Archive of Our Own

“I remember that winter because it brought the heaviest snow that I had ever seen. Snow had fallen steadily all night long, and in the morning, I woke in a room filled with light and silence. The whole world seemed to be held in a dream-like stillness. It was a magical day, and it was on that day that I made the snowman.” – The Snowman, 1982

Patrick’s first thought when he wakes up is that he wants to go back to sleep. The light in the room is dim through his closed eyelids and his blanket cocoon is warm and cozy. His parents’ soft voices drift up from downstairs, a comforting current that could easily drag him back down into dreamland.

A muffled thump startles him into alertness. He tunnels out from under the covers and looks around his room, but everything is in its place: his books lined up neatly on the bookshelf, the model airplane that he built with his dad hanging motionless from the ceiling, his army men marching across the floor in an orderly fashion.

Then he catches sight of the window. Huge snowflakes are floating down from the sky! He gasps, hopping out of bed and shivering his way across the room to get a better view.

“Yes! Oh, yes!” he crows in delight at the vision before him. A pristine white blanket of snow covers the front yard, gleaming in the early-morning light. The source of the original thumping noise becomes clear as a small avalanche of snow slides off the roof and plummets to the ground below. Patrick can tell by the sagging tree branches, and the huge white snowdrift where his dad’s tarp-covered snowblower was once visible, that several inches of new snow fell overnight. This must mean …

He runs to his bedroom door, taking his robe from the hook on the back and yanking it on over his favorite blue-and-white-striped pajamas. He shoves chilly feet into his slippers, then races out into the hallway and down the stairs.

“I thought I heard—whoa, easy there, tiger!” his father, Clint, exclaims as Patrick half-stumbles down the last few steps. He catches Patrick around the ribs, his face splitting into a broad grin.

“Dad! ‘M not a tiger!” Patrick exclaims through his giggles.

“Could’ve fooled me,” his dad says, and digs his fingers into Patrick’s sides. “Look at these stripes!”

“You have the same ones,” Patrick protests, flailing his arms in an attempt to tickle back. Indeed, his dad is wearing striped pajamas identical to Patrick’s—a gift from Patrick’s mom last Christmas. Patrick loves matching with his dad, from their pajamas to their pale Irish skin and auburn curls.

His dad turns the tickle-fight into a bear hug, lifting Patrick up off the floor easily. “I guess I must be the Papa Tiger and you’re the cub,” he rumbles in Patrick’s ear.

“You’re not dressed for work!” Patrick realizes, and remembers why he ran downstairs so fast. “Is it a snow day today?”

“Go ask your mother,” his dad says, setting Patrick back on his feet. But the twinkle in his blue eyes gives Patrick a good idea of the answer.

He hurries into the kitchen and finds his mother, Marcy, at the sink, a floral apron protecting her white dress from the inevitable mess. When Patrick sees the piled-high plate on the kitchen table, he knows for sure.

“Snow day pancakes!” he shouts. He throws his arms up in the air and hops up and down with glee.

His mom smiles and leans down to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Good morning, honey. Go on and get dressed and brush your teeth, while I finish getting breakfast ready.”

On his way back up to his room, Patrick detours to the front door. He opens it as quietly as he can and pokes his head outside. The tree branches are limned with white and oddly still, the snow stretching out unmarked by a single footprint. “Whoa,” he breathes in a cloud of mist that swirls and dances in the air.

“Patrick,” comes his mother’s warning voice. “I don’t hear any feet walking up the stairs.”

Patrick hastily pushes the door closed and gets a move on.

⛄

After shoveling down his pancakes and sausages, Patrick dives into the coat closet in search of his winter play-clothes. His mom finally hauls him out with the news that she’s already set everything out for him.

He puts on his toque first, then his mittens (the second one much more awkwardly than the first), then squirms into his jacket so that his mitten cuffs are tucked into the sleeves. He’s pleased until he realizes that he forgot to lace up his boots.

“Mom? Can you help me?”

His mom looks over from reorganizing the closet, and frowns. “Where are your snow pants, Patrick? You’re not going to play outside just in your jeans!”

Ten minutes later, Patrick stomps sulkily out into the yard, clad in long underwear top and bottoms under his jeans and sweater, a down jacket, bib snow pants (that are “so annoying to get on and off!” he pleaded, to no avail), and every other warm item he owns.

“The sun’s out, Mom! I’m already sweating!” he whines one last time, just as the front door swings firmly shut behind him.

Patrick kicks at the snow for a few paces. But once he looks up from his feet, it’s hard to stay moody with the dazzling, untouched snowscape stretched before him and fluffy snowflakes drifting gently down for him to catch on his tongue. Looking down from his bedroom window, he’ll be able to see his tracks all across the yard ... A figure-eight, like he practices in his hockey drills, might look neat. Inspired, he starts marching much more vigorously. The top of the snow has melted slightly and refrozen; the crunchy sound it makes underfoot is satisfying, like biting into a crisp apple.

About halfway to the end of the yard, Patrick pauses to grab up a handful of snow. Underneath the surface crust, the snow is easily packable; he pats it between his mittens as he trudges along. Once he’s achieved the perfect roundness, he hurls his snowball at the trunk of a wide oak tree on the edge of the yard. It falls short and leaves a little round imprint in the snow where it landed.

He wishes someone else were around to have a snowball fight with. Richardson’s Farm is just through the woods, but the closest neighbor kids—Zach and Rachel—live a mile down the road. That’s too far to walk in the snow, and his mom said that the roads still needed to be plowed after the snow last night.

By the time Patrick wends his way back to the house, he’s worked up a sweat from trudging through the deep snow. His mittened hands fumble to pull down the zipper on his jacket, and he sighs in relief as the refreshing chill rushes in. Patrick discards his jacket on the front steps. Down to his blue sweater—with the big red swipe across the chest—he contemplates his next snow day activity. Aha—the kitchen window would make a perfect snowball-throwing target. He’s already stockpiled three snowballs by the time he remembers the garden hose incident last summer, which ended in a very clean window and a very soggy rhubarb pie. He can still hear his dad’s stern voice saying, “I’m surprised you would do a thoughtless thing like this, Patrick; we expect more from you.” The disappointment in his mom’s eyes felt even worse. He never wants to make her look at him like that again.

He looks at his little pile of snowballs. If he stacked them up, they would look like a miniature snowman. Maybe he could build a real snowman to keep him company on his snow day!

Patrick doesn’t actually know how people in Christmas movies build the giant snowballs to make a snowman’s body. But he starts rolling one of his snowballs across the snow, and it grows larger as snow sticks to it in irregular clumps. Once it’s too unwieldy and misshapen to keep rolling, he pats handfuls of snow onto it until it becomes vaguely round.

Patrick’s second large snowball turns out more even, but it becomes unrollable several meters away from the first snowball. Patrick wraps his arms around it, straining with all his might to lift it. When he finally gets it off the ground and totters over to place it atop the first snowball, it rolls right off and lands with an unceremonious thunk, then cracks in two.

Patrick stares dejectedly at the jagged hunks of snow. This snow day doesn’t feel nearly as fun or magical as the morning’s thrill seemed to promise.

“Patrick!” He hears his name and spins around to see his mom framed in the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Mom, my snowman needs help!” he cries.

“Leave it for now and come eat your lunch! Maybe your father can work on it with you later.”

Once inside, his mom briskly peels off his outer layers like onion skin and scolds him for taking off his jacket while Patrick rolls his eyes. He perches on a tall kitchen stool and swings his legs as he munches on a grilled cheese sandwich. Swinging his legs always makes his thoughts come out easier, and he needs all the advantages he can get to solve his snowman problem.

Luckily, Patrick’s father emerges from his home office on a mission to snowblow the driveway just as Patrick is polishing off his last carrot stick. They head out into the yard, where his dad picks up a big snow shovel leaning against the woodpile. Patrick catches the industrious gleam in his eye and says, “Wait! I don’t want you to make my snowman for me.”

“What makes you think that’s what I’m doing?” his dad teases.

“Well, that shovel is too big for me to use. It’s like three meters long!” Patrick plants his hands on his hips and glares at his dad, who just smiles.

“I’m going to set you up for success, bud,” he says. “You’ll do the rest.”

He directs Patrick to start rebuilding the broken snowball while he tamps down the top of the first, intact snowball with his shovel. The result is a curved indent where another snowball can rest. Their height difference makes it impossible to lift the second snowball together, so his dad takes charge while Patrick braces his hands against the underside of the snowball, trying to lighten the load as best he can. Once it’s in place, his dad tamps down the top of this snowball as well.

Then he leaves to shovel out the snowblower, and Patrick rolls the final, smallest snowball for his snowman’s head. He carefully shapes it and smooths out all of the bumpy spots. He even taps it against the front step a few times to flatten the bottom. He wants his snowman to look perfect. Once Patrick is satisfied, he places the third snowball on top, standing on tiptoe to position it just right. He packs snow into the joints between each snowball, and sculpts out the suggestion of arms and legs to make its silhouette more person-shaped, not just three circles balanced on top of each other.

At last, Patrick takes a few steps back to have a really good look at his creation. It isn’t much taller than he is. In fact, it looks more like a snowboy than a snowman. Kids are more fun than grown-ups anyway, Patrick thinks. Of course he knows that his snowboy won’t magically come to life and befriend him like Frosty the Snowman. Only babies believe in that stuff. Patrick isn’t even sure he believes Santa is real anymore; some pointed eye-rolls between his cousins last Christmas made him wonder. But still, his heart surges a little with love for his snowboy. Now he just needs a few finishing touches to make his new friend look more lifelike.

His mom gives Patrick a carrot for a nose, and digs up a gray toque and one of Dad’s old scarves—bright blue with a fraying hem. He begs to be allowed to rummage around in the living-room wood stove, but she insists on doing it herself, disappearing back into the house and returning with a handful of coals that could serve as eyes or buttons. Patrick sets the items in a pile by his snowboy.

One last thing is missing, and Patrick knows just what it is. He goes inside and submits to the de-booting and de-layering rigmarole, then runs up to his room to explore what he calls his Tickle Trunk, just like the one he used to see on Mr. Dressup. The Tickle Trunk is a heavy rectangular wooden box hand-painted by Patrick’s mom to look like a pirate’s treasure chest. It’s bursting with costume pieces from Halloween and his mom’s community theater group, as well as other odds and ends that Patrick loves to play with.

The lid opens with a creak, and Patrick dives in headfirst. He runs across a silky black vampire cape, then a bunny-ear headband from his role as the White Rabbit in the school production of Alice in Wonderland last year, then a green felt beret. Finally, buried deep at the bottom of the trunk, his fingers sink into fabric as soft as a cloud. He grabs onto it and pulls it to the surface as the memories flood his mind.

He first saw the sweater over the summer, when he and his mom were looking through the black trash bag of back-to-school hand-me-downs from his cousin Kevin. His mom held the sweater out in front of her and pursed her lips. “Hmm, this isn’t quite right for you, is it? I think one of Amanda’s old sweaters must have snuck into the bag!”

She turned and smiled at Patrick, raising her eyebrows like she was inviting him in on a joke. The sweater looked too big for him, but something told him that wasn’t the problem. He reached out and touched the sweater. It felt so very soft between his fingers. The cream horizontal stripes across the chest were shot through with sparkles that caught the light tantalizingly, different strands of yarn gleaming to life under his hands. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

His mom announced that she would drop it off at the thrift store with some clothes that Patrick had outgrown. Patrick racked his brain for an excuse to hang onto it. “Maybe ... I could wear it to be a black bear for Halloween?”

“With those stripes you’d look more like a badger—or a skunk,” his dad chimed in with a chuckle, looking over from the kitchen table, where he’d been absorbed in the paper.

“Now, honey, don’t be silly,” his mom said. “Some lucky little girl will appreciate this sweater a lot more than you.”

Patrick shrugged and nodded. He couldn’t explain what fascinated him so much about the sweater, except that it was soft and beautiful. In the end, he snuck it out of the thrift-store bag that his mom had left by the front door and buried it at the bottom of his Tickle Trunk. He’s not sure if she noticed; she never said anything about it. Patrick eventually decided he wanted to be the Red Power Ranger for Halloween.

Now, Patrick kneads his hands into the sweater. Its stripes shine with glints of silver, pink, and gold. Would it really be that silly for Patrick to wear it? He’s not sure. But he knows it will be perfect for his snowboy, and it won’t matter if it’s spoiled by the wet and cold outdoors.

Patrick makes his way back outside and dresses his snowboy. The collar of the sweater is just barely stretchy enough to fit over its head. Patrick uses the two smallest and shiniest coals for the snowboy’s eyes and carefully carves a hollow for its carrot nose using a stick. He draws a smiling mouth on the face with the same stick. He frowns when it comes out crooked, and tries to fix it, but it just keeps coming out the same way, so he decides to leave it. He wraps the blue scarf around the snowboy’s neck and pulls the toque onto its head. He is left with a few pieces of coal that he no longer needs for buttons, now that his snowboy has a sweater. He decides to add on eyebrows, choosing the two most rectangular pieces of coal and placing them above his snowboy’s eyes. Perfect! He angles them downward slightly so they almost meet above the carrot nose.

Patrick does one last up-close check, brushing his hands gently over his snowboy. He makes sure that the snowballs that form his body are solidly molded together, and that all of his accessories are well-anchored. He tugs at the hem of the sweater to smooth out some folds and wrinkles.

Finally satisfied, Patrick walks to the front door and turns to look at his creation from a distance. The scarf is tied snugly around his neck, the fuzzy sweater lends him a warm and friendly look, and the frowny eyebrows turn the snowboy’s sideways smile into a mischievous smirk. Patrick takes another look and claps his mittened hands over his mouth to stifle his giggles. His snowboy looks so silly!

The front door swings open behind him. “Patrick!” his mom says. “You’ve been out here for hours. You must be freezing.”

As if on cue, he shivers, noticing for the first time that his jacket and mittens are soaked through with melted snow from repeated trips in and out of the house. The sun has lowered behind the trees, adding a bite to the air. “Mom, look!” he says through chattering teeth. “I made him all on my own, almost! Dad just helped a little with putting him together.”

“Oh, he’s wonderful!” she exclaims. She puts her hands on his shoulders and squeezes. “A perfect little snowman. I see he’s dressed nice and warm for the cold weather.”

Patrick tries to turn and face her, worried that she might be angry about the purloined sweater. But she just squeezes his shoulders tighter and leans down to press a kiss to his chilly cheek.

“I see you’ve been hiding quite the artistic streak from us, son,” she teases. “Now, come inside and warm up. I’ve got hot chocolate on the stove for you!”

“With marshmallows?” Patrick asks hopefully.

“With mini-marshmallows!” she stage-whispers. Patrick hustles inside.

⛄

Patrick can’t stop thinking about his snowboy all evening long. During dinner, he cranes his neck to see his silhouette, barely visible in the glow of the outdoor floodlight. His dad has to keep reminding him to eat his spaghetti.

After dinner, Patrick sits with his parents in the living room. It’s a cozy little room at any time of year, but especially in winter, with the woodstove crackling merrily away and the colorful lights of their Christmas tree casting a friendly glow. Patrick’s father is kicked back in his easy chair, continuing their nightly read-aloud of The Secret World of Og by the light of a small table lamp. Patrick usually loves listening to the story while curled up next to his mother on the couch. But it’s hard to focus tonight. “Can I sit by the window?” he asks. “I promise to keep listening.”

“All right,” his dad says. Patrick takes a seat in the stuffed chair and looks out through snowflakes still lightly falling from the sky onto his snowboy. Only the faintest shimmer from the sweater is visible in the floodlight. Patrick lets his dad’s warm baritone wash over him. His dad doesn’t do voices, but his reading voice is smooth and assured.

“The children stood for a moment in the silence, awed by what they saw. They seemed to be in an enormous cavern so huge that they could not see the far side, so high they could scarcely see the roof. Through the cavern wound a river, like a bright, shimmering serpent. It glowed and sparkled and this glow was reflected in hundreds of pinpoints of light from the crystal rocks all around.”

Patrick’s mind drifts into daydreams. What if a magical other world really existed below this one, where he could escape whenever he wanted? A world that flowed with shimmers and sparkles while the normal world seemed to stand still, boring and dull? Maybe the Ogs would steal his snowboy away to their world and bring him to life. Then he and Patrick could be best friends. Patrick has lots of friends at school, and he and his cousins always have fun together. But he really wants a best friend, like the kids in stories and TV shows. The idea that someone could know and understand him so well feels just as fantastical as a crystal cavern or a village made of mushrooms.

Patrick’s state of distraction continues all through his bedtime routine: he puts on his pajama pants backwards and drips toothpaste down his front while staring out the bathroom window into the yard. His mom puts on a tape of Christmas music for him and kisses him goodnight with a reminder that “the sooner you fall asleep, the sooner you can play outside in the snow tomorrow!”

“Yes, Mom,” Patrick says dutifully. But he tosses and turns for a long time. He keeps picturing his snowboy’s crooked smile and sparkly sweater behind his closed eyelids. When he forces himself to lie perfectly still, he feels his heart pumping hard in his chest with excitement.

He opens his eyes again and sees the snowflakes drifting down outside his window. Maybe I should try counting them like sheep, he thinks. It’s the last thing he remembers before he falls asleep.

⛄

Patrick jerks awake with a feeling of wrongness. He looks at the clock on his nightstand: midnight. What if something happened to his snowboy while he was sleeping? The question lures him out of bed to the window, wincing at the cold touch of the floorboards on his bare feet. To his disappointment, the outside light is turned off and the moon is behind a cloud, casting the yard in near-darkness. His stomach twists. His snowboy must be lonely out there in the shadows. He’d better check on him, he decides.

He yanks his blue sweater over his pajama shirt and jams his feet into his slippers, then tip-toes down the stairs so fast, he thinks it must be a new record. Once outside, he gingerly feels his way down the icy front steps. No sooner has he reached the ground than a dazzling light fills his vision, stopping him in his tracks. He wonders wildly if he’s wandered into the crystal cavern in the land of Og.

As he squints into the light, it bursts into a flurry of multicolored sparkles that dance through the air like a silent firework. They slowly fade away, to reveal Patrick’s snowboy, standing right where Patrick left him. Only something is different. His sweater is much sparklier than before, the whole garment giving off a glow that faintly illuminates him. Patrick sees that the snowboy’s crooked smile has pulled down into a frown. Patrick blinks, puzzled.

Then the frown opens into a mouth! “Well?” the mouth says, “Are you planning to just stand there all night?”

“You—you can talk?” Patrick blurts out in shock.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” One of the snowboy’s coal eyebrows quirks upward while his frown stays firmly in place.

“What’s ‘rhetorical?’” Patrick asks. The snowboy looks unimpressed by this line of inquiry. “I mean...it’s nice to meet you,” Patrick revises, remembering his manners. Even if this is a dream or something, it can’t hurt to be polite. He steps toward the snowboy and holds out his hand. “My name’s Patrick.”

Patrick’s heart jumps a mile when the snowman lifts one foot off the ground with a crunch, then the other, walking toward him. “I suppose it’s nice to meet you too, Patrick,” he says. The tone is skeptical, but the cadence of his voice is soft. He clasps Patrick’s hand in a gentle grip. A zing runs up Patrick’s arm and through his whole body when their palms connect, like a powerful static shock.

Feeling dazed and dazzled, Patrick manages to ask, “What’s your name?”

“Um, I don’t know if I have one?” His frown deepens. “Snowpeople don’t use them.”

“But I have to call you something!”

“Your choice,” David says with a shrug—but his gaze is sharp, as though ready to pass harsh judgment on Patrick’s selection.

Patrick thinks for a bit. “David,” he says with a resoluteness that’s surprising even to him. “You definitely look like a David.”

The snowboy tilts his head. “Hmm ... yes, that works.”

“OK, David.” They’re still holding hands and it’s making Patrick’s cheeks feel hot for some reason; if anything, David’s touch should make him feel chilled. Holding hands with Rachel—who is also his line buddy in the school hallways—has never made Patrick feel like this.

David looks around. With his every movement, his sweater shimmers as the sparkles catch the moonlight from a new angle. “What is this place? How did I end up here?” he asks.

“It’s my house, and this is my yard,” Patrick says. “I built you here,” he adds on impulse.

David stares at him and Patrick feels his cheeks burn even hotter, heedless of the cold air. “What do you mean, you built me?”

“I, um, yeah,” Patrick stammers. ”I built you out of snow. Y’know, all this cold white stuff?” He waves his arms around at the snow everywhere.

“Of course I know what snow is,” David grumbles. He gestures emphatically at his own body. “I know what I’m made of. I just can’t believe you made me! You’re just a little kid.”

“I am not little!” Patrick protests, stamping his foot. He’s had enough of that kind of teasing from his older cousins to last him a lifetime. “You’re not much taller than I am.”

David sniffs and sticks his carrot nose in the air. “I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly normal-sized for a snowperson. We come in all different shapes and sizes.”

David seems kind of like a know-it-all. But instead of being annoyed by him, Patrick just wants to impress him. “Do you want to come inside?” he dares to ask. “I can show you around.”

“Sure. Why not?” David shrugs. Then he reaches for Patrick’s hand again, and when they touch that same spark jumps between them. At least, Patrick feels it. He wonders if David feels it too.

⛄

Despite his indifferent front, David’s head swivels around as they enter the house, his coal eyes glinting with curiosity.

Patrick leads David into the living room first. “This is our woodstove; it helps keep us warm. Careful though, it’s hot!”

“Snow doesn’t burn,” David says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, already putting one hand up to the glass. Immediately, droplets of water begin to fall from David’s hand at an alarming rate, forming a small puddle on the carpet. Patrick tugs David away from the stove, worried for his new friend. “I said to be careful! Are you OK?”

“Ew, I don’t like this thing,” David says with a grimace, shaking out his hand. “It hurts!”

“It’s nicer to just watch the embers glow and hear them crackle,” Patrick explains. But David is still glowering at the stove, which rumbles away obliviously. So Patrick points him to the corner. “This is our Christmas tree!”

David looks the tree up and down appraisingly. Its wide boughs are sheltering several brightly-colored packages sent ahead by faraway friends and relatives, which Patrick has been trying to resist the urge to shake.

“Dad and I teamed up against Mom,” he tells David, “so we got to have multi-colored lights on the tree this year! Usually they’re just plain white.”

“Your mother is correct; multi-colored lights are tacky,” David says. “White lights make a bold, classic statement.”

“How can you say that? You’re the one who’s all—sparkly,” he argues, eyeing David’s sweater that is currently reflecting the lights in multi-faceted hues.

David isn’t even listening anymore; he’s examining the different ornaments that adorn the tree. “Someone selected and arranged these decorations very haphazardly,” he declares, but he looks fascinated by them. He takes a red glass ball in hand and brings it right up to his face.

Suddenly David yelps and drops the ornament. Patrick jerks his hand out, just barely catching it before it hits the floor. “What is this thing on my face, Patrick?” He pats frantically at his face with his hands, and gasps when he touches his carrot nose.

“That’s your nose,” Patrick says, re-hanging the ornament on a sturdy branch.

“It’s hideous!” David despairs. “Why would you ever choose this look for me?”

“A carrot is a classic snowman nose! You just said you like ‘classic,’” Patrick shoots back.

“How dare you use my own words against me! Can’t you see I’m feeling very fragile right now?”

Patrick wants to giggle at how dramatic David is being, but that would be mean. Instead he says, “C’mon, we can fix this.”

David gives him the same suspicious look that he aimed at the woodstove. But he comes along, still clutching at his nose with both hands. Patrick’s own hand feels oddly empty without David’s in it.

⛄

In the kitchen, Patrick shows David the big wooden fruit bowl that sits on the counter. “Maybe you can find a better nose in here.” Patrick goes ahead and grabs a banana, offering it to David. “This one’s nice, isn’t it?” He tries so hard to suppress his grin that the corners of his mouth turn down.

David’s gesture of outrage pulls the carrot, which he’s still holding onto, straight off his face. “That is so much worse, Patrick! It’s crooked!” He flings the carrot aside and reaches into the bowl himself. After a moment, he holds up a cherry triumphantly. “Now this is perfect; very small and cute.”

He presses it straight onto his face. Privately, Patrick thinks that the carrot looked much better. “It’s a little—off-center?” he says out loud.

“Help me, then.” David bends his head toward Patrick, who carefully arranges the snow on David’s face so that the cherry will stay in place. Doing so feels a lot stranger than attaching David’s carrot nose did, back when Patrick thought David was just a pile of snow sculpted into the shape of a person.

David looks pleased for just a moment before his face scrunches up and he lets out an enormous sneeze. The cherry nose goes flying across the room and lands in the sink with a splash.

“Do you have a cold?” Patrick asks; he’s not quite sure how sickness (or sneezing, for that matter) works when your nose is a cherry.

“Ugh, I don’t know what that means. But my face feels weird,” David says, rubbing at it. “Pitted fruits must not agree with me.”

Patrick suggests trying a different nose. “What about this one?” he asks, this time holding up a whole pineapple.

To his surprise, David gives it a calculating look, then takes it and presses it to his face so the leaves are sticking outward. He shakes his head back and forth in Patrick’s face. When Patrick laughs, pushing him away, David looks shyly pleased. Patrick didn’t realize how much he missed David’s crooked smile until it reappeared.

David finally decides on a tangerine nose. Patrick has to admit that it looks perfect on him, just the right size for his face.

He shows David the rest of the kitchen. David stands in front of the refrigerator—stretching his open palms toward it like he did with the stove—the cool air providing him much needed respite. He has fun flipping the kitchen light switch on and off, repeatedly. Patrick hopes that all of his dad’s complaining is wrong, and they won’t actually have to choose between paying the electric bill and sending him to college.

Patrick turns on the tap and shows David how the water goes from hot to cold.“This is the soap Mom uses to clean the dishes,” Patrick explains, and David grabs the bottle and squeezes it. Soap comes squirting out into the air, landing in the sink. “Now we can make bubbles!” Patrick realizes.

He stirs up the water, grabs a handful of foamy bubbles, and flings them at David like a snowball. They land on David’s sweater, and he yelps indignantly.

“Shhh, you’ll wake up Mom and Dad!” Patrick hisses.

David quickly goes on the defensive, grabbing his own handful of soap bubbles and slapping them straight down onto Patrick’s head. Patrick takes a huge handful and tries to attach them to David’s face like a beard. “Stop, stop!” David says with a grimace that only looks half-serious.

The carrot nose still lying on the counter gives Patrick an idea. He takes it and beckons David to follow him to the laundry room, where a rabbit hutch is tucked into the corner furthest from the washer and dryer. “This is Holly,” he says proudly. “She loves carrots!”

David stares as the black-and-white lop-eared rabbit hops from her wooden box to sniff at the carrot where Patrick is pushing it through the wire. She takes a tentative nibble.

David lets out a gasp, and her ears twitch. “Her fur looks soft,” he says in the quietest voice Patrick has heard from him so far.

“It’s really, really soft,” Patrick whispers back. But your sweater is even softer, Patrick doesn’t add. “Do you want to pet her?”

David nods eagerly, and Patrick unlatches the hutch door. David leans in, but as soon as Holly’s gaze flickers toward him, she freezes. The first movement of his hand sends her racing back into her box. Patrick can hear her hind foot thumping rapidly inside.

“Is she OK? Why is she making that noise?” David sounds distraught.

“Don’t feel bad.” Patrick gives David’s shoulder a comforting pat. “She’s shy with new people and she’s never seen one made of snow before.”

David looks at Patrick’s hand on his shoulder with the tiniest upward tilt to his mouth. “Well, what else is there to see?” he asks.

⛄

They leave Holly to her carrot and decide to explore the second floor. Patrick shushes David all the way up the stairs. David wants to peek into his parents’ room. “Just be quiet,” Patrick pleads.

But no sooner is the door cracked open than David catches sight of Patrick’s mother’s vanity. “Ooh!” he exclaims, and zips into the room with Patrick trailing despairingly after him. In the dim glow radiating from David’s sweater, Patrick can see his parents are snugly nestled beside each other in bed, not budging even a little in their deep sleep.

David examines himself in the three-paneled mirror, checking every angle with obvious delight. “Wow, it’s me! I’ve never seen myself before.” He prods at one of his eyebrows, then shifts to examining his ensemble. "This hat and scarf are not for me," he says. "But I like my sweater."

"You do?" Patrick whispers. His cheeks feel hot again. "You don't think it's too ... pretty?"

"There's no such thing as too pretty," David pronounces. He flips open a round container of makeup and brings it to his mouth.

“Stop,” Patrick hisses, “that’s not for eating!”

“Well, what else are you supposed to do with it?” David asks indignantly.

“People—um, usually girls and moms—put it on their faces,” Patrick explains. This qualifier doesn’t seem to faze David. He finds a little puff and starts tapping blush onto his cheeks. David’s mouth doesn’t really have lips, but he dabs a scarlet lipstick along the edges of his mouth and suddenly it looks like he does.

David opens the wardrobe next and finds suspendered pants and a tie to throw on over his sweater. He exchanges his toque for a round straw hat adorned with a yellow flower, and sneaks Patrick’s dad’s reading glasses and pipe off the nightstand to complete his absurd look.

Patrick goggles at him. Is it allowed, wearing a flowered hat with suspenders? Or makeup and a tie? Looking at David like this makes Patrick feel strange, like maybe he wants to burst out in nervous laughter, or maybe he wants to run away. But mostly he wants to keep watching David and see what he does next. “You look funny,” Patrick says softly.

He’s afraid David might be offended, but his lipsticked mouth breaks into a grin. “This is very fun,” he replies. He peers into the mirror and applies more blush.

Patrick leans in at the wrong moment and inhales some as it diffuses into the air. “Oh no,” he gasps. He can feel his nose itching for a sneeze. Quick as he can, he helps David remove all of the borrowed clothes and accessories and return them to their right places. David hastily wipes off the make-up, and they rush across the hall into Patrick’s bedroom, where he lets out an explosive sneeze the moment the door swings closed.

“What room is this?” David asks, already halfway across it and spinning the propeller of Patrick’s model airplane with a finger.

Patrick blows his nose with a tissue from his nightstand, then tells him, “It’s mine.”

Next, David opens the Tickle Trunk and pulls out pieces of costumery one by one, examining them with keen interest. He tries on Patrick’s bunny ears, which prove too small for his round head, then pokes into Patrick’s closet and finds a roller skate to roll across the floor.

He contemplates Patrick’s world map, touching the different-colored pins that Patrick has stuck into his hometown and the few places he’s visited: Toronto, Niagara Falls, Banff.

Patrick watches David’s explorations, feeling flattered by his curiosity but also very self-conscious. Most of his belongings seem boring when he sees them through David’s eyes. Except one ...

Patrick makes a beeline for the white-and-red tape player sitting atop his dresser. He pops out the tape of Christmas music and paws through the stack of other tapes beside it, until he finds 42nd Street by Billy Joel. He inserts it into the tape player and punches play.

Although the volume is turned down low, David’s head swivels toward him at the first notes of the music. Patrick doesn’t dare sing along and wake up his parents, but he mouths the words with gusto, bobbing his head like he always does. David rolls his eyes and moves his shoulders fluidly to the beat, seemingly gifted with a natural sense of rhythm despite his awkward proportions.

That is, until he steps on the stray roller skate. It seems to happen in slow motion: David’s foot rockets out from under him, he sways backward, Patrick lunges toward him, David’s arms flail out and Patrick grabs onto them; then Patrick plants his feet and holds on firmly till David finds his balance.

When Patrick starts to pull away, David keeps his grip on Patrick’s shoulders. For a crazy second, Patrick thinks David might try to dance with him. But David just gives his shoulders a firm shake and then lets go, saying, “Your little head bobs are making me sad, Patrick. You’ve got to loosen up.”

“Oh no,” Patrick protests, “I just sing along. I’m no good at dancing.”

“Anyone can dance!” David insists. “Here, I’ll show you.” He slows down his shimmies and sways to better demonstrate them to Patrick, who tries his best to relax his stiff shoulders and mirror him. When David spins gracefully in a circle, Patrick does the same and only stumbles a little bit. It feels good to move his body freely like this, he realizes.

“Not bad,” David tells him with that lopsided grin, and Patrick’s heart gives a gigantic thump.

When Patrick’s favorite song, “My Life,” comes on, he squeezes his eyes shut and throws himself into the rhythm of the music. The chorus rings in his ears:

“I don't need you to worry for me 'cause I'm alright
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home
I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life
Go ahead with your own life, leave me alone”

It always gives him a funny thrill to sing along with those words—imagining if the rules didn’t matter and he could just do whatever felt right to him. But right now, it almost feels like that could be true. Like he might even be able to dance with David some time, and not just alongside him.

At the end of the song they both come to a halt, slightly winded from all the dancing. Patrick turns off the tape player. When he turns around, David is crouched on the floor.

“I skated over your little person,” he says, mouth tilting down ruefully. One of Patrick’s army men rests in David’s palm, his rifle bent in half and one leg detached from his pedestal.

“That’s OK, I have more.” Patrick walks over to his toy drawer and finds an identical figurine to
place back in the neat line of soldiers. He suddenly feels awkward, not sure what they should do now that David’s seen the whole house. He shoves his hands in his pockets and asks, “Um, do you want to go back outside? I could show you our shed.”

“I’m feeling a little melty at this point? So that sounds excellent.”

⛄

They tiptoe back down the stairs and out the door. The wood-shingled little shed is cute but not very interesting; it’s mostly used for storage.

David zeroes in on the winter equipment leaned up against one wall—shovels, sleds, and cross-country skis. The hills near Patrick’s house aren’t tall enough for sledding to be any fun, and he doesn’t see how David’s squared-off feet will fit into the ski boots, but David steps confidently into them. This time, unlike with the dancing, Patrick is the one to show David the ropes: how to push off and glide, and how to position his skis in a snowplow formation if he needs to slow down. In no time, he has the hang of it, and they set off into the snowy woods that surround Patrick’s house.

The world is perfectly still, the bright moonlight catching in the trees and seeming to hold them fast. It feels like they could be the only two people on Earth. As if in silent mutual agreement, neither of them speaks. The snow has frozen enough that laying new tracks is fairly easy. When a slender red fox courses in front of David and Patrick, they both speed up to keep it in their sights as long as they can. The occasional gentle downhill slopes lend just enough speed to make Patrick’s stomach swoop delightfully.

When they break out of the woods into the Richardsons’ pasture, a group of wild rabbits scatters, leaving a flurry of tracks behind them. Suddenly, the thumping of hooves through snow breaks the quiet It’s Dancer, the pony who patiently taught Patrick to ride last summer with minimal guidance from Mrs. Richardson. Dancer trots up to Patrick with nary a glance toward David. He nuzzles inquisitively at the pocket of Patrick’s pajama pants. Patrick grins, reaching up to run his fingers through the pony’s coarse winter coat. He gives him a pat on the shoulder, and they ski on. Dancer plods along beside them for several paces before he canters away into the moonlit night, his mane and tail streaming out behind him.

“Wow,” David says, softly.

“Wow,” Patrick echoes.

They glide together across open fields awhile longer, then turn around and ski back through the silent forest. Large, fluffy snowflakes begin to fall just as they emerge from the woods into Patrick’s front yard. Once they’ve both removed their skis, Patrick carefully props them up against the wall where they found them in the shed.

David is looking up curiously at a bicycle mounted on the wall. “‘What is this thing?”

“It’s my dad’s mountain bike,” Patrick explains.

For some reason, this makes David’s brows furrow together. “Mountain bike? Mountains … oh, no.” His eyes go wide with distress.

“What is it?” Patrick asks.

“I forgot,” David moans. “I have to leave, now, or I’m going to be late!”

Patrick’s heart sinks. Is David really leaving already? He hurries after him into the yard. “Where are you going?”

“To a party at the North Pole,” David says. That sounds like a dream come true to Patrick, but David spits it out the same way Patrick would say ‘the dentist.’ “It’s the event of the season, and it’s mandatory.”

“The North Pole sounds like fun,” Patrick says, although he really wants to beg David not to go.

“Oh, it’s very entertaining,” David says. “There’s beautiful lights, music and dancing, and everyone looking their best.” He looks forlornly at Patrick. “But it’s the same every year. I’d rather stay here with you.”

Patrick’s formerly-sinking heart gives a hopeful leap. “Maybe you could come back here, when it’s over?” he ventures.

“I don’t even know if I can make it there in the first place,” David says despairingly. “I guess I’d have to fly.”

Patrick’s jaw drops. “You can fly?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never left the North Pole before, so I never needed to. They always said, get a running start … ” David turns away, muttering to himself.

Patrick watches David make several short runs across the yard. “You can do it, David!” he calls out. He knows in his bones that David is capable of anything. But every time, David stops dead in his tracks without ever leaving the ground.

Patrick remembers how he felt when David showed him how to dance, and has an idea. He runs over to David’s side. “Wait! What if I come with you?”

“Can you fly?” David asks, completely serious.

“No, but you can! You’re just nervous. Maybe it’ll help if we do it together?” Patrick sucks in a breath to stave off his own nerves, and holds out his hand to David.

David just stares at it. “You think being responsible for both of us will make this easier?”

“I trust you,” Patrick says. His fingers are trembling, but he manages to keep his voice steady.

“Clearly you have terrible judgment, then,” David says. But he takes Patrick’s hand in a firm grip, and his expression hardens with determination.

“On three?” Patrick suggests.

They count down together. then dash across the yard in long strides. One second Patrick’s feet are skimming snow, the next they’re lifting off the ground and floating in the air. Patrick looks down and sees the ground dropping away beneath them, his house and yard shrinking until they’re just part of the neatly laid-out squares that make up his neighborhood.

“We’re flying!” Patrick shouts over David’s litany of “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” It should be terrifying, but he can’t be afraid with David’s strong, sure hand in his. Instead, it’s just exhilarating.

⛄

They sail through the night sky, over deep dark forests and little towns scattered with twinkling lights. As they go further north, all but the smallest settlements disappear and the forest transitions into scrubby tundra, then to the ice fields along the frozen shores of Hudson Bay. Patrick gasps at the sight of a polar bear making her way across the ice, with two quarrelling, half-grown cubs trailing behind her. David notices Patrick enthralled by the bears, and dips them down low enough to make out their little round ears and hear the cubs growling as they tumble over each other in a wrestling match.

Onward, Patrick giggles at the ungainliness of ringed seals hauling themselves out of the water and onto the ice. With every mile that passes, David seems to gain more confidence in his flying abilities. He guides them into a somersault that steals Patrick’s breath away, then flips them over to fly along on their backs for a time. The falling snowflakes mingle with the stars in the vast, velvety-black sky above them.

After the vast expanse of Hudson Bay, they are struck by the low-lying tundra of Baffin Island. It’s somehow startling to see buildings and roads again as they fly over Iqaluit. An unusual-looking cathedral catches Patrick’s eye. its white, domed surface reflects the glow of the moonlight much like the snowfields they just crossed, the black crosses painted onto it standing out in stark contrast. Although all is dark and quiet, Patrick thinks he sees a curtain twitch in the window of a bright green house as they go by. He wonders if the person inside sees them, and what they must think of two people flying through the air under their own power. Not to mention that one of them is made of snow!

Beyond the city, they weave among sharp, snow-covered peaks and sheer cliff faces, and even squeeze between two closely-spaced rock towers that look like castle turrets. Patrick wonders if they’ve reached another frozen bay when a boundless landscape of alabaster ice appears beneath them. On one side, it stretches out in all directions, as far as the eye can see. On the other side, the mountains continue until at last, they reach the open ocean.

“Can we touch the waves?” Patrick yells to David, over the wind whistling in his ears. “I want to see how cold they are!”

David smiles and lowers their altitude until they are skimming just above the surface. Patrick reaches down, and yelps at the chill that stabs through him, making his finger bones ache.

Just then, a dark shadow coalesces beneath the water. “Whoa!” David exclaims and pulls them up short, just as the enormous black head of a bowhead whale breaks the surface. The whale quickly dives below again, striking its tail against the water with a concussive slap.

David grins playfully and puts on a burst of speed, but the whale seems to have taken an interest in them and catches up, surfacing again and blowing an icy spray of water from its blowhole that drenches them. They both screech in shock and delight as they fly up, up, and away. The breeze dries them off quickly, and Patrick marvels that any feelings of cold last only moments before fading away.

Above the horizon, rippling waves of green light suddenly loom into their view. Patrick’s jaw drops and he gasps in wonder. “What is that?”

“The Northern Lights, of course!” But when Patrick tears his eyes away to glance at David, he is watching Patrick, his eyes soft as though enjoying Patrick’s awe. They pause, hovering midair to gaze at the spectacle undulating, changing, and illuminating the world below them. The lights remind Patrick of the fireworks display his town puts on for New Year’s, except that they fill his whole field of vision: a silent and ever-shifting wall of light that makes him feel like a tiny speck in a beautiful universe.

⛄

They fly on and soon reach land, losing sight of the Northern Lights as David lowers them down into an empty clearing in the middle of a pine forest.

“Are we ... at the party?” Patrick asks uncertainly.

“Almost. It’s just a little further,” David says. He looks embarrassed. “I was afraid I might botch our landing and trip in front of everybody, so I landed here. You know, just in case.”

“You wouldn’t have tripped, David,” Patrick says loyally.

David just shrugs, and keeps hold of Patrick’s hand as they weave between the trees. David’s sweater begins to sparkle and glow again, as the dense foliage blocks out the light from the moon and stars. David periodically has to push aside branches barring their way.

Soon, the sounds of music and laughter reach them, becoming steadily louder as they walk on. Light filters through the trees. At last, the snow-covered branches part in front of them to reveal an open field filled with snowpeople of all ages, shapes, and sizes. A few of them turn and wave excitedly at David and Patrick. “Welcome, friends!” calls a snowwoman wearing an elegant red dress and feather fascinator. Patrick waves shyly at her, feeling very underdressed in his pajamas and sweater.

David tows him into the crowd. Everyone is eating, dancing, and talking animatedly with one another. Colorful paper lanterns are strung between wooden poles sunk into the snow, providing a cheerful multicolored light that is complemented by the aurora borealis still arcing overhead.

A snowperson wearing a black cowboy hat and boots hands them warm mugs of hot chocolate. Patrick sips his drink with relish. It’s even sweeter and more delicious than the kind his mom makes. David’s eyes close in a blissful squint as he savors his own beverage.

A snowgirl in a pink poodle skirt skips over to them and says, “Drink up so you can join the dancing!” As though on cue, three musicians scattered amid the crowd begin to play, weaving together their fiddle, flute, and tambourine into a sprightly tune. Some of the snowmen and snow women start coupling up, while others link hands with several of their friends for a circle dance.
Patrick looks at David, not sure what he might be thinking. Is it possible that he’ll want to dance with Patrick this time, not just beside him? But what will the other partygoers think of that?

“You heard her,” David says, waving his empty mug at Patrick impatiently. “Let’s get out there!”

Patrick nearly scalds his tongue gulping down the rest of his hot chocolate. They set their mugs in a nearby snowbank and turn to face each other. Patrick’s parents did a lot of dancing at his aunt’s wedding last spring; he frantically tries to picture where their arms went.

Before he can move, though, David clasps Patrick’s right hand in his left, loops the other arm further around Patrick’s left shoulder, and they’re off.

Patrick follows David’s lead, first swaying and then shuffling around in a slow turn once they’re in sync. David holds Patrick’s arm out and guides him into a spin, twirling him, and making his head feel dizzy. Patrick thought he’d felt light on his feet in his room earlier—when he tried out the dance moves that David showed him—but that was nothing compared to dancing with David. Being in David’s arms like this makes Patrick feel like he could float up into the sky to join the aurora borealis still rippling above them.

Patrick tries out twirling David like David did to him, standing up on his tiptoes to make up for the few inches of height David has on him. David grins in delight, then grabs onto Patrick and spins them both around, careening them out of the crowd of dancers until they land in a pile of limbs and breathless laughter, sending snow flying everywhere.

A hand reaches down to help Patrick to his feet. He looks up into a strangely-familiar rosy-cheeked face with a curly white beard.

You must be Patrick Brewer!” Santa Claus says in a voice as cheerful as Patrick always imagined. He’s dressed all in red and is holding a tray of cookies in his free hand.

“ … Yes, sir,” Patrick manages after a moment. “Are you—are you really—”

“Come along, I have something for you!” Santa Claus beckons Patrick and David toward a small stone outbuilding. Santa has a warm greeting for each snowperson they pass on their way, and keeps offering out cookies until they’re all gone. The last snowperson takes the tray along with their cookie. Patrick notices that Santa is wearing a white apron with a frilled hem over his red suit, which strikes him as funny—his mom often puts on an apron when she’s working in the kitchen, but he’s never seen his dad wear one. Patrick wonders if Santa baked those cookies himself.

As they step inside the building, the unmistakable scent of hay and animals fills Patrick’s nose. He realizes that it isn’t a house like he initially thought, but a stable! In the wooden stalls directly in front of him, a pair of reindeer are watching them with dark, liquid eyes.

Patrick looks at Santa’s welcoming face and asks shyly, “Can I pet them?”

“Go ahead,” Santa tells him, beaming.

David eyes the big animals nervously. “I think I’ll hang back here,” he decides.

The reindeer snort and toss their heads as Patrick approaches. Their antlers are spectacular, branching broadly above their brows into more points than Patrick can readily count.

“Hi,” Patrick greets them, keeping his voice soft. He holds out a hand to each of them, and smiles with delight as they nuzzle their velvety noses into his palms.

“Thank you for working so hard to pull Santa’s sleigh, so he can deliver presents to all the kids who celebrate Christmas,” Patrick tells the reindeer. “It’s amazing that you can do it all in one night.” They blink their long eyelashes and swivel their ears at the sound of his voice, seeming rapt.

“Patrick,” Santa calls to him. He turns away to see Santa pulling a package wrapped in sparkly blue paper from a bulging burlap sack resting on the floor near the stable door.

Patrick takes the gift tentatively when Santa holds it out. “Is this for me?”

“It is,” Santa assures him. “Go on, you can open it.”

Patrick carefully peels the tape from the wrapping paper and unfolds its many layers. His jaw drops in disbelief when he sees a black-and-white striped scarf, shot through with sparkling threads. It looks just like David’s sweater! “Wh… where did you find this?”

“I have my ways,” Santa says, with a mysterious glint in his eye. “I heard you might appreciate something like it.”

Patrick clutches the scarf tightly to his chest. When he looks at David, who has walked up beside him, his grin is as blinding as the one on Patrick’s face feels. “We’ll match!” David exclaims. “Here, let me help you with that.”

Patrick hands it over, and David drapes the fabric around Patrick’s neck. It’s impossibly soft against his skin, almost like David’s arms felt around his neck when they were dancing earlier. Patrick lifts his shoulders, the better to nuzzle the scarf against his cheek. Wearing it makes him feel complete, somehow.

David nods approvingly. Patrick thanks Santa profusely for the gift as they walk back out to rejoin the partygoers.

Back at the party, they transition into a dance where everyone keeps switching partners. Each snowperson has a different dancing style, and Patrick watches them carefully for a minute before doing his best to follow along. He dances with the snowwoman in the elegant red dress; a snowman wearing a wool coat and bowler hat; and the excitable snowgirl in the poodle skirt, who teaches him a swing dance.

Then a snowman dressed in a black tuxedo and green bow tie steps up to him and says, “Shall we try a waltz?” Patrick notices that his cheeks are adorned with blush and his mouth is lined with lipstick, much more neatly than David managed earlier. But his warm baritone reminds Patrick of his dad.

Patrick’s next several dance partners puzzle him further. The snowperson in the cowboy hat, who was handing out hot chocolate earlier, line-dances with Patrick and bids him goodbye in a voice like honey. A snowperson in a pleated orange skirt and black top-hat shows him a lively polka. Then a snowperson wearing a hot pink feather boa, with a corncob pipe in their mouth, greets him with a somber nod before leading him in the macarena.

When the group dancing draws to a close, Patrick and David take seats at a circular table, eating from a plate of the same chocolate chip cookies that Santa handed out earlier. They’re soft and chewy, sprinkled with flaky salt that heightens their sweet flavor and makes Patrick’s mouth water.

Patrick looks over at the snowpeople, the colorful lantern light playing across their figures as they dance. He sees for the first time that all different combinations of snowpeople are dancing together in pairs. The snowperson in the cowboy hat is slow-dancing with a snowperson in an orange vest and blue bow tie, and the snowchild wearing the poodle skirt is twirling another snowchild, who sports a pair of fabric butterfly wings and a jingling jester hat.

“David,” Patrick begins hesitantly, “The people here are wearing a lot of different kinds of outfits. I mean, that person by the punchbowl is wearing a dress, but the fiddler over there is wearing a tie. What does that mean to a snowperson?”

“Nothing,” David says, puzzled. “Why would it mean anything?”

Patrick tries again. “Some of them look really silly. But you said when we left my house that everyone would be looking their best at this party.” He glances down self-consciously at his own hodge-podge of striped scarf, sweater, and pajamas.

“I’ve always thought that a person looks their best wearing what makes them feel comfortable,” David tells him. “You, for instance, look perfect.”

Patrick’s stomach swoops even harder than it did when David somersaulted them in mid-air. It might be the most wonderful thing anyone’s ever said to him. “Let’s dance,” he tells David, and they do.

They keep dancing until Patrick’s feet are sore, until he can’t hold back the jaw-cracking yawns, and yet he never wants to stop.

When he stumbles, nearly asleep on his feet, David squeezes his hands tighter and says softly, “Patrick, I think it may be time to go home.”

They wave goodbye to everyone and take off into the sky again.

⛄

The journey home seems to go by much faster than their trip to the North Pole. Maybe it’s that Patrick can hardly keep his eyes open, the non-stop excitement of the night’s adventures hitting him all at once. But below them, the ocean then mountains then forests roll into view and pass away again in the space of a few blinks, until suddenly they’re alighting in Patrick’s front yard.

Without saying a word, David stops at his original place in the yard while Patrick continues walking toward the house. They’ve said so much already. And anyway, Patrick is so tired his thoughts and feelings are all jumbled up inside him.

Patrick is almost to the front door when he turns back. David gives him a little nod, so unlike his usually animated gestures. Patrick can’t bear it: he runs back to David and flings himself into his arms. David’s arms tighten around him in a fierce hug as Patrick buries his face in the softness of David’s sweater.

After a long moment, they pull apart far enough to look at each other. “Goodnight, David,” Patrick whispers.

“Goodnight, Patrick,” David whispers back.

Patrick steps out of David’s arms at last. “I’ll come out to see you in the morning, first thing,” he promises as he walks backward through the front door. David flashes a last crooked smile and lifts one hand in a wave.

Patrick doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to fall asleep, knowing that his friend is waiting right outside for him. But his whole body is heavy with exhaustion. He sinks into a deep, dreamless slumber as soon as his head hits the pillow.

⛄

Patrick blinks awake to sunshine streaming through his window. He’s surprised to find himself lying on top of the covers, but he’s not cold. He looks around the room. His model airplane hangs from the ceiling, his books are neatly lined up on their shelves, his army men march across the floor. But something feels different.

Then he remembers: David!

He bounds out of bed and down the stairs, not even pausing when his mom calls his name as he races past the kitchen where they’re eating breakfast. He skids out into the yard, expecting to see a pair of sparkling dark eyes and hear an impatient voice asking him what their next adventure will be.

At first he thinks his eyes are playing tricks on him. Where David stood last night—where they hugged and David waved goodnight to him—there’s nothing more than a pile of slushy, half-melted snow. Patrick runs over to the last place he saw his friend and stops, staring down at the ground.

Was it all a dream?

His hand goes to his pajama pocket, and he feels soft fabric between his fingers. He pulls out the black-and-white-striped scarf and clutches it tightly in both hands, as his legs give out and he falls to his knees in the snow. So it wasn’t a dream—but his friend is gone.

Patrick thinks of David’s crooked smile and his tangerine nose, the Northern Lights shimmering in the air, and the unbridled joy of dancing so freely, like he’d never danced before.

In the future, he’ll hold those memories close. They’ll even make him smile. But for now, Patrick buries his face in the scarf, the only physical reminder of his friend, and sobs his heartbreak into it.

⛄⛄⛄

Over the years, Patrick forgets a lot of details from that night. But he never forgets the thrill of moving freely through space, spinning and soaring; or the feeling of a sure hand in his, guiding but never limiting him. In place of that steady grip, he winds and weaves his sparkly scarf around his hands whenever he needs comfort or reassurance.

Rachel says she thinks it’s cute. That it’s like a glimpse at the soft, sensitive side beneath Patrick’s practical and orderly persona. She asks him where he got the scarf, so she can buy one to match. For some reason, the idea of her intruding on that private memory bothers him to a degree he can’t explain. As a compromise, for Christmas that year he buys her a scarf in deep purple, her favorite color. He includes a note that the color reminded him of her, and he hopes that wearing it will always remind her of him. The sentiment feels mostly sincere, and Rachel is delighted, throwing her arms around his neck in a joyful leap. For better or worse, her touch always has a way of grounding him.

After he proposes to Rachel, Patrick starts having recurring dreams about flying that end with falling. Though the details are vague, the feeling of dread that creeps up in him when he awakens is all-too-vivid. It follows him into his waking life, where every decision about the upcoming wedding feels like it’s hurtling him closer to a painful landing. Until leaving it all behind and starting over feels like the only way to survive.

I don't need you to worry for me 'cause I'm alright

I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home

Patrick finds his lifeline in a little town called Schitt’s Creek. He starts learning things about himself he never knew before. But he also reconnects to parts of his past and starts to see them in a new light. As he sets up his workspace at his new job with Ray Butani, he finds himself singing Billy Joel under his breath for the first time in years. When the local library holds a used-book sale, he impulsively grabs a couple of fantasy novels with outlandish cover illustrations to join his stack of business management books and sports biographies.

At first, Patrick thinks nothing of the calendar invite for a meeting to help a local entrepreneur with his incorporation paperwork. But when a man in an elegant black-and-white sweater shows up and introduces himself as David, it ignites a spark deep in the back of Patrick’s memory. Those dark eyes, framed by darker brows, and that crooked smile are familiar in the strangest way. The warmth of David’s hand in Patrick’s turns the spark into a firework that shimmers all through him. Patrick knows he needs to chase this feeling and find a way to get closer to David.

So he does. Every touch between them stokes that sparkling, shimmering feeling and makes Patrick crave more of it: the brush of their fingers as they unpack boxes of product together; David’s strong embrace contrasting with the soft caress of his sweater against Patrick’s skin on the night of their soft launch; the firm cradle of David’s palm around his cheek and the press of David’s lips against his after their date on David’s birthday. From that point on, their touches become too many to catalogue—but each one feels like it could lift Patrick’s feet right off the ground.

On their first Christmas morning together, David hands Patrick a package wrapped in blue paper. Inside he finds a black-and-white-striped alpaca wool scarf. “I noticed that old scarf of yours was looking a little threadbare, so I had Millie custom-make this one,” David tells him with a nervous smile.

When Patrick holds it up to the light, the white yarn glints with hues of silver, pink, and gold. “Now I’m really questioning her claim that she doesn’t use synthetics in her knitwear, though,” David babbles on. “How else do you explain sparkly wool?”

“Must have been some magic,” Patrick breathes, and pulls his boyfriend into a grateful kiss.