Beginning

A few random snowflakes float down lazily from the gray sky. One of them gracefully lands on the out-stretched hand of a teenage girl, her gray plaid school uniform fitting in perfectly with nature. She lifts the whiteness to her small lips, pausing a moment to let her almond eyes a chance to admire the flakes design, before sucking it up into her mouth, a flick of pink tongue and the snowflakes life is ended.

“You should wear more clothes you know,” comments David standing behind her as he drapes his battered leather jacket around the girl’s shoulders. “You do know people can get sick from the cold?”

“Yes, I know.” Replies Charmaine, studies the man a moment before going back to watching her lazy snowflakes. “Thank you, David.”

He smiles at her, taking in her half-Chinese features, a gift from her mother, and the smattering of American ones, her father’s legacy. David’s gaze slides off of Charmaine’s face and to the half-eaten lunch resting on the picnic table next to her. “Are you finished?”

Charmaine only glances at him before nodding and going back to catching snowflakes. David leans over and collects the lunch, dropping it all into the white bag he’d brought it to her in. After gathering all the food elements, he walks across the yard his feet crunching in the snow to drop the bag in the trash.

“You don’t have to do that.” Says Charmaine after David returns to her.

“I know,” Is all David will respond with. The schoolgirl accepts his answer with ease of long arguments and no conclusions.

“Aren’t those girls your friends?” asks David after long moments of silence, gesturing at a trio of girls standing on the edge of the basketball court.

“They were.” Now rifling through her bag looking for something.

“Were?”

“Yes, we were cheerleaders together, before the accident. They’re too obsessed with their looks and the latest fashion.”

“That’s all you used to think about.”

“Yeah, once. Now…” answers Charmaine retrieving her small leather bound journal, its age apparent in the sounds the pages make as she turns them, flipping through them half at random half with determination looking for a specific page.

“I know someone who can repair the binding on your book for you. He said he’d do it for free, as a favor.” David offers looking over her shoulder at the page Charmaine is desperately staring at, a photo pasted to the page, most of the color bled out and the writing on the lines around it smudged and fading.

“Thank you, David.” Mumbles Charmaine reaching up to squeeze his hand as she looks at the image of her mother, a picture from when she herself was in high school, pale skin, her slanted Asian eyes, dark black hair so treasured around the world, and her smile, unique to her and her daughter. “I want to see Robert.”

“I know you do,” replies David, staring down at her.

“I want to see him today.”

“Alright. I’ll pick you up after class.”