Forever Winter

Four fucking months. How hard could it be to find her? The event had a tight guest list as it was. Every name had been combed through. Well, maybe not names but faces. I’d gone through a stack of IDs the investigator had pulled and none had been her. We’d moved on to anyone who ever worked at the building where the event was held. I’d even had the fucking room I’d had her in dusted for prints.

Nothing. Part of me wonders if I’m going crazy. Maybe she wasn’t real. I know she was because I could still smell her when I’d finally gotten home that night after my mom and I were cleared from the hospital. She’d made me go after I’d found her half passed out from smoke inhalation. I would have pressed to stay, but the fear on my mom’s face had me agreeing to go to the hospital. We’d lost my father so suddenly, now she worried over any little thing.

Still, after I’d gotten her into the ambulance and agreed to go myself, I ran back to tell my girl what was happening. She was gone. I should have looked harder that night. I thought it would be easy to track her down. Her beauty was unmissable, but every time I tried to explain what she looked like to the investigators I’d hired, they looked at me as if I’d grown a second head. Stacy had the same reaction and asked if I needed to go back to the hospital to be checked out again. I wasn’t acting normal, she said.

They were right. I wasn’t acting normal, but how the fuck could I? Instead I pick up the empty cup sitting on my desk and throw it at the wall, watching in satisfaction as it explodes into pieces. It does nothing to help my anger though.

“This is going to be a fun week.” My head snaps up at my mom’s voice. I didn’t know she’d arrived already. “You’re even grumpier than normal.” She shakes her head as she steps into my office looking to where I’d thrown my cup.

The family always spends a week out here every winter. It’s a tradition. The old Shaw estate goes back generations in the family. I stay here more than anyone. This place is more my home than my penthouse in the city that I only use to sleep. I’ve even started working more from here.

I enjoy the quiet, but what had been getting to me was I kept thinking I was spotting my angel girl at every turn. My mind was playing tricks on me. Maybe I do need to go back to the hospital. Spending one night with a woman shouldn’t turn a man to this kind of madness, but here I am and I know I’m not going to seek help trying to calm it. No, I want to drown in it. In her.

“I want you to get it together. Cory is bringing his fiancée and I will not have you scaring her off,” my mom warns me. She’s been trying to get one of us married for years. I was never keen on the idea. My own father was a workaholic. I’m one, too. I don’t want to be an absent father like mine had been, so I settled on the idea of never having children. I’ve been too busy cleaning up the mess my father made to think of a family of my own.

Though if you offered me my snow angel right now I’d eat those words. Her, too, for that matter. I swear I can still taste her on my tongue even all these months later. It’s the only thing I can taste. Nothing else holds flavor.

“Trust me. I know. Her shit’s been showing up here all day.” That reminds me I need to call my brother and see what the fuck is going on. You’d think someone was moving in here. All the boxes look to be brand new. Now I know what Cory has been spending all his money on.

He draws a good salary, but I’ve never seen him buy anything. He even stays in one of the family condos in the city. I’m starting to think he’s as much a workaholic as Dad was. He’s following in both our footsteps, and I don’t want that for him.

He’s always been the softer one of the two of us. He’s quick to laugh and joke. He’d gone a little wild after Father’s death, but he’s gotten it back together. I knew he would. I thought he’d settle down, but I didn’t think it would be with someone who was clearly high maintenance if she needs all this shit for a week out here. This place might as well be a five-star hotel. You don’t need shit to come here.