Midwinter's Eve: Chapter Eight
Some moments aren't endings or beginnings, just the still before both.
Eve sat by the front door, tying her running shoes. She looped the laces tight, tugging once, then again, the way she always did until they felt secure. Her phone rested on the entryway table beside a folded scarf and a half-finished mug of coffee her dad had left that morning.
From the kitchen came the low murmur of her mom’s voice. She was on the phone with a friend, laughing softly, a sound that had been missing from this house for far too long. The hum of it filled the air like music, something light and ordinary.
Eve swiped her thumb across her phone and opened her playlists. After scrolling past a dozen half-hearted mixes, she settled on one called New Year, New You.
She slipped the phone into her pocket and stood. Her reflection in the small mirror by the door caught a flash of movement as she tied her hair into a ponytail. A single strand escaped near her temple, and she let it fall.
“I’m going for a run,” she called toward the kitchen.
Her mom’s voice floated back, bright and distracted, still half in her conversation. “Be careful. It’s colder than it looks!”
“I will,” Eve said, smiling to herself.
She zipped her jacket and opened the door.
Cold air swept inside, clear and bright, smelling of pine, smoke, and damp pavement. The chill met her face like a soft shock. She paused for a breath, filling her lungs until it almost hurt, then stepped out onto the porch. The door clicked shut behind her, sealing the warmth inside.
Outside, the street was hushed. It was a Sunday afternoon in January, just past three, that hour when daylight begins to thin and the world feels like it is holding still before night. Christmas trees lay at the curb, their needles stiff with frost, a few silver tinsel threads still clinging to the branches. A plastic snowman leaned sideways beside a recycling bin, smiling toward nothing. The season had ended, but its shadow lingered.
Eve adjusted her earbuds and began to run.
The first few steps were awkward, her legs heavy, shoes slapping lightly against the cold ground. The pavement was damp and dark, and the air bit at her throat until she found a rhythm. Her arms swung easily now. The sound of her breath settled into the music pulsing in her ears.
She ran past mailboxes and bare hedges, past windows glowing faintly gold. Her breath came in small clouds that trailed behind her. The chill in her chest softened as her body warmed.
It had been two winters since everything had changed, and one since the house had begun to sound like itself again. Last year had been full of whispers and waiting rooms and nights when the only light in the kitchen came from the microwave clock. Her father had stopped humming while he cooked, as if sound itself had been too fragile to trust.
Now the house had sound again. Her mom’s voice. The creak of the old floorboards. The hiss of the kettle.
The air cut colder as she turned onto the next block. The houses here were older, their driveways still patched with frost. She watched her shoes hit the ground in rhythm, one after another, until the rest of the world faded into blur and motion.
Her mind turned toward what came next.
There would be college applications soon. Her mom already kept a folder on the counter labeled Schools to Consider, the edges marked with colored tabs. Eve pictured walking across a campus in late autumn, brick buildings and turning leaves, her breath visible in the air. She would study something useful. Maybe medicine or business. Something with steps she could follow.
She imagined her life unfolding from there, one clear shape after another. A small apartment with plants on the windowsill and music drifting from the next room. A job that paid well enough to feel secure. Maybe a husband who cooked dinner while they discussed their days. Two children. A house with a porch light that always worked.
None of it felt like a fantasy. It felt orderly, possible, the way the world should be.
Her pace slowed as she turned the corner, lost in thought. Not thoughts of adventure or fame, but the kind of life that stayed still. The kind that didn’t disappear.
The wind shifted and caught her hair, brushing it against her cheek. She glanced up. The sky had softened to a blue-gray, the kind that came before early darkness in January. Streetlights were just beginning to hum to life.
She exhaled, breath clouding the air. Her body felt warm now, her lungs steady, her pulse strong.
Eve smiled to herself and kept running.
The air carried a faint sweetness, the smell of smoke and something almost metallic from a nearby chimney. Her shoes hit the pavement in a steady rhythm. She didn’t think about her pace anymore. Her body knew the rhythm.
Somewhere ahead, a voice rose suddenly through the quiet.
She glanced toward it, half expecting to see someone talking on the phone or calling a dog, but instead she saw a boy in a nearby yard, bundled in a sweatshirt and mittens, holding a football.
He took a few quick steps backward, laughter spilling from him as he called out to no one in particular.
“Drops back. Five seconds on the clock. He throws deep…”
He threw the ball high into the air. It spiraled against the fading light, arcing almost perfectly above him. The boy sprinted forward, eyes locked on it, his voice rising with the momentum of his own story.
“…dives for it… he catches it! Touchdown!”
He stumbled as he rose to his feet, nearly falling, but caught himself and threw both arms up in victory. His breath hung in the cold air, white and bright against the darkening sky.
Eve couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t just the silliness of it that struck her. It was the fact that he was about her age and still out there playing, talking to himself, caught in his own little world.
She couldn’t remember the last time someone her age looked that free, like they hadn’t noticed the invisible line everyone else had crossed.
Her music played on, but she barely heard it now.
As she passed the yard, she looked ahead again, letting the rhythm of her feet carry her forward. Behind her, his voice echoed one last time, muffled by the wind.
Then it was quiet again. Just the sound of her steps and the low hum of streetlights warming to life.
But something about his laughter stayed with her, faint and shapeless, a reminder that joy could still live out in the open like that.
Eve turned the next corner and kept running.
She slowed to a jog, then to a walk. The cold clung to her as she climbed her porch steps, each one creaking the way it always had. When she opened the door, warmth wrapped around her, the smell of garlic and rosemary, the faint hiss of something simmering on the stove.
Her father stood in the kitchen, stirring a pot. He hummed softly, the tune uneven but cheerful. For a moment, Eve just watched him. That sound, the one that had disappeared during the hardest months, filled the space again like it belonged there.
“Hey, you,” he said when he noticed her. “How was it out there?”
“Cold,” she said, unzipping her jacket. “But good.”
He nodded toward the hallway. “Your mom’s making tea if you want some.”
From the living room came the faint sound of her mom’s laughter again, still on the phone, still light. Eve smiled and slipped off her shoes, toes tingling as the warmth of the floor reached them.
Her father’s humming grew louder as he reached for a wooden spoon and tapped it against the side of the pot like a conductor finding rhythm. Eve leaned against the counter, closing her eyes for a moment.
The warmth in the room, the sound, the smell... it all felt like proof of something holding steady.
When she opened her eyes again, her mom was standing in the doorway, phone pressed to her shoulder, smiling.
“Dinner in ten,” she said.
Eve nodded. “Okay.”
Her mom’s smile lingered a moment longer before she went back to the living room.
Eve stayed where she was for a moment longer, looking out the window by the table at the soft light gathering on the street, the quiet house behind her alive with small sounds.
She took a slow breath and let it fill her completely before stepping away from the window, her father’s humming following her down the hall.
The evening settled into its ordinary rhythm.
Dinner was finished, the dishes cleaned, and the kitchen lights dimmed to a soft amber. The faint roar of the television carried from the living room, her dad watching the playoff game, talking to the screen like it could hear him.
Eve sat curled on the couch, her knees pulled up beneath a blanket, the glow of her phone bright against the dim room. Her thumb moved automatically, scrolling past one thing after another: a video of someone lip-syncing into a hairbrush, an argument in a comment section, an ad for a gadget that folded sandwiches into perfect triangles. None of it mattered. None of it stayed.
She wasn’t even really watching anymore; she was just moving. The sound of the game behind her blended with the noise from her feed, both of them full of voices saying everything and nothing at the same time.
Through the reflection on her screen, she noticed the faint shape of her mom outside.
The sliding door was cracked open, letting in a thin thread of cool air. Her mom sat on the deck with a blanket around her shoulders and a mug in her hands, her face lit gold by the porch light.
Eve scrolled again. Another pointless video. A dance. A dog barking at its own reflection.
Then something flickered at the edge of her vision. She looked up and saw a soft glimmer beyond the porch, a deer standing at the edge of the yard. Its breath rose in small, visible clouds. For a moment, it just stood there, watching the light. Then it turned and stepped quietly into the trees.
Her mom didn’t stir, only lifted her mug slightly, as if acknowledging it.
Eve looked down at her phone again, but the screen felt different, smaller, louder, hollow. Someone was filming themselves eating a spoonful of cinnamon and coughing for likes. A man with too-white teeth was trying to sell her a miracle vitamin.
She blinked, huffed, and locked the screen.
For a second, she just sat there, staring at the dark glass that reflected her mom’s silhouette outside. Then she set the phone on the coffee table, pushed back the blanket, and stood.
When she slid the door open, the air met her like a cool hand against her face, quiet, real, alive.
Her mom looked over, smiling. “Did you see the deer?”
“Yeah,” Eve said, stepping outside. “It was right at the fence.”
“I know,” her mom said. “I think it’s been coming by every few nights.” She lifted her mug slightly. “I was hoping it would stop long enough for me to thank it for visiting.”
Eve smiled and sat beside her, pulling her sleeves down over her hands. “What are you drinking?”
“Chamomile,” her mom said. Then, glancing toward the living room, “Who’s winning the game?”
Eve smirked. “Apparently not the team Dad wants.”
Her mom laughed softly. “I could tell by the groaning.”
They both looked out into the yard, quiet settling between them. The world beyond the porch was still and dark, the neighbor’s windows glowing faintly through the trees.
Her mom took another sip of tea. “It’s nice out here. Feels calm.”
“Yeah,” Eve said. “It does.”
Neither of them spoke again. The wind moved through the branches, light and cold, and for a moment the night felt perfectly balanced, sound inside, silence outside, everything in its place.
Then Eve noticed it, the first few flakes drifting through the porch light. Not heavy or sudden, just quiet, steady, unhurried.
Her mom tilted her head back to watch. “Would you look at that?”
Eve held out her hand. “I didn’t think it was supposed to snow tonight.”
“It wasn’t,” her mom said softly. “Guess it decided to surprise us.”
They watched as the snow gathered in the light, small flakes catching on the railing and melting into the wood. The air smelled faintly of cold and something clean.
Eve leaned back in her chair, the cold brushing her face, and exhaled. Her mom set her mug down and reached over, resting a hand on Eve’s arm.
They sat together in silence, the soft sound of snow filling the space between them.
The house had gone quiet.
The television was off, the lights low, the air warm and still.
Eve walked down the hall to her room, the floor cool beneath her feet. She left the door open, letting the faint sound of her parents’ laughter drift through from the living room. It rose and fell like music, easy, ordinary, alive.
She crossed to the window and looked outside. Snow drifted through the streetlight, soft and slow, catching the glow before disappearing into the dark.
For a long moment, she just stood there, her breath fogging the glass. Then she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the window. The chill met her skin, clear and grounding.
Behind her, the laughter carried through again, her father saying something, her mom’s voice following with a soft burst of laughter.
Eve smiled, eyes closed. For the first time in a long time, she let herself feel everything exactly as it was, the warmth, the quiet, the safety of this small, fragile world.
In the next town over, Nicolas sat on the edge of his bed, the light from his desk lamp spilling across a mess of notes and a half-open textbook. The lines blurred together in the yellow glow, sentences he’d read and reread until they stopped meaning anything.
He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and looked toward the window. The snow was falling again, slow and unhurried, turning the street below into a quiet watercolor.
He stood and crossed the room, shoulders heavy, staring out at the falling snow. His eyes were tired from trying to focus on words that refused to stay still. The pages might as well have been blank for how little they meant anymore.
He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling hard, then stepped closer to the window. For a few seconds he just watched, following the flakes as they passed through the streetlight. Then he leaned forward until his forehead touched the glass.
The chill bit gently at his skin, and for a moment, everything inside him went still. The words, the pressure, the noise, all of it faded until there was only this.
The cold pressing against his skin, the steady fall of snow, the sound of his breath.
A quiet that didn’t feel empty, but full.
He closed his eyes and stayed there, forehead against the glass, as if the world outside might slow down long enough for him to catch it.
The snow fell through both towns long after they’d gone to sleep, softening everything it touched. By morning, the roads would be different, the world covered in a thin new layer. Quiet proof that even when nothing seems to move, everything is still changing.