Jack lit another joint, his face illuminated in a glow of orange. The paper and weed crackled as the enclosure filled with grey haze. He licked his lips between each draw.

I stared at him, transfixed. I wanted his lips. My body was both tensed and relaxed, filled with the awareness of his shoulder against mine, hovering between barely touching and touching too hard. I wordlessly willed him not to move.

“Grace?” Jack’s head turned and his eyes met mine.

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever wish your parents had stayed together?” he asked. “Made it work, you know? Despite all the bullshit?”

“No,” I replied. “I wouldn’t wish their relationship on anyone.”

He took another draw on the joint, biting his lip. “I’m glad they split.”

“That’s kind of rude,” I laughed. “Why’s that?”

He leaned closer. “Because if they hadn’t, I never would have met you.”

Chapter 8

My mother preferred when it was cold. The windows of our home were always open, a hardcover book by Tolstoy or one of the Brontë sisters jammed in place to keep them ajar, even in the winter months. The lace curtains, crisp from the ice that clung to the material’s negative space, swayed in the wind. Small piles of snow would collect on the sills and floor, causing me great distress. I would gather it, balling it up and holding it in my hands until it melted. I would warm my fingers, red and throbbing from the cold, by the wood stove.

I was four years old when my mother’s belly started to grow. She insisted, more than ever before, on keeping the house cold. As she grew bigger and bigger, the house grew colder and colder. I felt obligated to endure it, to contain my own desire for warmth.

My mother and father sat down with me and explained there was a baby growing in my mother’s belly. I was going to have a little sister.

I was terrified she was going to be made of snow and ice like in the fairy tale my father had read me. The woman swallowed a snowflake and became pregnant and, in the end, the infant melted in the heat. I didn’t want my sister’s life to be filled with coldness, so I did my best to keep the snow away from my mother.

Then, one day, my mother went away. Days passed without any indication as to where she had gone. I kept the windows sealed, watching the snow through the glass. I had no memory of a time before the endless white, and wondered if it would always be this way.

The day my mother finally returned, I heard the car pull in the driveway. I was playing in my room, dressing my dolls in their winter regalia, ensuring everyone in the house was prepared for the arrival of the ice baby.

Downstairs, the door slammed. My parents’ hushed voices were barely audible. I jumped up from the floor, barrelling down the stairs.