Tears spring to my eyes as I watch the storm in stunned silence. Even the snow gets to dance

R

idiculous. The whole situation is ridiculous. “How,” I mutter, wrapping myself in my favorite chenille blanket, “do they have self-driving cars, yet a snowstorm can still knock out the power lines?”

The house is a freezing, pitch-black tomb; I hear my family migrating to the kitchen, where I’m sure Mommy has turned on the stove for heat and is lighting candles and distributing flashlights. I’m about to join them, but then I realize that taking the steep stairs in the dark with an orthopedic boot is not the smartest course of action. Well then, I’ll just wait until someone remembers me.

I wake up an hour later, tired and achy in a way that means it’s way too cold in my room. “Oh, that’s nice,” I say aloud to my empty room. No one came to see where I am. I have not been missed, I think cheerfully.

Fine, time to brave the stairs it seems.

I feel around for my cellphone, I can use it as a flashlight, but I can’t find it. Opening the window shade for some moonlight, my jaw drops.

Snow whirls and rushes, the wind blowing it this way and that as the drifts pile up.

Tears spring to my eyes as I watch the storm in stunned silence. Even the snow gets to dance.

***

“You know you’re crazy, right?” I ask Atara as she pulls off layer upon layer of clothing and lets it all drop to the floor in one soggy, dripping mess. She has walked the ten minutes in zero-degree weather.

She giggles and pulls off her ski mask. Her hair is standing on end and her nose is bright red. I can’t help giggling as well, and soon the two of us are holding onto each other while we double over. Chemia walks by and rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, which only makes us laugh harder.

“To my room,” I say, and we head up the stairs, hiccupping.

Now, in the daylight, the storm of the previous night seems harmless, although we have yet to have our power restored.

“Got bored of the fam?” I ask conversationally, settling on the bed.

The smile drops from Atara’s face. “Sick of them is more like it.”

“Oh.” My family is annoying as anything sometimes, and sorely lacking in the girl department, but I can’t say I ever get sick of them.

“Can you believe,” Atara says, breathing heavily, “that my father told me to use this snow day to practice math problems?”

“Ouch,” I wince. “That’s pretty bad.”

She doesn’t answer, she just pulls at a thread in my blanket until I bat her hand away.

“Don’t take it out on the chenille,” I joke, and she smiles weakly.

We sit in silence for a little while and then she clears her throat. “So, how’s rehab?”

I wrinkle my nose. “Boring and tiring and nothing that a ballet dancer can’t handle.”

She nods.

“And how is ah, um, your solo?”

I try to be smooth and end up blustering like a fool.