It feels evergreen again-- the cool, rich color that reminds me of a forest that is silent, where you can tell birds used to sing there, but you cannot hear them anymore. The streetlamps outline everything in an orange glow. The cold fogs the windows of the car while the windshield wipers pulse occasionally. It might be warmer in the car, but it feels more appropriate to sit on the hood.
A few deer pass across the parking lot. I watch as the family take a few steps, pause, take a few steps, pause, take a few steps, and then disappear into the night.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing for your emotions,” he tells me.
I sigh. “I know.”
We sit on my car like this for far longer than either of us anticipated, letting the cold fingers of December pull at our toes. We talk until our throats are dry, the air around us warm with the contents of the back cabinets of our brains.
His phone buzzes from inside his coat pocket. Suddenly his face is illuminated with bright blue. I notice that the circles under his eyes rival mine.
“It’s my mom,” he says.
I stare.
“But I don’t want to go home.”
We sit in silence until his phone shuts off and his face changes back from bright blue to fuzzy orange. Now that I have seen his eyes, I wonder how I didn’t notice how tired he looks. He sits with his shoulders slumped. His voice is lower, and missing the edge it had before.
“You don’t have to apologize for how you feel,” he repeats. “I know you like to forget this, but you’re human too.”
I let out a dry laugh. It almost sounds like he’s sympathetic. I go to make a witty remark in response, but the cold has made it increasingly more difficult to move the muscles around my lips. I stumble on my words.
He laughs.
And then I’m laughing too.
And then we’re both still laughing.
And we're sitting on the silver hood of my dead grandmother’s Honda, laughing even though our feet hurt and we can’t feel our fingers, laughing because we just spent hours sharing way more than we were comfortable with, laughing because life keeps punching us both in our guts until we’re bleeding from the inside out, laughing because I thought I hated him only a few months ago and sometimes I still think that. I don’t know.
As good as it feels to forget about our bruises, eventually the silence catches back up to us. December reminds us once again that it is here.
The hum of the car engine comforts me as I reflect on the past few months. It hasn't been easy, but when has it ever been?
I stumble upon this conclusion: maybe the point of life punching us in the guts isn’t to try to fight back. Maybe it’s just to learn how to take a beating.
by Hannah Lee, 12
Evergreen