. “I’m so, so sorry! I can understand it if you will never forgive me, but just know that I loved you!”
“I loved you too. God, I still do – I never stopped!” I cried harder, the cold starting to sting my trail of tears. “But what’s to say that you wouldn’t do the same thing again?!”
“B-because I would never put myself through the torture of losing you again.” He spun around to face me once again.
I smiled with happiness. Running to hug him, I slipped and he jumped to catch me, slipping himself…
We ended up with him falling on top of me. “I love you.” He whispered, his lips against my forehead. “You’re a dork, but I love you!”
“I love you too…” I kissed him, and we stayed wrapped up together on the icy surface of our place – the dock…