146. And how I wished upon every snowflake, that I was there tonight. Cause I'm 6 hours behind, and you're 6 hours long gone.

It was a murderer, masquerading his face with a painted smile, masked and skilled to the embodiment of a genuine hail. But it’s not the lies that he was trying to hide, it was the truth buried beneath it. The things he had gone through relentlessly, throwing himself in the throes and throngs of thunder and rain, swept away into a world where all was unknown to him. The things he prepared himself to do, the way to look and smile, and hide everything.

He stepped forward, and she didn’t realize the intensity of his gaze from afar, how softly he caressed her with his glance, gently beneath her eyes and around her smooth lips. The thing she held out in her hands was remarkably light, a delicate and flimsy red paper, tied into a large bow.

“For you.”

She smiled, waiting his response.

He untied the pretty paper, and inside was a gold, heart shaped chocolate with a red gooey inner core. The words engraved into the dark sweet substance were personal, a truce, and a lull from his own lips.

Again, the truth came flooding back. After all the trouble he had gone through, she still managed to outdo him without even trying. He held the box sheepishly, and with his other hand, he reached into his back pocket and held out a white sheet of paper.

Excited, she threw her tiny hands at his, the frail paper nearly crumbling in her hands. The edges of the insubstantial sheet wavered at the ends, curled up like a little baby, brown with tea and dirt. The scribbled handwriting was messy, almost impossible to read.

He wasn’t going to tell her the truth, the trouble he took to trying to make the paper look like what it had in his mind, trying to capture the essence of his imagination with his fingers. But, this had been a disaster, and compared to what she had done for him, it’s value had reduced by an infinite number.

He hung his head in shame, a will to do more, but no proficiency in the field to complete it. Waiting for a burn mark across his cheek, or a shudder of sobs from her, screams of hate of not trying hard enough and not making a point. He waited, and waited.

A hand touched his cheek, but it wasn’t a strike, it was a caress of fervor. Not daring to look up, she tilted his chin, so that his eyes were on hers.

“It’s beautiful.”

“But it sucks.”

A laugh, a beautiful sound, a delightful ring in his ears.

“It’s beautiful,” she echoed.

This infatuation, which seemed to have escaped from his dreams and seeped into his reality, seemed to be more perfect than he had ever dreamt it to be.