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Moritz shivered and pulled his jacket tighter around him as he watched his breath come out in visible puffs. He rubbed his arms, trying to generate heat. His school uniform wasn’t the warmest, especially for this midwinter weather, but for the first time he was thankful for the jacket that seemed to be a size or two too big for him. The size normally bothered him, but now it was keeping the creeping cold at bay.
As he walked along the cold streets of his town, he realized that he’d never seen it this quiet. Usually there were kids playing in the street, vendors in the market, people bustling about shops. Now it was just him and the snow crunching below his feet, the only source of light the occasional street lamp that was still glowing in the darkness. The silence made it feel like this was almost some kind of dream.
An involuntary shiver went through him and he stopped, looking up at the street light a few feet away, just watching the sparse snowflakes as they fell. What was he doing out here, other than trying to catch hypothermia? He should be going home. He should have gone home a long time ago. After he’d left Ilse’s house, he kind of just… kept walking in the woods for awhile, at least until he ended up here. The thought of going home had just been too much for him to bear after an afternoon that he’d almost call happy. He and his friends barely saw each other any more, but there were rare moments that they could still steal away in the afternoons. He’d wished that it could have lasted forever, but his friends all had homes to return to. Parents who didn’t pride themselves on beating their kid into the version of the person they wanted him to be.
As he started walking again, he rubbed his wrist where his most recent bruises were. They didn’t sting like they had when they were fresh, but they were still a painful reminder of his father’s expectations that he could never meet, no matter how hard he tried. Even after so many sleepless nights of trying to study, trying to be better, he couldn’t be enough. It wasn’t effort that his father wanted, it was success, something Moritz strived for but that was always just out of reach and he didn’t know how to change that.
Was it his fault that the teachers just got angry with him when he asked for help? Was it his fault that he couldn’t understand, no matter how hard he tried? Melchi tried to help, but he was more concerned about hating the system than helping his friend. “Passing isn’t going to make it better, Moritz. Nothing will change, anyway.” It was so easy for Melchior. His parents might not understand him, but they allowed him to question, to exist, to...be. Moritz had never been able to exist without requirements.
As his feet started to go numb with cold, he realized that he should be heading home. At least it was warm there. He just couldn’t bring himself to turn around, make the long trek home and have his father yell at him tonight. Maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad if he froze to death out here. Would anyone even find him in the morning, or would it take longer? How long until someone noticed his absence at school? He’d like to think Melchi would, but sometimes he wondered if Melchi only noticed him when he benefitted from doing so.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and choked back his tears. He didn’t know if it was cold enough for them to freeze, but he didn’t want to test it.
As he continued on his aimless path, he wondered what he was even doing out here. He knew he had to return home eventually -- by now he was just prolonging the inevitable. The inevitable screaming, inevitable bruises that he’d have to hide or make up excuses for.
The snow started coming down harder, and he felt the anxiety twist in his gut as reality hit him: he had to find cover or go home. He bit his lip and ducked into an alley between two shops whose roofs almost met, only a sliver of sky and snow slipping through. As he approached the back of the alley, he realized he wasn’t alone. A small figure, curled into itself and shivering, was sitting with its back pressed up against the shop on the right.
She was familiar -- he hadn’t seen her much since they’d started going to different schools, but it was her all the same. Her dark hair was in braids, done tightly and falling forward over her arms, which were looped around her legs, her face buried into her knees. She was wearing a long sleeved dress, but it looked more like something she’d sleep in than wear out in this cold. What was she doing out here like this?
“M-Martha?” he said, his voice breaking the silence that was all he’d heard for the past few hours. It came out louder than he’d expected, and Martha jerked away from him and started scooting back down the alley before she recognized him.
She squinted in confusion and looked up at him as if he was the last person she’d expected it to be. She studied his freezing figure, noting that he was still in his school uniform, his satchel draped over his shoulder and his usual unkempt nature. Then, she looked up and met his eyes.
“Moritz? What are you doing here?”
“Uh…” he chuckled dryly, searching for an answer. What was he doing out here?
“Avoiding home?” he offered with a half shrug, hoping it was a good enough answer and she would trust him enough to share the alley with him.
Her demeanor softened, less defensive than it had been before, and she leaned back up against the wall. She patted the concrete and snow next to her and said, “Me too.”
As he sat, he took off the satchel that had been weighing heavy on his shoulder as he’d walked and sat it on his other side. He pulled his knees up close to his chest and looked at Martha, resting the side of his head on his knees. She was shivering and covered in snow -- he couldn’t believe she wasn’t freezing.
She moved suddenly, her hand moving toward his face and he flinched until he realized she was only brushing out the flakes of snow that had landed in his hair before he came into the alley. She seemed to have notice his sudden movement and dropped her hand to her side. “I’m sorry…”
He shook his head. “No… it -- it’s okay. I didn’t mind.”
“Is it okay if I…” she motioned back towards his hair, pieces of which had been left sticking up more than they normally did.
He nodded and closed his eyes as she ran her fingers through his hair, knocking out the snow and fixing it so it would lie down, at least as much as normal. He knew people liked to touch his hair -- it was fluffy and soft, who wouldn’t? He usually didn’t mind it if they asked first. He felt tears well up in his eyes at Martha’s touch -- her fingers were delicate, soft, like she was nervous that she’d hurt him. It was such a stark contrast to his father’s -- rough and forceful, not caring about whether he hurt Moritz or not. It had been so long since someone had touched him with intent to comfort -- he felt a tear fall into the fabric of his pants and buried his face into his knees.
This movement made Martha stop hesitantly, then lay her hand on his shoulder. Her warmth made him shiver and they sat there for a few moments in the silence and the cold before he looked up at her.
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked and she looked down hesitantly and shrugged.
“A little,” she confessed.
Moritz began to struggle out of his jacket and Martha shook her head.
“No, don’t. Surely you’re cold, too?”
Moritz shook his head and gave a small smile. “I’ll be all right.”
He pulled his arms out of the jacket and threw it over Martha’s shoulders. She pushed her arms through the sleeves and leaned back against the wall again, shivering less now. The body heat left in the jacket warmed her up quickly and, though it was nothing like a blanket or a fire, it was better than before.
Moritz was left in his long sleeved button up that was part of his uniform. The absence of the jacket made the chill of the wind stronger, but Martha’s warmth was more important to him than his own. He watched as she leaned back and he curled up tighter on himself, trying to keep himself from freezing.
“Why don’t you want to go home?” she finally asked him as she stared up at the snow falling down between the cracks of the roofs. After she finished, she looked over at him to study his face for his response.
He was now staring at the opposite wall with his chin resting on his knees. He looked down at the ground, at the snow and swallowed hard. He didn’t know what to say. The truth was just sad, a sad secret he never shared with anyone. But Martha had her reasons for being out here too, right? Surely they weren’t happy reasons. Nobody sits in the freezing snow for hours because they want to.
Hesitantly, slowly, Moritz unbuttoned his sleeve and pulled it down to reveal the dark blue bruise ringed around his wrist from where his father grabbed him hard and yanked him across the house to his room. Martha covered her mouth with her hand and he reached back behind his head to pull his collar down and leaned over so she could see under it. What she saw was a series of green and blue bruises that started across the right part of his neck and wrapped down to his back where his father had beaten him with a belt.
He let his collar fall back into place and buttoned his sleeve back up, refusing to look Martha in the eye. He didn’t know what she was going to say about it and didn’t know if he wanted to. Maybe he shouldn’t have told her -- after all, he was unloading a lot onto this girl he hadn’t spoken to in so long.
“Moritz… I’m sorry.” Martha’s voice sounded small and worried. He immediately regretting showing her. It wasn’t her burden to bare and he didn’t want her pity.
So he shrugged and looked down at the ground. “It’s no big deal...really. I get by.”
Martha laughed humorlessly. “Is that why you’re out here freezing instead of at home?”
He looked at her, confused for a moment and then chuckled. “I… guess you’re right…”
Martha put her hand on Moritz’s shoulder and squeezed comfortingly, then she pulled the sleeve of his jacket down to reveal a whelp on her lower arm. He grabbed her arm gingerly and studied the bruise, purple and dark. He ran his fingers tenderly over it and looked up at her. She was just looking back at him, pain showing in her eyes.
Pain that he knew all too well. He took a deep breath and let go of her arm, not knowing what to say. What words could he give her when he didn’t even know the words he wanted to hear? ‘Sorry’ wasn’t enough… it was pity, an apology from someone who didn’t do anything wrong. He couldn’t fix it for her and she couldn’t fix it for him. The two sat in silence, each searching for the words to comfort the other.
By now, the snow had stopped again and they were sitting in almost pitch black as the streetlights had been turned off. The only sensations they felt were anxiety and the cold. When she noticed Moritz’s shivering, Martha scooted closer to him, closing the space between them. The heat seemed to radiate off her body and comforted him more than words ever could.
He reached over and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close and she wrapped her arms around his torso. They clung to each other for heat, for comfort, for … something that wasn’t the crippling isolation they both felt. They might not have spoken in such a long time but they both recognized each other in a way they never had before.
Before he realized it, Moritz was crying silent tears, which stung his cheeks in the cold. He felt Martha squeeze him tightly and shiver against him.
“You know… it’s not forever,” he said softly.
“What do you mean?”
He let go of her with one hand and wiped his tears away. “I mean someday we’re going to get away from them. We’re going to get out… we’ll be okay.”
Martha was silent, so Moritz continued. “We’ll go to some big city somewhere and spend the nights walking through the streets. It will be summer then. We’ll stay out until the sun sets and we’ll pick flowers.”
“You really think so?” Martha said finally, glancing up at him.
Moritz looked above them and nodded firmly, “We have to.”
The two of them sat like that, embracing each other for warmth and the comfort they both so desperately needed, talking until late into the night, and eventually they each dozed off into a contented sleep.