Kiss Her Once for Me
Alison Cochrun
This book is for my parents,
who love me when I fall as much as they love me when I fly.
And for the grandmas, obviously.
Last Christmas
A Webcomic
By Oliverartssometimes
Episode 7: The Girl on the Bridge
(Christmas Eve, 11:22 p.m.)
Uploaded: February 4, 2022
Snow days are a special kind of magic.
When I was a kid, snow days meant freedom from the stress of school and from the debilitating social anxiety I felt there. On a snow day, I could wander outside and make friends as easily as packing a snowball between my gloved palms.
In college at Ohio State, snow days meant freedom from my rigorous study schedule, when my best friend, Meredith, would burst into my dorm at one in the morning so we could go sledding in South Oval on trays stolen from the dining hall.
And in Portland, a snow day seemed to mean freedom from everything.
My boots sink into nearly a foot of snow as I step onto the Burnside Bridge. The boundaries of the city had blurred over the course of the day, and now nothing is contained to its usual place. Grass, sidewalk, and street have all become one smooth, fluid thing—a world that looks sugar-spun and impossibly sweet. Up ahead, a couple cross-country-skis across the bridge while their portable speaker blares “White Christmas,” and behind me a group of twentysomethings is having a snowball fight in the middle of the road, and beside me, a woman slips, grumbles, and curses, “Fuck the snow!” at a rather loud volume.
“Is it the snow we should be blaming?” I ask calmly. “Or your shoes?”
“The snow,” she answers, clomping her boots deliberately with each step. “These boots are magnificent.”
I gesture to the boots in question. “They do seem like they were selected more for aesthetics than utility, though. Like your coat.”
She stops stomping through the snow and looks up. “Wait. What’s wrong with my coat?”
She’s wearing one of those brown Carhartt jackets so popular among a certain demographic back in Ohio and an entirely different demographic here in Portland. Hers isn’t even zipped, so her flannel is exposed beneath, tucked into her light-wash jeans.
It’s an aesthetic, all right.
“It’s a very nice coat,” I reassure her. “Not exactly practical for snow, though, is it?”
“In my defense, it hardly ever snows here.”
“Yet when you left your house this morning, you knew snow was in the forecast.”
She harrumphs and shakes snowflakes out of her exposed hair like a golden retriever in the rain. Her black hair is cut short, shaved along one side and long on the other, so it falls across her forehead in a damp clump. All day, I’ve fought against the urge to push that hair back out of her eyes.
On a snow day in Portland, you could meet a stranger in a bookstore, spend the entire day with her, and find yourself on a bridge overlooking the Willamette River at 11:23 p.m. on Christmas Eve. On a snow day, you could be the kind of person who followed a stranger anywhere, even if she did complain about the snow.
The stranger in question moves to the edge of the bridge, her eyes staring out at the black water. “Okay, explain it to me, Ohio: what’s so great about snow?”
“Well, first of all, it’s gorgeous.” I exhale, and she turns to shoot me a sideways glance. The freckles beneath her eyes almost look like snowflakes on her light brown skin. It’s only been fourteen hours since I met her, but I’ve already memorized the pattern on her cheeks, charted those freckles so I can draw them later.
I wrap my blue scarf tighter around my neck to hide my blush. “And it’s… real snow, like this… big snowstorms… they have the power to stop the world for a minute. Snow freezes time, so the constant pressure of life is briefly suspended in a blanket of snow, and for one day, it’s like you can catch your breath.”
She leans against the railing, her arms lazily draped over the edge. “You know you’re allowed to relax even when it doesn’t snow, right?”
“When it snows,” I say, more emphatically, “the world transforms. Snow is magic.”
I gesture around us, to the night sky that shimmers light purple, almost glowing to match all the white. To the trees that sparkle an iridescent silver. To the snowflakes floating through the air, giving off the illusion that they’re traveling in all directions, defying gravity. I stick out my tongue and manage to capture one, and I notice too late that she has her phone in front of her, and she is taking a photo of me with my tongue out.
“What are you doing?”
“Attempting to document the supposed snow magic. For scientific purposes.”
“And from such a cute angle.”
“Oh, please. You’re adorable, and I’m sure—” She pauses, tilts her head to the side to study her phone screen, and winces. “Actually, maybe we might want to take that again….”
I shove her arm. “I will not subject myself to further mockery.”
She holds her phone in front of my face. “Come on, Ellie. Something to remember you by before the night is over.”
“I don’t turn back into a pumpkin when the clock strikes midnight.”
“Yes.” She smirks. “But maybe I do. Besides, I’ll want to have a photo of you when you’re a famous filmmaker. Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is part of the ten-year plan.”