These hearts adore
Everyone the other beats hardest for
Inside this place is warm
Outside it starts to pour
Everyone the other beats hardest for
Inside this place is warm
Outside it starts to pour
-- "Sweater Weather" by The Neighbourhood
Dear Samuel,
Outside, the snow has just begun to fall. The lampposts in the courtyard stand at attention with their heads sloped downwards, soldiers in mourning whose tears have turned white under the light. There is a melancholy beauty ripe only in winter, a chill breath that permeates even amidst the warm champagne glow of celebration.
It has been a quiet Christmas eve. I burned the roof of my mouth on hot soup last night, and my swollen palate has been tingling ever since. I have lost my appetite for the past week, and I wonder what they will say when I return home. Is it a formality, to always say that someone has changed after a prolonged absence? The last time I returned for the holidays, Mrs. Weston professed her unbridled joy in seeing what a lady I had turned out to be. However genuine the intent may be, such excessively effusive compliments unfailingly lead me to wonder just what a horrid little creature I must have been! But with all candidness, how much can a person truly change in five years?
As I write about dear old Weston, it has occurred to me that I have heard so little about you over the years. I confess, I have gathered a meager collection over time--little pieces of you sifted from the hearsay of our neighbors. On a lonely night like this one, I sometimes find myself toying with the fragments, arranging and rearranging a puzzle to form a fractured image of you that I may never complete.
Do you remember, Samuel? When we were children, your mother would read us fairy tales from that old book, the one with illustrated pages that smelled of smoke and nutmeg. Your favorite was the one about the Brave Little Tailor, but my favorite of them all was the one about the Snow Queen. If you were Kai, I said to you then, I would be Gerda--outwitting the sorceress, escaping from the band of robbers, riding on a reindeer--all in order to save you. But the boy I knew then grew up to be a man--one who scoffed at the idea of needing to be rescued.
Perhaps you knew the truth--that I have been Kai all along, with a heart splintered by ice and eyes blinded by frost. There are warmer days when those old wounds fade into the reverie of lost time, but on these cold winter nights I feel the sting sharper than ever. Imprisoned in this fortress of ice, I have spent this last eternity arranging and rearranging the pieces in hopes of finally freeing myself from you. There is neither love nor hate in the hollow of my chest--the two words imply an inflamed passion of which my soul can no longer fuel--but rather a numbness that stings with a thousand needles at the slightest touch. For the longest time, I prayed to the gods that we would never meet again, for I knew too well that the mere sight of you would doom me once more.
But on this December night, as the clock strikes twelve, I wonder if seeing you may finally put the unfinished puzzle to rest and sever me from the fantasies conjured to fill the blank spaces of your uncompleted image. Because we both know that the blemished reality is far less enticing than the pristine fantasy we have crafted within our own minds. I imagine Mrs. Weston may marvel at how tall and strong you have grown, but you and I have both changed in our prolonged absence. We are children no more.
As I write about dear old Weston, it has occurred to me that I have heard so little about you over the years. I confess, I have gathered a meager collection over time--little pieces of you sifted from the hearsay of our neighbors. On a lonely night like this one, I sometimes find myself toying with the fragments, arranging and rearranging a puzzle to form a fractured image of you that I may never complete.
Do you remember, Samuel? When we were children, your mother would read us fairy tales from that old book, the one with illustrated pages that smelled of smoke and nutmeg. Your favorite was the one about the Brave Little Tailor, but my favorite of them all was the one about the Snow Queen. If you were Kai, I said to you then, I would be Gerda--outwitting the sorceress, escaping from the band of robbers, riding on a reindeer--all in order to save you. But the boy I knew then grew up to be a man--one who scoffed at the idea of needing to be rescued.
Perhaps you knew the truth--that I have been Kai all along, with a heart splintered by ice and eyes blinded by frost. There are warmer days when those old wounds fade into the reverie of lost time, but on these cold winter nights I feel the sting sharper than ever. Imprisoned in this fortress of ice, I have spent this last eternity arranging and rearranging the pieces in hopes of finally freeing myself from you. There is neither love nor hate in the hollow of my chest--the two words imply an inflamed passion of which my soul can no longer fuel--but rather a numbness that stings with a thousand needles at the slightest touch. For the longest time, I prayed to the gods that we would never meet again, for I knew too well that the mere sight of you would doom me once more.
But on this December night, as the clock strikes twelve, I wonder if seeing you may finally put the unfinished puzzle to rest and sever me from the fantasies conjured to fill the blank spaces of your uncompleted image. Because we both know that the blemished reality is far less enticing than the pristine fantasy we have crafted within our own minds. I imagine Mrs. Weston may marvel at how tall and strong you have grown, but you and I have both changed in our prolonged absence. We are children no more.
Yours,
Veronica
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