I Guess They Never Disappear

IV

Zoe POV

It's snowing in New Haven. Not a lot, but just enough that there's a tiny bit of snow to be smushed under my Doc Martens. 

Winter has come, and with it has come the holidays. 

Which means I'm going to a little outdoors market to play holiday songs.

It's a sort of nostalgic I can't really explain. 

Because, of course, it isn't actually nostalgia. Christmas in Penfield was time for Murphy & Jefferson Law parties, where I met a bunch of old creepy white men in suits who patted me on the head and said that I must be such a great daughter. 

Connor never came down from his room for those. 

Christmas wasn't going out anywhere with my family. Christmas was hiding from the arguments that always seemed to crop up everywhere we were. 

Enough of that.

 Point is, I never saw or did anything like this as a kid. So, not nostalgia. 

Maybe I feel nostalgic because I wish it had been this way. 

Arriving in the center of the market, I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and look for the small stage I was told to go to. 

In the center, there is a wooden structure which now has a stage with a singular black stool and mic placed on it. To either side, there are speakers. 

It's bitterly cold outside, and I'll have to stay here for an hour to get the money I'm being paid. 

Still, what with the stream of money from Cynthia and Larry being cut off, it's important I book as many of these little events as I can.

I get my guitar set up with the tiny microphone I clip to it and get that linked to the speakers. 

This is so unlike any other event I've ever played.

I tune my guitar and start strumming away, singing about holly and branches and joy and love.

About thirty minutes into the set, Alana shows up with a scarf around her neck and snow in her hair and I've never seen anyone more beautiful. 

The next thirty minutes go by even slower. It's not like I dislike playing events with my guitar. It's just weird to be singing cheery songs about the holidays for an assorted mix of elderly people and kids outdoors in the snow. Not even close to my usual scene: semi-crowded bars with a bunch of people in their twenty's listening to songs about loneliness and depression and all of those things. 

Phrasing it like that, it seems pretty lame, but I wouldn't give it up for the world. 

I finish my last song: a frozen-fingered rendition of Jingle Bells (I should have worn thicker gloves), and pack up my case, dispersing the few people who've stuck around, save Alana. 

I detach my mic from the speaker and unclip it from my guitar before placing my guitar carefully in its case. 

"Do you wanna go get hot chocolate?" Alana's voice rings through the frozen air. 

"Of course, 'Lana. What person would I be if I didn't?"

"Not my girlfriend, that's for sure."

"Oh come on, you'd break up with me over hot chocolate?"

"Absolutely."

"And you're supposed to be the smart one."

Alana winces a tiny bit. 

Shit, did I do something?

She recovers quickly, though.

"Yeah, I am."