The Snow Falls Around Me - 1. The Snow Falls Around Me

The wind was cold, the night was cold, and the people were even colder than the weather. Everyone acted like they couldn’t see the poor, frozen boy stuck begging at the street corner, even though he knew they did.

“Help the poor! Help the poor! Just three dollars can make a meal. Surely you can spare three dollars?” The words trembled slightly in the frigid air, having been used over and over again for seven long hours, but the poor fourteen-year-old was too stubborn to swap them for anything different. They had worked before; he was determined to make them work again. “Help the poor! Donate your Christmas shopping change and help the poor afford their next meal!”

A brief flickering of movement caught his eye, and the boy turned to watch a small girl in a pretty red sweater as she slowly made her way over to where he was standing. The girl’s mother followed closely, her face screwed up in a look that dripped with sympathy.

“Hello,” the boy said as Red Sweater Girl came to a stop before him.

She frowned, the expression clashing terribly with her innocent, kindergarten-age features. “What are you doing out in the cold? Christmas is tomorrow. Why aren’t you in your house, getting ready for Santa?” she asked, curious in the way that young children often were. “Where are your parents?”

The boy smiled and crouched before the child. “I don’t have a home, so I have to stay out in the cold. My parents left me a long, long time ago.”

Red Sweater’s eyes widened, misting over like she was going to shed a couple tears. “I still have my mommy. She’s right over there.” She pointed at her mother, who waved and smiled.

“So I see. You’re a very lucky little girl,” he said with a sigh. “You’d better get back to your mommy. She might start to worry about you.” Unlike my own, he thought to himself, gnawing his bottom lip unhappily.

“Mommy told me to give you this.” Red Sweater held out her hand. The boy looked at it absently. Was she trying to give him her mitten?

The child’s thumb moved slightly, revealing a couple rolled-up twenties, which she dropped into his stunned hands before turning around and running back to her mother.

He stared at the money, wide-eyed and too shocked for words. Nobody had been this generous to him before. In his eleven years of growing up on the streets, nobody had even considered being this generous to him before.

The boy jerked to his feet, a foolish grin spreading across his face. His gaze found that of the mother’s, brown eyes twinkling with glee. “Thank-you, ma’am! Thank-you so much!”

“You’re welcome...uh...” she hollered back, stalling where his name came into the matter.

“The name’s Elias, ma’am. Elias Shastan!”

The woman froze, blinking in a stunned silence. But then some kind of realization dawned on her, and she called a hurried “Merry Christmas” as she scooped up her daughter and dashed away.

Elias stared after them, wondering—as he often did when around the more fortunate—what was going on in their heads. But then the irresistible pull of the graciously donated money consumed him. He was finally going to be able to escape the tearing claws of hunger, and with hot food, too! Elias felt like the king of the world just then.

Without any warning, he burst into wonderful, happy laughter that sang with the beginning stages of hope. Money, food, and pure Christmas joy had him spinning in circles, snow falling around him, crowning his glowing face with ribbons of white. Was he happy? You could say that.

He twirled for a good three minutes before stopping and heading toward the nearest fast-food place he could find. His goal—a well-known McDonald’s—was only a block away, close enough for him to get to in less than a minute, if he jogged, which he most definitely did.

The restaurant—thankfully—wasn’t busy. In fact, there was only one till open and it looked like it hadn’t been used in at least an hour. Elias dashed up to the door, the beginnings of another foolish grin spreading across his lips. He clenched the twenties tightly in his left hand and reached for the door. He was already imagining what he would order. Chicken nuggets? A cheeseburger?

The door wouldn’t open.

Elias pulled harder, confused.

It still didn’t budge.

He let go of the handle, feeling his hope catch fire and blow away like ashes in the wind. His eyes raked across the glass, finally latching on that red and white sign that should’ve said something other than it did.

Closed.

Elias shook it off, jogging across the lot to the nearby supermarket.

That was closed too.

He circled the lot, hitting all the stores, including the ones that didn’t sell food. They were all closed, even the place he normally got his meals from. Every freaking store was locked up, unable to satiate his clawing hunger in the least.

He sat down heavily, right in the middle of a snow bank. His heart felt like lead in his chest, and his stomach roared insanely. The pain of being homeless was once again creeping up on him, like every other night, but this time it was so much worse.

It was Christmas Eve, and he had been forgotten yet again.

Elias fell back into the snow and started to cry.

Shelby fled down the street, pulling Sarah along by the sleeve of her pretty red sweater. They were almost at their apartment, almost at the place where Shelby could just sit down and forget everything about that boy called Elias.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

It had been a long time—over a decade—since she had been forced to give up her son to her monster of a husband. The divorce had been brutal, but of course the judge didn’t sense that. Of course the judge didn’t see the pain she was being subjected to. Of course the judge had to take away her first born child and give him to the one person that could damage him well beyond repair.

The memory stung, and Shelby gripped her daughter’s arm even tighter than before. Sarah looked up and smiled innocently, making the woman’s heart throb. She had to hold on to everything she could, or else it would all just disappear.

Something flared up inside her, something that suddenly confirmed everything she had hoped for with all her heart.

Shelby stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, startling a cyclist and sending him flying over his handlebars. She muttered a brief apology and gently slung Sarah over her shoulder, sprinting back the way she came, determined to not let anything get in her way again.

The woman was running. No, scratch that. She was sprinting, cradling something that was blurrily red in her arms. Everything about her was pure speed, from the snow flying in her wake to the rapid puffs of fog flying from her lips.

Elias whimpered, curling up tighter in the snow, frozen tears glistening on his cheeks. More and more continued to flow, an endless waterfall of misery suddenly exploding free after eleven years of being locked up and masked by denial. They were pain. They were fear. They were something that hadn’t seen the light of day in a long, long time.

The woman continued to run. She continued to fly down the sidewalk, shoving everyone who got in her way aside. People pointed, scowled, made bewildered, angry faces, but she paid no attention.

Elias admired her courage. The realization warmed his heart slightly, but still the tears trickled from his eyes.

Shelby’s legs burned. She had him in her sights. He was so close.

She couldn’t get there fast enough.

Sarah shifted in her arms, lifting her head to watch the scenery coast by. She didn’t understand what was going on, but she was okay with it. She had her mommy, so everything would be okay. Her mommy would protect her.

Mommies always protected their children.

Shelby. Would. Protect. Her. Son.

“Elias!” she screamed, turning about twenty heads in her direction. Hundreds of eyes trailed her as she flew down the path. Everyone was openly gawking.

Everyone but him.

Desperation pushed her to run even faster, and she accepted the challenge with ease. She had been a sprinter in her teenage years, thank God. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to get to him fast enough.

Suddenly she stood before him.

The poor boy stared up at her from where he laid, curled up in a snow bank with tears flowing freely down his face.

Shelby set Sarah down beside her and dropped to her knees, looking—really looking­­—at the poor boy before her. She studied him more closely than earlier, taking in his dirt-smudged skin, tangled yellow hair, and hopeless—but still somewhat warm—brown eyes.

And she knew he was the real thing.

“Oh, my God,” she cried, reaching out and pulling the boy into the circle of her arms. “Oh, my God, Elias. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go. I...do you know who I am?”

Elias looked up at her, another wave of tears glistening in his eyes. His lips curved into a slow smile, erasing the previous misery with a gentle, gleeful glow. “Of course I know who you are. You’re her. You’re really her.”

Shelby blinked. “Who, Elias? Who am I?”

The boy fluttered his lashes. “You’re her. You’re...Mom.”

“Yes, Elias. I’m Mom, and I’m never going to let you go again.”

“But...Mom...you’re also something else.”

“Oh?”

“You’re my light in endless darkness, my escape when life starts hurting.”

A single tear fell from Shelby’s eye. “Oh, Elias...”

“The snow falls around me, and I know it will never completely stop. But now that I have you by my side, the pain is gone. Gone, just like those snowflakes dancing in the wind." Elias snuggled against her, his thin frame shivering in the winter air. "Never let me go."