Tino's Word - Past and Present

Part two

Later that night, after the strange meeting with Lukas, Tino lay in bed staring at the holes on the ceiling. There must have been a thousand tiny pin pricks on the ceiling tiles, and Tino counted each one in his mind. One-hundred-and-forty-three. He fingered the chain around his neck containing the pill, the only thing convincing him he wasn't crazy. His experience with Lukas had not been a hallucination in itself.

Tino had been eager to leave his friends after that. He desperately wanted to recount what had happened to Berwald and Matthias, but Tino didn't tell either of them. If he set up a meeting, he knew Lukas would find out some way or another that Tino was planning to meet both of them. Lukas would have kept Matthias home or given Berwald extra science homework. (Lukas was Berwald's teacher's assistant in chemistry.) Tino didn't completely trust Lukas right in that moment, but he trusted Berwald to understand, and Matthias to interpret Lukas's actions and words.

Speaking of Berwald, Berwald was now shining a flashlight into Tino's eyes. "Tino," he whispered, "we must go outside! It is snowing so hard!"

Like Tino, Berwald was not from America. He was from northern Europe, and he had most certainly seen enough snow for a lifetime, yet it never ceased to entertain him. Tino was very sure Berwald was in love with the snow. He could not imagine why Berwald had left Scandinavia, but then again, Tino was never quite sure exactly why he had. Tino didn't plan much to return, either. He supposed he didn't like it much. Sometimes it was nice to speak Swedish with him for the throwback, though.

He agreed, and pulled on a sweatshirt over his cotton t-shirt. He wore sweatpants bearing the logo of his university on the side of the pant leg. He felt the discomfort settle over him, dull, painful and persistent, but he ignored it.

Berwald wore a heavy brown coat over his clothes. He hadn't changed into pajamas on account of it only being ten o'clock, and that it was Saturday night. He excitedly checked the weather forecast, smiling as he saw how much snow would fall from the sky. "I hope we get a blizzard! Would they cancel classes?"

Tino smiled tiredly, saying, "You've been here longer than I have."

"Oh, yeah!" He seemed to suddenly remember that Tino was a year below him. "You know snow well, though?"

"You know I do," Tino said, shivering as he stepped out into the dormitory hallway. It was cold, and the heater was clearly having a hard time. Tino knew it did this every winter, since it had happened last year. Recently his university had blown all of its money on a new science hall, and thus the boys' dormitory was left to become an actual icicle.

The corridor was barren for the most part, with a thin carpet covering the cold concrete floor and thick concrete walls painted beige. There were no students milling about. Most of them were either out or locked in their dorm rooms, probably watching Netflix.

Berwald and Tino treated themselves to a ride in the elevator, since both of them did not feel like using the stairs. Inside the elevator was another story: hundreds of brightly colored advertisements hung plastered to the walls, someone had drawn obscene Sharpie drawings and there were at least a few messages proclaiming love.

The elevator pleasantly announced that they had arrived at the ground floor. Berwald ran across the slippery floor in his leather ankle boots, yanking the door open and sliding out into the cold. Tino laughed and followed, jogging through the closing glass door. He tracked Berwald's footprints through the heavy snowfall and found him standing in a dark part of the snowed-over garden.

"Isn't it beautiful?" he asked.

Berwald had the most beautiful smile when he showed it off. It wasn't often that he smiled like that, even as he was a fairly upbeat person.