Cold Truth | Teen Ink

Cold Truth

May 17, 2015
By ainslee MacQuarrie BRONZE, Kensington, New Hampshire
ainslee MacQuarrie BRONZE, Kensington, New Hampshire
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

The cold air brushes against my pale face, only feeling the slight warmth my clothes provide. I stare down at my feet as he stares down at his, we walk, examining every new footprint left behind in the new layers of light fluffy snow. We pass store by store, filling our eyes with bright lights, toys, and new fashion. He talks, I rarely answer, only to focus on the calmness his soft voice gives to me.
“Do you want to grab something to eat?” his voice filling my ears, forcing my mouth to answer.
“Yeah, sure.”
We walk into a small, very popular coffee shop, and soon as we step through the door my emotion immediately changes, i've been brought from a daydream, to the reality of loud voices, and the clinking of coffee cups. Walking further into the shop, we go to the cash register to order, he claims he can pay for both.
“Two hot chocolates and two chocolate chip cookies please”.
“Coming right up” the familiar worker replied to him.
We’ve been coming here for about three years now, we always get the same things, and he always orders them. After about three minutes, the worker swings by the counter to hand us the warm drinks and cookies, we both thank her and then turn around to find a place to sit. We found two couches, every seat was taken, except for these two in the corner, almost as if they have been waiting for us. I grasp the cup with my hands, and with every sip the warmth enters my body. We are silenced by the sips of our drinks, and the munching on our cookies, but as soon as we are done our conversation fills the air with all the other ones.
“So what have you been up to lately? We haven't hung out in a while.” he said.
“You know… Trying to keep up with everyone and everything around me. This is the first time in a few weeks I've actually been able to hang out with someone without worrying about school work, or about my Dad”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot, how is your Dad? Is he getting any better, or is he able to come home anytime soon?
“Um… No hes not getting better, he's actually getting worse but can we just not talk about this right now?”
“Sorry I get” my phone buzzing in my pocket interrupted him.
“Sorry.. Just give me a sec” I said as he gave an understanding nod back to me.
As the sweet sound of the nurse's voice came through the phone, I felt a tear run down my face. Then the one tear turned into several, I could feel this lump in my throat like I had just dry swallowed a big pill, and I could feel my heart start to sink lower and lower. I ended the call interrupting whoever the woman was who was giving me the news, and turned off my phone. I looked up slowly through the tears the filled my eyes.
“He’s dead. My dad... Is dead” and without saying another word I stood up and ran out of the cafe. I was so upset that all of the  conversations around me were silent. And when I burst through the door and entered the streets, the air felt so thick, and I got this feeling like someone was pushing hard on my shoulders. I fell down into the snow, feeling the cold run down my legs. Then suddenly someone burst through the door, letting the load noise of conversations inside the coffee shop go, until the door closed again and shut out the noise again.

“Come on let’s go, I have something to show you”. I got up and threw away my paper cup, and the few bites of cookie left.
Now it was it was dark out and the air grew colder and the lights grew brighte. The snowfall was getting lighter but still producing large, thick, fluffy snowflakes. My head was blank. Completely blank. I couldn’t tell if i was in my day dream or if reality had really hit me, hard. I held out my hand and let a few snowflakes fall onto my mitten, I examined the clumps of snow, and compared the patterns of each snowflake to each other. I dusted of my hand and started to focus, we’ve walked at least a block or two by now, and he continued to lead us to the river and onto the bridge that crossed it.
“Well we’re here”



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