White

Brook's current life and her broken hearted feelings for her loss of her brotherly friend, Danton. The meeting of Jack Frost.

The snow on the ground bit at my ankles as my boots were anything but strong enough to hold out the bitter coldness of that winter night. The air sent sharp knives of pure pain through my thin, long sleeved shirt. It was too cold that time of year. It was only the beginning of December, and I was freezing my face off. My lips were almost frozen to the point where I could no longer sing. I was under some kind of trance as the mini songbook in my hands was about ready to take a fall. My fingers were breaking off, I could have sworn. But did the other carolers care? Of course they didn’t. Instead of staying warm in the safety of the hotel, they’d rather go about the big city, singing songs that no one paid attention to anymore.

Although some people feel like Christmas is the best time of the year, I can’t help but beg to differ. For some reason, I have never been into the Christmas spirit. I never felt this magical feeling that everyone else had. Even the younger ones in the orphanage I belonged to felt that amazing magic every single year. Well, that was probably because they were kids. But then again, the older teenagers who were just on the brink of being let go because they were almost adults had that Christmas feeling. I had no idea how to get it. But sure enough, I wanted it more than anything.

But as soon as the caroling ended, I ran straight for the orphanage. I wasn’t going out to eat with those jerks everyone called children. I wasn’t like them, to be honest. And for once in my life, that night I was glad that I wasn’t. Being alone in my room without my roommate, Sylvia, would be pure heaven.

I always assumed that Sylvia would be the death of me. She was about seventeen, whereas I would be turning fifteen in a few months. She’d always push me around because I was a whole lot younger than she was. Then again, I never thought seventeen as that old. Sure, she’s older than me, but there’s no way that I’m going to let that bother me. So what if someone could drive and I couldn’t? I was losing some weight by riding my bike and walking everywhere. I’d like to call myself a bus person, but Danton used to tell me that I’d get mugged.

Danton was an orphan here as well, but he turned eighteen and had to leave. I miss him like crazy, and to be honest I haven’t seen him ever since he had to leave. No one adopted him yet, but Miss Sam said that since he was an adult, we had to boot him. We didn’t have enough money to take care of spares"not this time of financial crisis. Danton was like a brother to me. He took care of me"made sure that Sylvia didn’t get the best of me.


Miss Sam didn’t care. “He has to move on without us,” she told me when I ran to her office crying the next day. And with that, she slammed the door in my face so she could go back to looking up a bunch of pictures of these celebrities that she fell in love with. For some reason, I never liked Miss Sam. She was just another rude teacher at this orphanage. She was like the principal I guess. None of my business. I didn’t need her.


The dark alley on the way to the orphanage didn’t bother me any longer. I’ve run through it many times before, and the darkness didn’t scare me anymore. But the only thing that I feared as I ran back to the orphanage seemed to tug at my mind endlessly as soon as I got to the side of the orphanage building. What would happen if I’d get caught sneaking in again? Miss Sam said strictly that she’d call a bus to pick all of us up at the restaurant, and she likes it when we stay in a large pack. She even used to have Danton count heads.

I’ve been getting the paddle because I’d run away from the pack to sneak through my window for some extra sleep. That, and I just wanted some time away from everyone. No one in the pack understood me, although we had the same plot to our stories.

We all wanted to be adopted. So what? The world gets it. But everyone has a different back story"the reason why they were given up in the first place. Mine was that I had run away from my family in Pittsburgh when I was four. Apparently my parents thought that I was kidnapped and gave up on me the next day. I only took the bus around town and kept riding it for about a month. When I went back home, sick from being away from them for so long, I looked through the living room window and found them playing with a new baby. They didn’t need me anymore. They had a perfectly good family, so ever since then, I promised that I’d never love anyone ever again.


After that, I took the bus to many different places, and Danton found me playing in the streets of New Jersey when he was with his foster family. That was when he was in complete foster care, but all of his parents gave him up because most people wanted an athletic son. Danton was an artist, and I still remember the day when he asked me to help him with his sidewalk chalk drawing. It was a big picture of the Statue of Liberty. I remember him looking up at me, smiling with those ice blue eyes. That same day, he was sent to the orphanage. He took me along with him. Gosh, I miss him so much.
Miss Sam accepted me, and I lied to her about my back story. I told her that I was given up by my family and that they left me on the streets. But hey, I was about six by then. Of course I was going to make up some rotten fib. Surely I told Danton, however. He pinkie swore not to tell anyone about my back story. After that we laughed and went to play with chalk all over again. Danton was perfect; it was a wonder of how anyone could have given him up.


Even he’d help me climb up the growing plant life along the side of the building so I could sneak into my room, just like I was planning to do at this moment. I stared up at it with my dark eyes, just hoping and praying that it was as strong as it used to be. Wrapping my arms around myself, I brought my Converse shoe up to stomp down on the first vine. Right then, it burst into a little confetti parade of dead greens. There was no way that I was getting up into my room that way.


I looked up at my window, which was always cracked open a little, even if it was almost winter. The snow would sometimes go into my room, but I secretly liked the cold. It hurt me because of my asthma, but I really loved snow. If someone would ask me to walk around the block in a swim suit in the snow, I would do it. I’d probably come back suffering from a severe asthma, but whatever. I loved it.

As I flipped my black hair over my shoulders and looked over to the orphanage’s neighbor buildings, I sighed. The lights were all turned on, and I could see the television going on in the hotel’s highest room. What I would do to be free and turn the lights on whenever I wish and just be a normal teenager. But at the orphanage, we had to have our lights out by eleven. I broke this rule way too often, as I was obsessed with writing. I seriously don’t think that Miss Sam or anyone else in the orphanage will ever understand how time consuming it is to write, and how lost an imagination could get when writing.


Whatever. They’ll never know because they’re so caught up on their darn politics and such.
I looked around the area one more time before sighing, giving in and finally realizing that perhaps running away from the pack wasn’t such a great idea. But looking up at my open window made me want to just… I don’t know. For some reason, I can’t explain it. But the vines and roots that were growing alongside the building weren’t going to hold my weight. I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t exactly under 130 pounds. Then again, it wouldn’t hurt for me to take chances, now would it?


Thinking like a moron, I smirked and reached up to grab one of the greenest vines that seemed to be healthy and strong enough to support my grip. Then, without thinking, I did Danton’s method of not looking down while climbing. Hand, hand, foot, foot"repeat! I sang that in my head on loop as I bit my lip, deep in thought of what came after the second foot"hand!


I did this until I was way at the top. And to be honest, I wasn’t that surprised with the fact that none of the vines had broken. In fact, I was kind of relieved. Slipping my right hand through the cracked part of the window, I sighed, “Welcome home, Brook,” and pushed the window up further so I had room for me to climb through.


My room was rather small. Well, my side of the room was, anyway. Sylvia, being the moronic and rude teenager that she was, always kept her idiotic and personal things throughout the room. Sometimes she would even sneak some of her extra clothing into my drawers because she just didn’t have enough room. But other than that, I had a bunk bed"with no one on top"and a dresser, where I hid some of my notepads.


You didn’t need to know that.


But sighing as I got inside, I realized that there was one thing I had left outside"my company. As I turned around, wrapping my fingers about my arms firmly in thought of not having someone by my side actually hurt a little, I couldn’t help but wonder why I liked being alone so much. Never have I actually fallen in love with someone. Then again, I probably would have fallen in love with Danton hadn’t he moved out when I was twelve. However, he was a bit too old for me. That, and he was nothing other than an older brother to me. But I loved him, and he was gone. Climbing through that window alone made me feel so lonely. He used to help me with that.

I can remember the way that he’d have to hold my lower back with his right hand, just supporting my weight when we’d come back from one of the water gun fights in the middle of New Jersey. The battle area was a large field with many trees"good ones for people to hide behind before they’d target their prey with a water gun. Those fights were too much fun. Danton would either hold me up in front of him as a playful shield, or try to shoot me in the back of the head with the water.

Remembering this, I caught myself smiling slyly as I stared into space in the direction of my open window. I pursed my lips and shook the awkward away before turning my gaze to the hard wood ground. By then, I caught myself blushing a deep red. Just thinking about what I used to be made me feel so amazing on the inside, but knowing that I probably screwed my own life up by being a rotten little Danton copycat during my adoption interviews sent pain throughout my veins.

”You’re only going to make it worse for yourself thinking about it,” a loud and scratchy voice said behind me. As I pivoted on my feet to meet Miss Sam’s gaze through the dim lighting of the simple lamp in the room. She raised her thin eyebrows before leaning in the doorway with this little smirk on her face. “Where is Sylvia? Why are you in here alone?”

I gulped. There was a heavy feeling pulling down on my arms as my knees almost gave out. Telling by that mischievous look in Miss Sam’s eyes, I knew that I was in deep trouble. This could only mean one thing"I was definitely getting the paddle for running away from the pack. “They should be coming,” I said shyly, backing up a bit to stand next to my bunk bed.

Miss Sam kept that evil little smirk on her face as she started to walk in my direction. The hand behind her back revealed that old, wooden paddle as she moved her hands before her to show me that I was going to be punished for running off again. “Should be? Did they send you off to run through the alleys? Did you feel excluded again?” She stopped as soon as I was pressed up against the ladder of the bunk bed.

Obviously the fear in my eyes was showing. Otherwise she wouldn’t have felt so triumphant. She slapped the paddle down onto her opposite palm quickly just to make me jump. “Sorry!” I squeaked, though being myself and following in Danton’s footsteps kept me from being anything but sorry. However, I still gritted my teeth and flinched away to make her feel the slightest bit of pity. But then again, it was Miss Sam, and she had no pity.

”You’re not sorry,” she chuckled as she brought the paddle over her shoulder"a stance that I had only seen her make once. This was the readying stance she’d use to whack a kid right across the face with the paddle. The only time anyone had seen it before was when Danton had taken me into her office to find his white bandanna. When Miss Sam walked in, he pushed me under the desk so I wouldn’t take the blame. But either way, we got the bandanna black, along with a steak that I had to press against Danton’s eye for days.

But as my life basically flashed before my eyes, I turned my head a little and closed my eyes tightly.

And as much as I would like to say that something came between my eye and the paddle, I just can’t. I wasn’t that lucky.

CRACK!

* * * *

There was a change in the wind that night"the direction, the speed… Everything had changed. Even the temperature outside had dropped about twenty degrees. As I laid in my bed, pressing the sheets against my left black eye, I couldn’t help but let the tears fall. My breathing was loud, and Sylvia was snickering at me until like three in the morning. That was when the moon was shining through my window, just acting like everything was perfect as always.

I slept on the top bunk that night. The last think I needed to do was sleep on Sylvia’s level so she could see me. I didn’t want her to see my crying. She could sure enough hear me, but she didn’t need to see my tears. They were none of her business.

Eventually I ended up falling asleep. And of course, my dream was one of my childhood memories. To think that I didn’t dream anymore, but of course everyone dreams. Even if they don’t admit it, everyone dreams. If you don’t dream, I seriously pity you.

It was a week after I was brought into the orphanage. I was about six at the time, I could imagine. It was snowing like crazy, and the wind was blowing rapidly. I loved the cold then, as well. You could say that I was resting my forearms on the windowsill, staring out dreamily into the falling snow. My eyes sparkled, and I could see the night sky was brightened by the moonlight.

Even then I thought I was dreaming, but no. This is a real life flashback. I could see someone standing in the branches of the tree that used to grow along the side of the building. That was another way that Danton and I used to climb through the window, but Miss Sam had people chop it down. But this person"this person who seemed so much older than me at the time"stared coldly over at the city of New York, admiring the falling snow and ice. He had snow white hair, and his cold, blue eyes were the two emotional radars staring out on the city. His skin was probably one shade darker than his hair, and he wore a gray hoodie. As pants, it looked like he was just wearing these normal brown ones. No shoes? That seemed kind of peculiar. But as a little girl, my imagination was somewhat limited. The sixteen-year-old-looking boy seemed to be rather dazed at the sight of the snow, like he was admiring his own creation.

This confused me rather too much, as I couldn’t help but figure that he was a lost orphan"somewhat like Danton. So as I leaned out the window a bit more, feeling the cold against my skin, I said in a soothing voice, “Boy?”

Startled as I could tell, the boy jumped a little on the branch. He didn’t fall however, as he just spun around and bowed his head a little to hold onto the trunk of the tree. His pale, bare feet were planted firmly on the branch that seemed like it would be so breakable. Then again, he didn’t like he weighed too much. His ice blue radars narrowed in my direction as he pursed his pink lips. He said nothing, but that wasn’t to my surprise.

I couldn’t help but smile a little, as his eyes were somewhat enchanting. I asked, leaning out the window a bit more, “Why are you in the tree?” I wouldn’t yet ask about the shoes, for rushing a conversation with such a dazer wasn’t something I’d like to do. But hey, I was six and I was already drooling over a boy. That should say something.

The white-haired boy just stared down at my window, though it was on the fifth floor. The tree he had probably climbed was taller that the building, but that didn’t matter. He leaned down a bit more to examine who was talking to him. Seeing that it was just a little girl, he raised an eyebrow and smirked. “I’m admiring my work,” he said in a comforting, velvety voice.

All I could do then was sigh, and rest my chin in my hands as I looked up at him. But finding that his cover had been blown, the boy just smiled down at me and figured he’d climb down to the branch before my window. To him, this wasn’t a difficult task. He slipped between the branches effortlessly, just doing as he wished and making a good job of it. As soon as he got to the branch directly in front of my window, he climbed to the very end of it, squatting down a little to keep his balance. But as soon as he reached out to grab the windowsill, I cowered back a little"just a little.

He shook his head, and breathed out heavily, letting his freezing breath brush against my face. This sent chills down my spine, letting all the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. “Don’t run away,” he whispered, his breath revealing as mist in the air. His blue eyes stared intently into mine, showing just a tiny sparkle as he leaned in a bit more,.

I felt like a glass doll by then. It was as if he had never seen another human before. And as much as I wanted to reach out and just touch his face in wonder if the boy was real, I just couldn’t. He was more fascinated with me. “Who are you?” I managed to ask between my quivering lips.

Instead of answering me, the boy lifted his right hand to reach out to touch the side of my face. “Stand still,” he said even more quietly, his voice giving my arms goosebumps. And within seconds, his icy palm was touching the side of my face.

I tried to keep myself from pulling away, for his hand was seriously as cold as ice. But remembering my love for cold weather, I just let him touch my hair and run his thumb over my lips. It was like I was dipping my face in a bucket full of ice. As his hand slipped away from my face, I could only stare into his dazing eyes, which stared intently into mine the whole time. “Y-you’re so cold,” I mumbled.

Once he was completely pulled away, he smirked, and looked down at the snow, which looked to be a hundred feet beneath him. He then looked up into my eyes again, only to sigh, “I’m supposed to be.” He didn’t say anything for about a minute then, as we just looked into each other’s eyes. “I’ll be here for a long time. Brook, I’m going to make sure that nothing bad happens to you. I will wait for you.”

I narrowed my eyes, suddenly snapping out of my trance to lean in and gasp, “But how do you know my name?”

The boy said nothing. He just smirked mysteriously before pivoting on the branch, and lunging straight up. He didn’t come down, and that was the biggest mystery of my life. I needed to know who he was.

I didn’t know that the night of that flashback, I was going to meet him once again.

Author's Note

Please ignore grammar problems. *Cheeky smile*
More chapters are to come.

Reviews

[Jeremia]

I really liked this. So much hope, with a lot of pain. The measure between them was nicely done. I hope this isn't a true story? Cause it really makes me want to beat "Miss Sam". Your description makes me wonder if it is true or not, so if it isn't, nicely done in making this seem like a true story. However, if it is true, I am so sorry that you have had to go through that. I can relate kinda, cause I have been in foster care. But still isn't good that you had to go through all that. If you did?

[Krista]

Hello Jeremia.

No, I haven't actually gone through this. I've been hit by my parents before, and I've gone through some tough adoption situations when I was younger, but I had never gone through foster care.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! :) It means a whole lot to me.

[Jeremia]

That saddens me. The pain inflicted on the young because a few people cant keep their hands to themselves. Or at least use them in a more appropriate manner. I hope things are looking far better for you now?

[Krista]

Of course. I'm ignored very often by my family, but they don't exactly hit me or anything like that anymore. The only problem is that they want me to be athletic. I tried convincing my dad that I like writing, but he just wants me to run Cross Country and things like that like my older sister. But other than that verbal stuff, everything is a lot better now. Thank you for your concern. :)

[Jeremia]

Have you tried sports?

[Krista]

Yes I've tried them. I've been on the swim team multiple times, I've played soccer, I wouldn't consider karate a sport...
But I did cross country for about a month.
Baseball.
Track.
The sad part is that I was good at all of this. But I never actually liked doing them because they didn't hold my interest. What I'm involved in now is Musical Theater and performing.

[Jeremia]

Interesting. My parents were happy I at least tired. Well, keep doing what you enjoy. You aren't bad at writing so no need to stop. :)

[Krista]

Thank you so much. I've gone through your poems. You've got quite the talent as well.
Thanks for reviewing.

[Jeremia]

Haha, not really. I am not very gifted in writing. Thank you tho.