It’s so quiet, my footsteps seem outlandishly loud. Snow squeaks and crunches with each step I take. I watch as birds glide over the trees—tamaracks, I think the trees are. Then I weave my way between their bristles, drawn toward the water like I am in summer.
Except it’s not water; it’s a vast sheet of thick, snow-dusted ice. I look out at Lake Flower, abandoned for this long, harsh season. Unenjoyed. Unknown. I clamp my teeth down on my lower lip, because I draw the line at crying about a frozen lake in winter.
A few hard swallows and I’m on my way. I walk over the snow that covers the shore, looking for the beauty in the barren landscape. And there is some. Always. In every situation, there is beauty. I believe that. I think of Becca’s dress—the last one she wore. Then I see my own dress that winter night in college. I think of him inside the elevator. I can see his eyes, their roundness and the tension of his mouth and then the softness of his mouth. These things are as much buried with me as my sister’s beloved Pandy was with her. Little snippets, soft and jagged, and they’re simply mine to hold.
I pull my mind forward in time—to that morning on my run in Central Park. How he was different but the same. There aren’t words for how…incredible that is. Sometimes I think it’s a tragedy that we can go on existing as so many different versions—called one person—bumping into other people and their other versions many times in the same life, each instance meaning different things. But really, this is magic.
“You want another ending… Here. It ends like that.”
So there’s my romance. It was a long winter, but it thawed until it dripped and steamed and monsooned. Now I have to carry the thaw—that one molten moment—with me like a glass shard in my pocket. For forever.
I sigh without meaning to, and the steam envelops pretty much my whole head. Fitting.
By the time the breath steam clears, I’m blinking because there’s a weird noise coming from…the ice.
I stop, standing partway behind a tree, watching as a large form in all black tears up the ice. Holy hell. I can’t see the person’s feet at first—they’re moving too quickly—but then they—he—slows down with his back to the shore, and the dim sun shines off a long blade.
I guess this is Nordic blading. You attach a long, thick blade to the bottom of your boots, and it’s kind of like an ice skate? I should know more about these winter sports, but I don’t. I’m what you’d call indoorsy.
So I just stand in awe watching this man move. I can feel my body warm a few degrees, because he’s beautiful. Every movement shows such grace and power. He skates out a little ways—maybe a hundred yards—and races back toward the shore, cutting leftward just before he’d hit the snowbank. Then he circles back around, making big loops, as if he’s writing in cursive on the ice.
He pauses only for a moment, his head turned toward the shore, and I’m pretty sure he must see me because his posture stiffens.
My heart throbs. My throat tightens, sore in the cold. But if he saw me, he’s a good pretender. His pause only lasts a second. Then he’s skating again, moving toward what would in summertime be open waters—farther from me this time. He’s so fast, and he goes so far that he looks small. And then he’s racing back in my direction.
I should keep walking, but I’m sort of nervous he’ll see me. Is it weird he’s here during the off-season? Why is he so close to the shore near these cabins?
Maybe he bought the one my dad sold. More fearful thoughts flit through my anxious brain. Is he reclusive? Some sort of criminal who has to live off the grid? I turn toward the other cabin, looking for a smoke plume from the chimney. That’s when I hear a CRACK! It sounds like a gunshot, but I know what it really is.
My gaze snaps onto him right as he plunges through the ice, and for a too-long moment, everything feels topsy-turvy. Then it’s only: Get him! I scramble onto the ice, almost falling on my face, then sliding as I wave my arms, trying to steady myself. My snowshoes are studded, but I’m slipping as I run toward him, terrified I’ll be too slow, scared to move faster and make more ice crack. I can see hands clawing at the icy surface, hear his gasping, thrashing. As I near him, he shouts something. I can’t make out what, so I slow maybe ten feet from him.
“Back up!” I blink, and he gasp-shouts: “BACK UP!”
I’m shaking from the cold and my adrenaline as I take a small step back. But he’s going to drown! My heart beats so hard it hurts as he swings his arm out and something catches in the ice—some kind of metal claw thing.