Frozen

He thought she was beautiful. Red hair, dark eyes and blushing white skin. She extended her hand out of a faux-fur cuff.
“Christian” he said.
He took it, he shook it, he imagined her naked. She cracked a smile like a rainbow. “Marion, and this is my friend, Celeste” she said.
A plump girl with frizzed hair offered her hand. He took it, he shook it, he tried very hard not to imagine her naked.
“Well” he stumbled “I came over here because I thought you looked lonely, but I see I was wrong. Shall I leave?”
He hoped his charm worked in French.

“Thank you for taking me here”, he said. He had not been invited. He looked below at the rough, gleaming black of the sea, the way it shifted under his gaze like an illusion.
“The places I could take you” said Sarah. The stars above them were revealing themselves layer by layer. Thin dairy clouds billowed translucently like a loaded brush in water. They sat on the cool springiness of the cloud, letting their legs dangle high above, far below.

“No, never heard of them.”
“Noir Desir?”
“Non”
“Louise Attaque?”
“Non”
He felt the tequila frappe swimming around his skull. This was the best vein of conversation all night, which had been a patchwork of silences. Quickly, he took stock (same yellow lit bar, check, sane redhead, check, same flannel shirt, check…).
Over his shoulder, Marion studied four men hollering and drinking. She winced each time they slammed their shot glasses down. “They build those strong.” she said in French.
Christian was too drunk to notice.

He staggered towards them. The snow was unyielding, loyal to his boots and to the ground. Soon out of breath, smoking like exhaust, he sat.
The distance was immense, the lights had changed colour, gotten higher. He looked at the stars. Their multitude struck him with a sense of clarity and recognition so strong he felt his eyes complain with tears.

There was something about the way she lazily tripped over his name, made it music. The dark vowels in her accents, the soft Os she pushed with her lips. In her fingers a beer was sweating, smoking like a fresh-fired gun, and what fingers those were, long, like a pianists, you could eat those fingers, lick them, squeeze them...
“You look great” he said, not for the first time.
“Merci” she blushed, disappearing into her collar, embarrassed now.
The drink had its warm amber hold on him now. The music was a blur. Something French, he thought, with violins. Every time he closed his eyes he felt as if he were falling forward. How nice it would be to pitch forward into that lovely face, graceful like a bird’s. He thought he was fine, because he still knew that most people don’t close their eyes for this long in the middle of conversations. Eyes open. Eyes open.
He opened his eyes and she was looking at him, something quizzical in her gaze, was she waiting? Expectant?
She said nothing.
Yes, he could yield to her lips, her wet, beer-shined mouth, to the dimples that framed it.
Still she said nothing.
Yes this was his chance he was missing.
Right.
Now.
In one motion she swept up her bag and got off her stool. With a ‘bonne nuit’ ringing in his ears, he watched her march outside into the falling snow.

“I’m sorry I was always so cold towards you” said Sarah, her head on his shoulder, a strong wind tangling their hair together. “It always hurt me to say that I loved you, I never could when you asked.” He didn’t move. He simply stared down upon the waves; the wind roared white noise in his ears. Sarah spoke and it was silent. “I know it must have embarrassed you, hurt you where you were softest. I’m sorry.” She wanted to cool down the patch of his heart she had made sore, soothe it and put it to sleep. He lay back into the cloud.

Christian stumbled outside, hot with drink. Laboriously he lurched onto the snow covered road, distinguishable only by canyons in the snow left by tyres. He took his bearings, his eyes settling upon objects faster than his mind. Christmas lights were soft explosions of red, green and blue in the distance.

“It’s so beautiful here” he said. He had not chosen to be there. The red lights of an aeroplane winked at him overhead. He smiled in response. Sarah turned her head up to the acceptance of the night. The stars gathered on her grief like snowflakes, perfectly formed. She could not suppress a sob from the womb of her throat. A tear rolled down her cheek and she imagined the ripple it would make among the waves. All I wanted, she thought, was for you to know that I was proud of you. So proud, my beautiful. So proud...

He lay back and watched as the chill began to penetrate. Smiling, crying, he was still alive as the thermometer sank further below zero.

Sarah awoke and Christian was still dead. She felt the grief, a black lump in her chest, she couldn’t breathe. It came to visit her every morning. Her whole face felt heavy with the truth, she could not bring herself to lift it. His photo was at the foot of her bed, and like every other morning, she held it lightly in her hands. Eyes like stars, teeth ablaze. The moment he smiled – frozen.