I stared lazily out the partially frost-covered window of my apartment. I could vaguely make out the shapes of children playing in the snow-filled street. For them, it was the perfect day. An FSN - Friday Snow Day.

And for me? I had too much time to think. About a thought I’d seemed to abandon the previous spring.

I am alone
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.

Seeing Sam had been horrible for me. I’d been perfectly happy with hating him, being angry with him for the incident in the paper and for not calling me and for not even letting me know he was okay after the shooting. My mind had been contented with thinking he was a jerk and that was the end of it.

But as I saw him, leaning nervously on the railing, a champagne flute in his hand…I realized I couldn’t do that, especially after I’d talked to him. This wasn’t some ogre, this was Sam, the uncomplicated, adorable, ingenious, slightly clumsy Sam. The Sam who worked long hours and was forced from me by my father and school vouchers, who I knew hated opera but had said he’d go with me anyway. This was the Sam who had argued with me over school vouchers when it turned out he agreed with me, the Sam who had a hard time distinguishing between things you share with a total stranger and who wanted to make a good impression on me even before he knew it was me.

This was the Sam I had thought I loved, only I’d grown unsure.

It had taken all my control to keep from kissing him, but I didn’t show it. I was cool and collected, and I told him not to worry about apologizing.

So why did I feel so empty?

I am a rock
I am an island.

I had learned the hard way to turn off my ability to trust. Call it too many failed relationships and back-stabbing “friends” in my past. So I was usually a loner and happy that way, very self-reliant and not too quick to jump into things with both feet. As my father said the President called it, I “dangled my feet” for a long while before an actual relationship. Especially when I sensed danger. Potential heartache in big neon writing.

And hence I’d gone along with the wedge my father had tried to push between Sam and me. I hadn’t fought it, I hadn’t rebelled against it, I hadn’t done any of that even though I could’ve and we both knew that.

I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and might.
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It’s laugher and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock.
I am an island.

My mind drifted back to the only actual date Sam and I had been on. We’d decided the others didn’t count as such, the time that a bunch of my friends brought their dates and Sam and I were there and the group of us went and hung out in a movie theater. Or the time Josh and Zoey and Charlie and Sam and I went to the bar.

At any rate, on the one real date, we’d gone to a nice dinner and then walking around the city at night. We’d both lived there several years, but between my usual solitude and disinterest and Sam’s long hours, neither of us had really ever done that before. And as we’d stood on the pathway, staring across the reflecting pool to the Washington Monument, I could’ve sworn he whispered “I love you” as he rested his chin on the top of my head.

And yet, as much as I had wanted to return the sentiment…I couldn’t. It kept coming back to that somehow.

Don’t talk of love,
I’ve heard the words before;
It’s sleeping in my memory.
And I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would’ve cried.
I am a rock
I am an island.

I was hiding, I realized as I stared at the snow drifting from the heavens. I could go see him, I could’ve said I loved him then when he’d said it, I didn’t always have to camp out in my apartment and wait for him to call first.

I knew instinctively I never would, though. I was too afraid of what might happen if I did…What if he laughed? Or worse yet, what if we DID go out, and I DID pursue a relationship with him and then something else happened? We seemed to me to be one of the most star-crossed couples in history. Aside from Romeo and Juliet or anything - I mean, neither of us would end up dead just because my father was trying to drive a wedge between us. Still, though. I stayed in my little cozy safe-haven which I’d designed for myself, devoid of anyone who could hurt me.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock
I am an island.

Sighing, I grabbed my coat and purse and headed out to the car. Destination: hardly unknown. Nope, more like a very large white building. After all, I was trying to make amends with the man I was in love with. Maybe in love with.

But that was a choice I’d have to take.

And a rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries…