The snowstorm sends us home early from work, so we fuck and sleep. When we wake, the power is out and the room is a dark hole. We slip into sweatpants and over-sized shirts, pull up the shades to let in all that light reflected from white. The walls of the house seem thin, shivering. There are sounds we’ve seldom heard before―the wood cracking, as if giving up, a constant drip of water from the roof. We sit on the couch―tucked together under a blanket like children watching a scary movie. I say my mother lost me once on a crowded bus stop; you say you ran away from home, twice, and came back after a day. All along you’d been hiding in the attic. I say my parents stopped trimming my nails after my brother died. You say you were molested on a train, by a man your father’s age. Then we go quiet; find our way through the dark to light the stove, make hot chocolate. I gulp the whole thing and want another immediately. Afterwards, I run my fingers over my crudely cut toenails. You reach an arm around my waist, suggest going back to bed. It feels like a good decision because there’s nothing else to do except watch the snow that falls relentlessly, burying everything we‘ve worked so hard for.
Snowstorm
