My shoes were soaked, crunching the snow and making my presence known to the silent sidewalks. I swore I was alone, even though you were beside me. I kept turning around, looking at those heavy steps I had just created, and they left such clear imprints that I was surprised to see your feet hadn’t left a single mark. You took my hand, trying to distract me from your disappearing footprints, and you said something about the storm and how attractive it was to see the snowfall on the trees, protecting their roof and drawing canopies. I took a sip from the bottle of wine we were walking with and its bitterness graced my palate and made my heart warmer. You took the bottle from me and we started to descend, but I slipped and fell, landing on my back. I saw the snow push itself up and falling down again on my thick coat and I laid there and began to enjoy the coldness seeping through my jeans. You tried to convince me to sit up, telling me how dangerous it was, but I refused, and I took that ticket I had been keeping in my pocket, ripped it in two and gave you a half. I said you didn’t have to go, but if you wanted to, I’d sleepwalk my way down that stairwell and share it. You laughed and stuck it in your jacket pocket, trying to hoist me up again, but you slipped too, but fell too hard and through the ice, down to the bottom of the earth. I reached my hand into the water, which was thrashing around and starting to turn solid again from the snow. I even dipped my head in, but everybody knows how hard it is to see underwater. You didn’t come up, so I waited longer. Just stared at the break in the ice and watching the water become placid, accepting your body into its own and making something whole again. And I really knew at that point that it would never reject your beauty, and that, above all those other charming things, even the swirling snow, was calming.