Upstairs on the fifth floor, Diego had a similar issue. Instead of being distracted by his parent’s arguing, he was distracted by his father checking up on him every five seconds.

“Padre, I have everything. I’ll wear a bright jacket in case sometimes happens. I’ll have a whistle with me the whole time. I won’t go off alone by myself. I know this.”

“Just be careful hijo,” Miguel told his son. He couldn’t lose another one. His wife couldn’t lose another one.

Diego headed to grab a snack when he passed by his mother’s office. Ever since his brother hung himself, his mother threw herself into her work. Some called her heartless but Diego knew that it was her method of coping.

At first he walked past but then he went back to the open door. Without disturbing her, Diego grabbed the untouched plate of dinner and took it back to the kitchen. He placed it into a small container and placed it into the fridge with the other untouched meals. He then grabbed two apples and placed one onto his mother’s desk.

Ever since Emilio’s suicide, she’s been working herself to the bone. She’s grown frail and weak. There’s no life left in her eyes. I know she’s doing this as a coping mechanism and a way to prevent me from falling down the same path as my brother. But what about her? Doesn’t she know she’s doing to herself the exact thing she doesn’t want me to do. I’m scared of what’s going to happen to her and I’m scared that I can’t find it in myself to tell her.

The trip was everything the five friends wanted it to be. In less than half a day, they created hundreds of memories and reminisced on the old ones. From their race down the mountain between skiing, snowboarding, and tubbing (surprisingly Rei and Delancy on the tube won) to having Isaac drag the four others around on a tube.

“Hurry up Isa!” Delancy shouted from the tube.

“I hate rock-paper-scissors!” Isaac chanted with each step he took.

“It’s not our fault you’re so obvious with your choices.”

“Shut up Asher.”

“Make me Isaac.”

“That’s it! I can’t do this anymore.” Isaac dropped the rope and before the four could run away, Isaac helped them out of the tube by flipping it onto the side.

“Ash!” Diego, Delancy, and Rei shouted.

“It was Isa’s fault.”

“It’s all your fault!”

The three friends attacked their blond friend with a series of snowballs before moving onto Isaac. Soon, the trio’s alliance broke and it was an all-out snowball fight.

*

Delancy, who was too busy attacking Diego, fell victim to Asher’s payback when his snowball hit her right on the back of the head. He was too busy celebrating to not notice the three snowballs Delancy threw to return the favour.

“Hey!” Asher shouted after the third and final snowball landed on his face.

“Hi, what’s up?”

“Funny.”

“But not as much as your face.”

Rei grabbed Asher while Diego and Isaac held Delancy back, the last thing they needed was for their teachers to separate them on their only overlapping day together.

“Okay, let’s search around for our presents and make sure you don’t try to find out who has you, Rei.”

“One time,” she tried to explain. “One time Isa, just let it go already.”

“Let’s go this way Isa,” Asher said, dragged Isaac away before he could go on a rant about the point of the tradition was to be surprised.

Delancy was shopping around for Rei’s present when she bumped into Eric outside of a food vendor. With his back turned to her, Delancy crouched down and made a snowball which found its new home on Eric’s head.

“Gotcha,” Delancy said. Feeling sorry, she went on her toes to wipe the snow off of his head, her fingers lingered over his soft hair.

“That hurt,” he said with an over the top pout. Delancy bit back a smile and hoped that her cheeks didn’t turn pink.

“Look at you trying to be cute. What are you doing here?”

“I was in the lodge but then it got too loud go I came here. You?” Eric shook the rest of the snow down onto Delancy’s head.

“Hey!”

“What?” This time it was Eric who wiped the snow off of the head. The way his fingers touched her so delicately made her feel like she was on fire despite the cold.

“I’m looking for a present for my friend, part of the annual tradition between the five of us. I was thinking a new notebook since she wants to be an author. Want to come with me?”

“Sure.”

The two waited until Eric received his food before going off to the marketplace. Their present search for Rei turned into more of a try on everything for Delancy. Their fun time was cut short when a group of guys from their school walked up to Delancy.

“Hey Del.”

“What’s up? You guys shopping too?”

“Yeah, what about you?”

“Yup, Eric’s helping me find a present for my friend.”

“I see. You guys are together a lot. So like are you dating him?” He asked in a tone that made the concept sound so unreasonable that only acceptable response was to laugh it off.

Delancy looked over to Eric who had his head down to hide face and resisted the urge to punch her classmate. Instead, she grabbed Eric’s hand and said, “Yeah, I am. Now we have to go, bye.”

If you can physically punch someone, you emotionally punch them. I did like Eric but I didn’t want to confess my feelings like that but now that we’ve crossed over to that grey area between love and friendship, I really hope it goes my way.