snow angels

Outside the library window, autumn leaves drift among the long afternoon shadows—a picnic table, a lampost, a cluster of trees giving way to a forest. Pale sunshine settles over the schoolyard like dust. 

Mae is a sophomore in high school. The library is located on the third floor and is relatively small—perhaps the size of a classroom and a half, divided by tall shelves and a set of tables and chairs. Mae spends part of her lunch period there, and stays for an hour after school. There’s never much to do because the library is almost never busy. Most of her clerical shift is spent returning books to their spots, rearranging chairs around tables, and reading her favorite fantasy series. Occasionally, she dusts or vacuums. 

She presses her fingers to the chilled glass. This is her last afternoon, her last autumn. The wind washes over the thinning, fading forest-world, a faint sigh beneath the mechanical hum of the bathroom. She regrets not seeing the first snowfall of the year. 

*** 

Camille is lost in the music again. Shostakovich’s second piano concerto swirls up and around him, reverberating off the cream-colored stucco walls. A narrow window washes the old floorboards with mellow afternoon light, illuminating a layer of dust on the piano. 

He spends most of his time in this room. The rest is spent attending his classes with sleepy-eyed indifference, or maintaining a small circle of loosely acquainted ‘friends’ who are just like him—sleep-deprived, unkempt, and absorbed in their own singular uncool interests, whether it be jigsaw puzzles, psychedelic drugs, or classical piano. Collectively uninterested in the outside world, and only passively interested in each other. 

Knock-knock! He pretends not to hear. 

“Camille! Hey, Cam! Can I come in!” So loud, Camille can make out each word through the door. Unable to drown out the interruption, he looks up sharply, fingers still moving up scales and from chord to chord. A familiar set of eyes occupy the rectangular panel of glass. He stares back for a few moments. Go away. Another knock, another shout. Shostakovich clammers on, fingers up and down and across, around and around again…

“Okay, I’m coming in!” 

The door clicks and swings open. Camille cannot drown him out any longer. He lifts his hands from the piano, letting the last chord ring through. He watches David take a few steps towards the piano through his peripheral vision. If he looks up, he won’t be able to keep a straight face—he focuses on the piano, on the sunlight glinting off the glossy black, coloring the dust… 

“Hey, Cam, how are you?” 

David places a hand on the piano. Camille looks up. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Looking up at David, instead of down on him, gives Camille an uncomfortable sense of dejâ-vu. He stands up, gripping the keyboard cover. His heart is beating in his ears.

“Hi David.” 

“How are you doing? Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“How have you been? I haven’t talked to you since… freshman year, I think!” David says, grinning like a tiger. Camille can feel David’s bright eyes on him, absorbing his reactions. “I’ve been okay,” Camille replies. His chest tightens. “How about you?” 

“I’ve been okay, too. You know, just the usual. School and track. Track and school.” Silence. Camille studies the dust particles floating through the air, letting his expression fall blank. This is perhaps the longest conversation with another human being he’s had in weeks. In the days following his sister’s hospitalization, a few sensitive students and teachers offered their condolences to Camille. Since Mae was still alive and in treatment, he assumed they were referring to some ‘loss of innocence’ on his part. Now, they respected his silence. Everybody followed this pattern—except David, apparently. After years of nothing, now this?

“Camille.” 

Camille looks up. David is staring at him, dark eyes wide and intense, like he’s searching for something. Camille feels his chest tighten again. Here it comes. 

“I’m sorry—” 

“About Mae,” Camille finishes his sentence. He feels David flinch, almost imperceptibly. “Yeah,” David says, almost a sigh. “Yeah. I couldn’t believe it when I heard.”

“Me neither.” 

“How is she doing now?” 

“Okay, I guess. I don’t really know. She can’t use her cell phone at the hospital.” “Oh. That must be hard, not to know, you know?” 

Camille nods. Another period of silence to mirror the last one. David refuses to make eye contact again. He runs his hand over the raised lid of the piano, kicking up a small cloud of dust. He glances over his shoulder at the door, then out the window. His gaze settles on Camille again. “I’ve got to practice.” 

David’s attention flickers back to Camille’s face—exhausted and inscrutable. “Oh, okay. Well, sorry for barging in like this. I just wanted to check up on you. I haven’t seen you for so long. We should talk more, you know?” 

Camille nods, a half-smile twitching across his lips. He looks down and starts to play a few chords. My cue to leave. But David feels stuck in place. For a few moments, he listens to the emerging melody, almost like long ago… 

Camille’s cold eyes flick up again, sending a shiver down David’s spine. He smiles awkwardly and turns away, closing the door behind him as quietly as possible. As he walks down the hallway, David feels a sudden heaviness in his body. That’s that. At least I tried. His footsteps echo in the dark, empty hallway, gliding through the occasional patch of light from a classroom window. 

Finally, Camille is alone again in his practice room, surrounded by music. Just the way he likes it, living chord-to-chord. No more sympathy, no more questions. With the concerto echoing in his ears, he can ignore his own questions. Why did she do it? With every movement of his fingers, with every reverberation of sound, he can leap farther and farther away from them. 

* * * 

A chilly wind sweeps over the street, tugging the last of the leaves from the trees. They drift across the yellowing grass in dry, crumbling swirls. David feels them crunch beneath his feet, already decaying into brittle pieces—like huge flakes of seafood. David smiles. He’s always loved goldfish. His favorite color—bright orange—and rather funny-looking, with googly eyes and puckered mouths. 

David is a junior in high school. He has neat black hair, large ears, and a broad face with a smiling mouth. He is tan with a beauty mark below the corner of his right eye. On the whole, he evokes the image of a ferociously benevolent tiger. When he was a child, he had a huge smile full of slightly crooked teeth. Among his large circle of school friends, there is nobody he is particularly close to. Camille was once his closest friend. And then, only a few years prior to this autumn, things changed. Camille spent more and more time alone at the piano. David entertained himself with people he didn’t know half as well. By their freshman year, they no longer spoke to each other. 

“David! Hey, David!” A distant voice shouts breathlessly into the wind behind him. He turns and sees Camille at the other end of the block. 

“Hey!” David shouts back. The wind is so intense, he feels as though his voice is being sucked up and carried away into the sky. Camille coughs—the sound is swallowed by the wind—and pauses for a few more moments before continuing down the sidewalk. 

“Hey, Camille,” David says. From a few paces away, he still feels like he’s shouting. He steps closer. “What’s up? You look like you’re dying.” 

“I need…” Camille pants. He’s still breathing heavily, face flushed. Indeed, he does feel a little like he’s dying. 

“I need… to ask you something…” 

“Okay. Shoot.” 

Camille pauses, coughs, and wipes his nose quickly with the back of his glove. He stands up straight, his mouth a tight line. 

“Can I… talk to you?” 

“About what?” David asks, his voice barely audible above the wind. 

“About Mae.” 

“Mae.” 

“You know more about Mae than I do. You know her friends. I bet you even talked to her more than I did. I need you to help me understand why she did this.”

David, almost without thinking: 

“Okay.” 

* * * 

“Tell me everything you know.” 

The two boys are face-to-face around a small kitchen table. My dad won’t be home until midnight, so we can talk here for as long as we want. Dr. Jones is a physician at the local hospital, working long hours and night shifts. Either by genetics or by profession, he looks as chronically sleepy and disheveled as his son does. 

My room is too messy, and I still don’t have a desk, Camille had explained, tapping his pencil on the notebook in front of him. This way, I can take notes. Camille no longer likes to inhabit the second floor of his house. His room is down the hall from Mae’s abandoned bedroom, and Camille can’t walk past her door without feeling his stomach drop. He spends most nights on the couch downstairs. He doesn’t mention this to David. 

“Well… she hangs out with Bee and Yasmine and all of those girls. A couple of boys, too, maybe. All kids from around here. I think she was in choir… I don’t remember if she did any sports. Maybe I saw her on the field once, kicking a ball? No, that was a long time ago. I think she did stuff in the library, mostly.” 

“Who are Bee and Yasmine?” 

“Both freshmen this year. Don’t you remember them?” 

“Should I?” 

“They live around here. We used to, I don’t know, do stuff with them. But maybe it was their older siblings or something. Like Monte—Bee’s older brother, remember? He’s on the track team. Sprinter. Anyway, they’re a couple of sophomore girls. I think Bee used to have a crush on you when we were little, which was super weird, because you were super weird, dude. I guess we were both weirdos, to be fair. You honestly don’t remember?” 

“No.”

“We used to play tag and stuff with everyone. Remember? Cam, when did you stop hanging out with all of them?” 

Camille studies the tablecloth. 

“I don’t remember,” he replies flatly. “I only really talked to you, if you remember. And I only really remember walking back and forth with you.” 

“Oh.” 

Camille used to be one of them, playing in the neighborhood backyards and walking home together after school. During this hazy period, David encroached on Camille’s private, sleepy little world, motivated by something inscrutable inside his own heart.

“Do you know anything else about Mae?” 

“I didn’t see her too often, but every time I did, she looked really tired. Like, really tired. Even more tired than you always look,” David says. “And I never saw her in the cafeteria during lunch. Maybe she spent it somewhere else, but I don’t know.” 

“Hm.” Camille pauses. She had been tired, like him. What this meant, he couldn’t say. He wasn’t even entirely sure why he was tired. It had gotten worse since her hospitalization; since he’d stopped sleeping in his own bed… had she really felt this way? This empty? 

“Hey, you okay?” David asks, voice low and tight. “We can stop, if you—” “No, we should ask them about her,” Camille says. He swallows and glances back at the tablecloth. “They might know something you don’t. Do you know where to find them? Yasmine and Bee?” 

“Yeah, I think I can find out. I walk to school with Monte, sometimes. I can ask him. He’ll know about Bee for sure, and chances are they’ll be together.” 

* * * 

The lawn in Chester Park is littered with dead leaves and awash with brilliant sunlight. Underneath the clear blue sky, the starkness of late autumn appears otherworldly. Crowns of bare branches sit atop the birch trees like clusters of veins. In ditches along the roads, wheat-colored tall grass curls and unfurls with the wind. Runners return from the forest in pairs, striding across

the lawn and congregating beneath the pavilion. Flushed and glistening with sweat, they pluck their water bottles from their spots on the shaded grass. 

Seated at swings on the other side of the field, David and Camille watch the entrance to the trails. David kicks at the ground with both feet, pushing himself up and letting go, flinging forward and back again. He talks on and on about nothing in particular; his childhood habit spurred by the childlike motion. Camille sits still and listens, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the breeze on his face. Coupled with the familiarity of David thinking aloud, the moment feels familiar and comforting. He almost forgets what they came here for. 

“... and that’s why I don’t trust pigeons. You know, I was thinking… hey, there they are!” Two girls emerge from around the woods, jogging side-by-side. David leaps up from his swing. Camille stands, sticks his hands in his blazer pockets, and follows after him. “Yasmine is the tall one. Bee is short. She used to wear glasses, if you remember.” David had spent the walk here filling in the details of their childhood together—the one David thinks he’s forgotten. 

“Monte is Bee’s older brother. He’s the fastest runner in our neighborhood. I was always the second fastest runner. I guess that could’ve made us rivals, but it sort of made us friends.” The truth was, Camille remembered almost everything from his childhood. But all the details he could recall were about David, and only David. Without him, his only memories of childhood would be of loneliness. 

“I’m pretty sure Bee had a crush on you at some point. She was always extra mean to you, like she really hated you. But that’s what kids do when they like somebody, right? What do you think?” 

They intercept the girls a few paces from the picnic tables. 

“Hey!” David calls, grinning. 

Yasmine is still breathing heavily, focused on a running watch fastened to her wrist. A black hijab frames her face, tight against her head. Bee stands a full head shorter than her, hands on her hips. She’s already caught her breath. 

“Hey there, David!” Bee says, smiling. She turns her head to glance at Camille. Her smile goes flat.

“Hi Camille.” 

You know, David, I think maybe she just hated me. 

Yasmine looks up and smiles, cheeks flushed. 

“Hey! What are you guys doing here?” 

“We want to talk to you about Mae,” Camille says. Point-blank. 

Bee looks straight into his face, eyes wide and searching. His chest tightens—he wonders if she’ll ask him why they want to know, and he wonders if he can even give her reasons she might understand. There are so many reasons swarming around inside of him, but he can’t seem to assign any of them words. How did David even agree to help me in the first place? He is opening his mouth, hoping something cognizant will fall out, when she speaks. “Okay then,” Bee says. “Let’s talk.” 

She glances at Camille expectantly, then to David, who holds her gaze with wide eyes before blinking away. Yasmine stares at her hands. Bee breaks the silence. “Cam—is there anything in particular you wanted to ask us?” 

“Are you close to her?” Camille blurts. “Are you friends?” 

“Yes.” 

“Do you remember what she was like before it happened?” 

Doesn’t he know what she was like? Bee wonders; she waits, but he won’t look her in the eye. Maybe he doesn’t. How can you live with a person all your life, and know almost nothing about them? 

“Yes, I think so.” 

“Could you—did you notice anything? Before it happened?” 

“Before everything happened… we could tell that Mae wasn’t really herself,” Bee begins. “She stopped walking to school with us,” Yasmine adds, “She was never at the bus stop, where we’d meet. We waited for her every day for a week, and we asked her about it at school, and she said she’d overslept and that we shouldn’t wait for her. But—she always looked so tired, like she was sick or something—” 

Her voice breaks off. Bee reaches over to hold her hand. Yasmine turns her face away, eyes bright with pain.

“We didn’t know how to help. She stopped hanging out with us after a while, saying she was too tired or wasn’t in the mood. We stopped seeing her around school, almost altogether. And when we did see her, she’d look zoned-out and not see us. Or maybe she was pretending not to see us, like—she didn’t want to bother us… I would try texting her and calling her, but she never told us anything. It felt like she was holding something back…” 

“Mae wouldn’t lie,” Yasmine whispers. 

“But there were things she wasn’t telling us.” 

Bee holds Yasmine gently with her left hand, and clenches her right into a fist. She looks straight into Camille’s face, even as he avoids making eye contact. She was talking to him directly now. 

“We tried to see her. Talk to her. But every day, the library doors were locked after school, even if we knew she was in there working. She’d never open it. We knocked on her house door in the morning, but nobody ever answered. We thought about talking to Dr. Jones, but we could never contact him—he was always working… We tried to figure out what was going on. We texted her over and over, asking if she was okay. She’d reply, sometimes; tell us everything was fine. We didn’t understand. We tried to understand. But we should’ve tried harder. Maybe if we had… ” 

* * * 

How can you live with a person all your life, and know almost nothing about them? There is a door on the second floor of their house that doesn’t lead anywhere. You could see it from the outside, like a large window permanently shuttered. His father said it was leftover from an old balcony that had rotted and been removed before they moved in. The door was locked and bolted. Still, he was always afraid it would come unlocked, and somebody would open the door without thinking and walk over the edge. He worried that he would accidentally unlock it, maybe while sleepwalking, and Mae would open it and fall into the thorny bushes below.

It was like he’d unlocked the door. Sleepwalking. He’d been sleepwalking for so long, all day long, through his life. And one afternoon, while he still wasn’t looking, Mae opened the door and jumped into thin air. 

* * * 

David is decorating the roof of a gingerbread house. He’s sitting in the living room of Camille’s house, hunched over a low table Dr. Jones set out for them. It is a dark winter evening. The windows are pitch black and reflective—like the house is flying through space. This likeness is so vivid, David abandons his work on occasion to press his forehead to the glass, reassuring himself with the sight of the front yard blanketed in snow. 

Camille is watching David arrange candies on the cookie rooftops. He is curled up in a large leather armchair, flipping through a book beneath the soft lamplight—a children’s biography of Beethoven. They are still only children—second and third grade—and only a year has passed since they first met. And yet, neither can quite remember what life was like without the other. Neither of them particularly wants to. Everything is more fun and less lonely, now. 

It was another quiet moment like any other—but it left an impression on David’s heart unlike any other memory. It’s like his heart grows outward from this spot in his memory, from this place in time. Like a garden that starts with a single seed dropped in a well, vines reaching up and away forever. 

* * * 

When Camille met David, every memory was like a newborn star, sparkling with wonder. From the darkness, these memories began to collect and shine like stars emerging from an empty sky. Camille has only unremarkable memories of his own childhood—like pale candles flickering in the wind, casting only a dim glow in his mind. His memories with David changed everything. The universe became bigger, forever expanding, filling with stars.

As the years passed by and David drifted further and further away, clouds began to gather. Everything was dark and hazy as he receded into his own shadowy world of solitude and music. And Mae, glowing faintly like the moon—a constant presence in his life, even through the clouds. Such a pale glow, he hardly noticed she was there. Then the moon fell from the sky, and everything turned to darkness. 

* * * 

The sun is already setting. Pale sunlight drains from the clouds, the overcast sky breathing a half-hearted sigh as it fades into darkness. The world is past the point of sweet decay, yet it still trembles in the dry wind, exposed without a layer of snow or frost. All of nature is a ghost—a shadow of itself unburied. 

Gazing into a blank-eyed television, Camille is sprawled out sideways on the couch, a dingy quilt pulled awkwardly across his long body. David occupies the armchair. He glances out the window at the shivering lawn and quiet street. 

“I wonder when it’ll start snowing,” David says. 

“I don’t know.” 

“It sure is late this year.” 

“Yeah, it is.” 

David isn’t quite sure why he’s at Camille’s house right now. They aren’t going to talk about Mae anymore. They aren’t going to do homework or study together on a Friday night. When they got to Camille’s house, David just walked in after him—force of habit, maybe. Years ago, they would spend almost every Friday night together. 

“Do you want to watch a movie?” David asks. Camille is silent for a few moments before speaking, running the idea through his head. 

“Sure. What movie?” 

“Whatever you want to watch.” 

“I don’t know,” Camille says, “you pick.” 

“Hmm…”

Camille’s favorite movie of all time was Princess Mononoke. This surprised David. It was relatively violent—the severed limbs and bloody curses. David thought it would disturb him, but Camille almost always chose it. Even though he flinched at the blood, the animal gods and trembling kodama always transfixed him; the swaying of the trees seemed to soothe him. And watching the world grow back at the end—it made him happy, and David could tell. “How about Princess Mononoke?” 

“I think the DVD is in Mae’s bedroom,” he says. “It was one of her favorite movies. She kept all of her favorite things on a shelf in her room.” 

Camille turns his head against the armrest, unfocused gaze falling on David’s face. A few beats of silence. Just as David is about to speak, Camille looks away and throws back the quilt. “I’ll get it.” 

His footsteps creak across the floor and up the stairs. A minute later, Camille is crouched down in front of the television. 

“Can you hand me the remote?” 

“Yeah.” 

At first, David divides his time between watching the screen and observing those familiar reactions in this older version of Camille—his subtle flinching at blood; his wide-eyed fascination with the forest spirits. It makes him happy to see—a part of Camille is the same as it always was. But soon, Camille is too mesmerized by the movie to notice David nodding off. Camille has never been so transfixed by the ending before—the death of the spirit, and the regrowth and healing of the forest and the people. 

The credits roll, and Camille looks over to see David fast asleep. Snow is falling outside their window. The room blips into total darkness with a click of the remote. Camille waits, but sleep does not come. He is staring into the darkness, seeing memories. 

* * * 

Spring of Camille’s eighth grade year—just outside his bedroom window, icicles are melting in the cold sunshine, dripping from the rooftops and disappearing into the slushy gravel and tufts of yellowed grass. David sits cross legged on the circular play-rug— a cozy remnant of childhood—fidgeting with pipe cleaners, while Camille nervously glues construction paper to a three-fold board. It’s a Sunday afternoon, and Camille’s big final American History project is due Monday. David wanted to hang out and subsequently agreed to help him work on the project. 

“Do you think this looks okay? With the blue and the red on either side? Or should it be the same on both sides? Or—I mean, does it really matter?” 

“I don’t know. Hey, look! I made a giraffe!” 

David presents his pipe-cleaner creation to Camille, who laughs despite his best efforts to feign frustration. 

“I know it’s not very useful, but it’s fun to mess around with,” David says. 

“Why did you bring out the pipe cleaners, anyway?” 

“I don’t know. Why are you so worried about the colors? You have enough information and citations and stuff. Let’s just focus on pasting those onto the board. Here—I’ll help.” Messing around with useless things was David’s specialty. Only he would bother with pipe cleaner animals at a time like this. Everything was one big, fun experiment to him—games, friendships, life. And yet, he had more sense than Camille. He had more sense in everything. Camille felt like he kept getting caught up in the wrong things, in the dark things—only David could highlight what was really important in whatever context he was in. When he was with David, it was like certain parts of himself would light up. The world around him would light up, too, and seem less hostile. 

* * * 

Falling snow. Steady and soundless, like a clock ticking from within a void. Like running your fingers along the keys of piano, but never pressing down. Camille used to do that, when his heart felt too hollow for music. Eyes closed, he ran his fingers along the smooth white silence. 

Camille stops walking. He is standing at the edge of an open soccer field. The forest stands heavy and still, full of shadows like muted static. He feels the cold swirling around him from all sides. In the months following Mae’s hospitalization, Camille held his world together with piano. If he was not practicing, everything began to drift apart again. Moments of clarity were so rare, it was like every day was overcast. He could no longer differentiate clouds from sky. 

Camille walks out to the center of the snowy field. He looks up, eyes closed, and feels the snowflakes melting one by one on his skin. When he opens his eyes, David is there. “Remember when you would make snow angels alone in front of your house?” He situates himself on the snow next to Camille. 

“—and we’d both make snow angels, like this.” 

David swings his arms once up and down, the tip of his left mitten brushing against Camille’s arm. He stops moving and closes his eyes. They lie in silence for a while, letting the snowflakes melt on their faces and settle over their bodies. David wonders if anybody is watching them, wondering what they’re doing out here. He feels like he’s being buried alive very slowly, and yet it’s strangely pleasant—it would be relaxing if it wasn’t so cold. Camille looks very peaceful. 

“It used to make me really happy, to make snow angels,” Camille says. “I don’t know why.” 

“It makes me happy, too. It’s a happy thing to do, I think,” David muses. 

“All of the things you do are happy things, more or less.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I think you’re a happy person.” 

“You think I’m happy all of the time?” 

“No. I just—maybe it just seems that way to me.” 

“Yeah,” David says, “and maybe that makes sense, you know? Because whenever I’m around you, I am happy. Or at least, happier than I am when I’m not.” 

“I see,” Camille says. 

Silence. Falling snow. Notes unsung, strings untouched—like the hollow silence within a bell. The snowflakes are infinitely numerous and delicate, a gently swirling curtain of white, soundless chaos.

“Sometimes I think it’s my fault. I let Mae go. I’m the one who let it happen, because I ignored her. I was selfish.” 

“Camille, you aren’t selfish—” 

“I ignored everything. I just couldn’t stand any of it. I couldn’t stand myself. I hated myself, and yet I was so selfish.” 

“Camille,” David says, “it’s okay. It’s nobody’s fault. You can’t change what happened, now. You know? You just can’t. All you can do is try to be there for her now. Carry on with her.” David wonders if he’s said exactly what he meant to say. He knows there’s something he wants Camille to know, and that feeling is welling up deep inside him, but it’s such a wordless feeling. He starts with what he knows—It’s not your fault, because it’s not. I forgive you for everything you shouldn’t have done or didn’t do—and she would too, because she loves you, I promise. He knows this is true. And I love you. 

“I think you should talk to her. Even if you’re afraid to.” he says. 

“Maybe I should’ve just talked to her in the first place. I’m such a coward, though, I never would have done it. Not in a million years, even though it’s probably the best thing I could’ve done.” 

“You’re not a coward. And I’m glad you didn’t talk to her in the first place.” “Why not?” 

“Because if you’d just talked to her, then you wouldn’t have talked to me, I guess. I know that’s selfish but it’s true. And I’m still glad about it. Maybe we’re both selfish, then. If you’re selfish, then I am too.” 

Camille leans forward and pulls David into a hug. With his eyes closed, David cannot truly sense anything else—it’s as though the rest of his body has vanished, washed away by the singular intensity of being held. He imagines snow falling through a void, settling over their snow angels.