The snowfall hadn’t stopped yet. It Kept watering the earth from the heaven, making it bear and sprout, furnishing every seed to the sower and bread to the eater. The flakes themselves were sparkling like a million little suns as they were dancing flawlessly from above and overwhelming the empty air like a flood. Jessica stared at the sky and lifted her arm, welcoming the descended snowflakes that lay helplessly into her open palms and few seconds after, they melted and sank into her bare skins and vanished without leaving any single trace. She silently watched as the creation quickly withered and passed away, amused by its short-living. Her heart pounded as she thought of the phenomenon and trembled within her.

Just like a snow flake, the heart was also a fragile creation. As fragile as a glass, dropped once and broken forever and it’s pretty hard to put it back together again. And as fragile as a butterfly, which all you had to do was bruise the wings and it could no longer fly.

And Jessica knew about it. Knew everything about its foreseeable danger. And that’s why, throughout her life she protected it so vigorously from her potential suitors who could potentially break her heart and was careful enough of whom she let in it. Her defense walls were very high and strong, perhaps could be much stronger than the security at the supermax prison and thicker than any concrete slabs with metal shutters could seal a gate. As far as she could remember, no one had she freely allowed to unlock it and even more impossible, to walk in it. Clean record. No one…

Or so Jessica thought.

Until he came.

Uninvited, unplanned and unexpected.

Like a rushing wind that blew where it wanted to and you heard its sound. You didn’t know where it came from or where it went. Like an uninvited guest who nobody knew when he would come into your house.

Everything was just happened so suddenly. How Jessica really hated it.

Hated it when she could not even prepare for this possibility. Hated it how she could only do nothing but to be overwhelmed with this foreign feeling she didn’t plan to have.

Hated it when he smiled at Jessica, because she would be flushed instantly every time she saw him and how she wished she could’ve stopped the time.

Hated it when he held Jessica’s hand, because her heart would start to be so fast and her whole body was quivering.

Hated it when he talked at Jessica, because his husky voice would make her crazy every time she heard it.

Jessica truly hated it, because she hopelessly couldn’t deny it that her heart had already been beating towards him.

How Jessica hated it, because she couldn’t ignore for the fact that she found herself in the power and mystery of the thing called…

Love.

Love. Jessica heaved a heavy sigh. How inexperienced she was with this. What should I suppose to do with it? The closest thing she could really grasp about the term was what she had found and learnt from Disney movies. True love kiss. Happily ever after. The prince who rescued the princess. Jessica couldn’t feel dumber and more insane to think more about it. At this moment, Jessica had to be honest that she was a little bit regretful for not asking any love or relationship tips from Tiffany at all. And now the love expert was nowhere to be found and she was currently caught up in the middle of it… what could she really do about it?

Jessica took a glimpse of the guy who’s walking beside her as they were approaching near the downtown. She and Yul didn’t really talk much after the incident and their walking journey was mostly engulfed in an uncomfortable silence. There were only two occurrences where Yul had asked,’Are you tired?’ and ‘Are you cold’, but it was devoid of any emotion. And when Jessica really wanted to reply with at least, lengthy answer to ease their awkwardness, she hesitated. Jessica was afraid that the situation would’ve just gotten worse and intensified to further level. She certainly didn’t wish it would have happened.

As her eyes were travelling down from his face then to his arms, and finally to his hands, she immediately felt a burning stir inside of the deepest pits of her heart. How she already missed to hold his hands again just to see how perfectly his hand fitted in with hers, like it was made just for her. Missed to feel her dainty fingers captured by his warm and rough fingers that somehow made her feeling safe and secured. How my heart was at home when my holding was holding yours.

And I didn’t want to let it go.

Jessica absolutely had no idea how could she was wildly attracted to someone and it’s driving her insane. Terribly insane.

*******************

They walked for a little over ten minutes before finally reached the city’s entrance. The last of the afternoon sky was already dissipating into the horizon as they flashed their last blinking in the soon to be dusk. Jessica was entirely exhausted. Physically, because of the amount of energy she had to spend in the walking journey and mentally, because of one sort of guy who’s consuming her heart, mind and strength.

As they were strolling the little town, Jessica couldn’t help but to be captivated by its picturesque view and her tiredness just simply left her in an instant. There was beautiful abbey, historic almshouses, medieval streets, several historical castles and also a small frozen river flew through the city and people could walk along its bank. The streets around were also elegant with rows of antique shops, teahouses and grand classic-architecture buildings, which gave the town a delightfully old-fashioned feel. It’s even more special that she didn’t walk alone on the street, but to be accompanied by someone who specially walked into her life and made her realized what it meant to walk together, every step of the way and treasured the road beneath a snow sky that was like a wide sheet of grate-grey. Yet it was also bittersweet at the same time, that it was even harder to delete these memories when they finally came back to Melbourne City.

That’s another reason why…I simply could never let you go.

‘Look, we finally find the car rental!’ Yul pointed to the road towards the old house and instantly, her mind snapped back into the reality. The car rental looked like a repair shop with a garage attached to it. Mixture of rusty and second-hand cars were everywhere and the sign was dirty white.

‘Hello?’ Yul called out. Jessica’s eyes turned to the doors at the corner of the room. Linen sofas were placed in a haphazard way with small coffee table and stacked of newspapers. The front desk was just a small square table with a silver-colored bell on top of it.

‘Oh, hello there!’

A middle-age white man, who’s probably in his 50s came lumbering in holding a rectangular shape of toolbox.

‘Ahh, who do we have here? Young hot couple in their honeymoon looking for a car?’ The man grinned widely, making the stubble over his lips wriggled and revealing few missing teeth.

Jessica almost got a hear-attack hearing what the Mr. Miss