A tiny little story written after lysapadin posted a link to this picture saying "I want to write stories about these people." After bantering about it with her for awhile, this mercilessly sappy backstory for them just popped into my mind. There's just something about kissing in the snow that turns even the hardest heart to mush.
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He'd loved her, silently, for years. He loved her through Anders, the high school boyfriend and all the high school drama the two of them created together. He loved her through Henrik, the boyfriend she loved who cheated on her. He was the one she called when she found out, and he borrowed his father's car and drove into town to pick her up. He loved her through Erik, the one who turned out to be abusive when he drank.
They'd been best friends since tenth grade. He couldn't quite pinpoint when his feelings had changed, but he'd guess probably about six or seven days after he met her.
He loved her through Pedar, and Klaus, and Fritz and Josef and Nils. He loved her when she got frustrated and declared herself a lesbian. Then he loved her when she met Harald and changed her mind. He'd loved her for so long he didn't even really think about it anymore. He loved her when she broke up with Harald, and he was the one who bought her ice cream and beer and sat eating and drinking with her on the roof, while she called all men pigs and gesticulated with her spoon and tried not to cry.
He'd loved her all the months since, when the flow of boyfriends stopped, and she got gradually quieter and quieter about the fact that she couldn't find anyone.
He loved when her his cell phone rang and the number on the screen was from the pay phone around the corner from his apartment. "I was going to ask him to dinner, but then I caught him snogging his secretary behind the office coatrack," she said. He didn't remember the name of this one, this unknown man whom she'd never even gotten the chance to ask. He hung up the phone, loving her, and went out to get her. He left his jacket behind and his apartment unlocked. It was snowing, but she was just around the corner.
She had no jacket either; apparently she'd left it on the coatrack. He loved her as they walked in silence, bits of ice crunching under their feet.
"Snogging behind the coatrack," she muttered finally.
"Should I pick up some beer?" he said.
"It's been six months since I broke up with Harald, you know."
"Yeah."
She sniffled, very quietly, and as he loved her he wondered if she was going to cry again. That was always uncomfortable.
But no, it looked like that had been a sniffle of repressed rage. She came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the street. "What's wrong with ME?!" she shouted, scaring the old woman who lived next door to him. He loved her as she screamed at the sky. "Why doesn't anyone want ME?!"
"I don't think that's--"
"No one is snogging ME! Why isn't anyone snogging ME?!"
And then he loved her as she looked at him, pleadingly, as if he could tell her the answer.
Suddenly, it occured to him that perhaps he could.
"Because I'm a cad, that's why," he said as he seized her by the shoulders and kissed her before his courage could fail.
They stood there forever, in January with no coats as the snow swirled about them, and he thought that of all the things that he'd loved her through, this would always be his favorite.
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