Let Me Open Your Eyes

Chapter 12 - Snowed In

{"I say I'm sorry I'm not an easy to person to want

         He looks at me shocked who says I want easy? I crave goddamn difficult"}

I woke up to fields of white bliss outside my window. The air had a delicious chill and eerie silence, the only sound was the snow falling peacefully outside, it sparkling under the far away sun. A small smile grazed my lips as I watched it, closing my eyes and almost longing to run outside and spin around with snowflakes getting caught in my hair.

The smile faded when I noticed the dull ache behind my eyes that reminded me of the night before, from my rash decision to get drunk to bumping into the person that everything always seemed to lead back to. Aspen Blue always seemed to be right there when I was in danger or if I felt alone, like it was almost for a particular reason.

I felt angry at him for always thinking that he had to be there like a knight in shining armour, but underneath it all I simply felt humiliated that he had seen me hang onto his arms like a fool.

My mood decreased further when I walked down the stairs and saw the pale yellow post-it note taped to the fridge. Recognizing my mother's swirly handwriting straight away, I ripped it off with a sigh.

Darlene asked me to work at the library today for a few hours, soup in the fridge if you get hungry, love you xx

Part of me knew deep down that it was to do with my father, she would never usually leave the house in this weather, knowing that she could get stuck out there. I had been ignoring the persistent ringing of the phone, scared that every time I might pick it up it could be him, trying to get me to convince her to let him come home. They had been in a bad place for a while it seems and it was nearly impossible to change my mother's mind, especially when it came to him.

They had been childhood sweethearts in college, that were paired together in a study group, my mother used to tell me before I went to bed. She thought he was such a gentleman, always opening the door for her and lending her his notes for the assignments so that she would get a better grade. My father would always roll his eyes at that part, muttering, "the things I did to get her to ask me out." One day the teacher caught him passing her the answers to the pop quiz and she waited outside the door for him the entire hour of detention just to thank him. Things went on from there. But it is clear that love does not last and that is something that had always been very clear to me. There is no point in getting attached.

A knock on the door broke me from my thoughts and I huffed, throwing open the door and shivering from the instant cold that settled over my body.

"Got any hot chocolate?" Aspen grinned, snowflakes caught in his dark hair and settling over his soft eyelashes.

"Oh my god" I groaned, rolling my eyes and wrapping my arms around myself. "What are you doing here now?"

"I wanted to check on you, but the snow got worse. Can I please come in?" he pleaded, rubbing his hands together which were slightly pink from the cold.

Simply grumbling protests under my breath, I shut the door after him while he took off his snow covered shoes. Swiftly storming into the kitchen, I slammed the cupboard door opened and threw two mugs down onto the counter angrily.

"You're not in a good mood" he pointed out, settling himself down on one of the kitchen stools.

"You don't miss a thing" I muttered, swirling the milk into the chocolate powder and then turning on the microwave. Turning around, I settled my hands on my hips and glared at him while he simply blew his warm breath onto his cold hands.