supernova

53

"It's not my fault. Vanilla milkshakes are to die for. They're too good especially with fries," He had a guilty smile on his face.

"So vanilla milkshakes with fries or fettuccine alfredo?" I asked. His smile dropped and the edges of my lips curved up into a sly smile.

"You're a menace," He joked. "I would choose," he stopped there not finishing his sentence but acting like he did.  I rolled my eyes at his immature response in an overly dramatic way.

We got to the front of the line pretty quick; there weren't many people around due to it being Christmas day. I didn't know why it was open on Christmas, but oh well.

"Hey! What can I get you today?" The girl asked.

"I'll take a large vanilla milkshake with a large fries and a grilled cheese, well done please, with a..." I stopped and looked at the menu. They had added new items and I wanted to try them all. "With a medium cookie dough malt, please." I wanted a large, but those are so heavy, I'd cry.

"Of course," She said, as she put that into the device. "That will be $15.55," she smiled at me as I handed her a ten, a five, and a dollar bill. I dropped the change she gave me into the donations jar and then Atlas and I found a table.

I started at the snow that had started falling outside, making Christmas all the more festive. The snow makes me feel like I'm in a Hallmark Christmas movie. The beauty of it isn't in the pure white color, or the small intricate design of each snowflake, but rather the pace at which it fell. The grace and elegance as it softly landed on the ground as it builds up into inches of thick snow. As amazing as the small details are, sometimes the bigger picture goes unappreciated.

"Do you always do that?" Atlas questioned, breaking my out of my infatuation with the snow.

"Do what?" Did he ask me something while I zoned out while was staring at the snow?

"Put your change into the donations jar," He had a curious look on his face, as if years later he was trying to figure me out.

"It's not that big of a deal to most people, but after having seen the bills we were getting and the stress over money with my mom's treatment, it made me realize how every small amount matters. It's a struggle that can't be understood unless you've gone through it. So yes, I do."

He had a small smile on his face. As if what I had said was some sort of ground breaking revelation. It wasn't. It was nothing deep or even some sort of crazy hot-take. It was just the reality of life. People can't truly understand the difficulty of a struggle without having experienced it. Hearing about it and going through it are so different. Feeling pain for someone because they're going through something and feeling pain because you're going through something are incomparable.

Atlas was still staring at me with that smile. His head was tilted and his features were relaxed like he was cherishing every last look at my face.

He can't smile at me like that. He can't even look at me like that. It was weird in a way that made me want to stare back at him just because.

"What?" I finally broke the silence. I couldn't bear to have him look at me like that.

"I know you've changed a lot in regard to your relationship with yourself, but other than that, you're still the person you were. I mean the way you think about things. It's nice." I raised my brows in curiosity, silently asking him to continue. "The things you say sound so simple, but you always word them so personally like every little thing you say has meaning to you." I interrupted him.

"Words are all you have sometimes. It's important to use them for the better. I'm just passionate about the things I say. Most things I say are the bare minimum, but just because it is, doesn't mean it's widely accepted. It's more like it should be the bare minimum. Before we can go above and beyond, we need to establish there's a bare minimum."