I can feel the cold seeping through the layers I thought would be enough to keep me warm. My scarf’s wrapped so tight around my neck it feels like it’s cutting off my air, but I don’t care. Snow crunches under our boots, uneven and icy in places, and I can’t stop smiling, even if my fingers are going numb. I throw my head back and laugh, loud enough that a few kids sledding nearby glance over at us like we’re crazy.

“You’re gonna fall on your ass if you keep trying to ice-skate through the grass,” I shout, the words puffing out in little clouds. You roll your eyes, face red from the cold but grinning anyway. I love that about you—how you can make fun of me one second, then still be the first person to dive into some ridiculous idea I come up with the next.

The park looks almost abandoned too, just like the neighborhood we sneak out from sometimes. Snow blankets everything in white, muffling the world, making it feel like it’s just us out here. I know it’s freezing. My nose is numb, my boots soaked from slush, but none of that matters because it’s you. Because it’s always been you.

I glance at your jacket, way too thin for this weather, and I have this little pang of something I can’t name. You’re always trying to tough it out, pretending it doesn’t get to you. But I know better. I know the cold doesn’t just live in the winter air where you are. It hangs over your house, over your life, the kind of cold that sticks to your bones and doesn’t wash off.

I shrug off the guilt. I shouldn’t worry so much, I tell myself. You always laugh when I do, calling me dramatic. But I can’t help it. You’re my best mate, my person, the one who makes this mess of a life feel less…messy.

“You’re staring again,” you say suddenly, tossing a snowball my way. I yelp, raising my hands to protect myself, and laugh when it hits the scarf and explodes in a puff of powder.

“I’m not staring,” I lie, grinning. But you know I am. I always am.

We’ve been inseparable for years now, even when everyone else decided you were a loser and I was the popular one. People whisper, I shrug. I don’t care. The truth is, I’ve never met anyone else who gets it, who really gets you. I see past the scuffed sneakers and the cold apartment and the bruised pride your dad likes to leave on you like invisible marks. I see the part of you no one else bothers to look at—the quick wit, the stubborn loyalty, the way you’ll never admit when something’s actually bothering you until you explode in a burst of sarcasm and bad jokes.

I grab a handful of snow and throw it at you before you can retaliate. You scream, something between frustration and laughter, and I can’t help but laugh too. The sound echoes across the empty park, and I think, maybe this is all we’ll ever need. Maybe it doesn’t matter that the world’s cold and unfair and that your dad doesn’t care and that I’m probably going to have a million more nights in a warm bed while you shiver under an old blanket.

Because right now, here, it’s just us. Just snow and laughter and ridiculous scarves wrapped too tight and the smell of wet coats. Just us, surviving in our own little world where no one else matters.

I hold my glove up, waiting for the next attack, heart thumping a little too fast. “Come on,” I say. “Show me what you’ve got, Snow King.”

And for a second, just a second, you look like you actually forget everything else. The broken walls, the cold rooms, the lonely nights. You’re just you, and I’m just me, and somehow that’s enough.