Nathan Marsh's State of Being

Chapter Eighteen

malcontent

The next two weeks flew by in a flurry the same way that the first light snowfall of the season emerged from the rain the morning Harley and I left to drive home for break.

I realized that snow wasn't as fun as everyone made it out to seem when I had to clean it off of my car with my jacketed arm.

I slammed the door shut as I hopped into the driver's seat and looked at Harley. I shivered, running my hands together and blowing my breath on them. "I'm sick of this weather already."

He laughed and nodded, adjusting the heating. I couldn't remember the last time before moving to Seattle that I'd had to turn the heat on. Back home it was usually warm enough and if you got cold you just threw a sweater or jacket on to solve the problem.

I put my hands up to the vent and waited until the air coming out eventually turned to a pleasant temperature on my freezing skin.

"I think it's supposed to be seventy at home today," Harley said. He was doing the same thing as me with the vent on his side.

I hummed happily, closing my eyes and trying to picture the sunshine. "I can't wait. I don't even remember what it feels like to walk outside and not have my face hurt."

Harley laughed. His blonde hair was hanging over his eyes and I grinned at the stupid face he made as he tried to blow it out of the way. He was failing.

"Rude," Harley huffed at me.

"You look dumb," I said with a smile.

"Fuck off. It's too early to banter with you."

"I concur, actually," I said. The time on the radio read a quarter to seven in the morning.

We had finished our finals several days back but considering the winter break was a month long, we decided to stay on campus until just a week before Christmas. My family celebrated Hanukkah, although we were one of the many non-practicing Jewish families from our area and that holiday wasn't the biggest for us, so my parents didn't really mind that I was coming home a bit late. I'd be there for the second half of it, which we all agreed was better than nothing.

In all honesty, when Harley suggested we wait a bit longer before starting our road trip I was both feeling guilt and elation.

The former because I knew I should be there for my parents, especially my mom. The latter was because Noel was still at our dorm and I'd secretly been eating up all the time we'd spent together like I would starve without it.

I knew Harley's reason for wanting to stay back as well was because of his own roommate. He hadn't told me yet, but I knew he was hooking up with Dante again. I say hooking up instead of dating because I was sure that if that were the case and they were officially together, Harley would have mentioned it already instead of hiding it.