Alyssa firmly held the phone in her hands, shouting into it. “Hello?” she asked, “answer me.”

It was now the next day, and she was alone in the vast expanse of her vacant mansion. Elizabeth and Morrigan had left for preparations together, and both Juro and Bruno would join them later tonight.

She could hear the harsh chatter of voices and clanging glass on the other end of the phone call. “Mom, I know you’re there. Hello?”

The mumbling voices continued their ghastly conversation until one sounded over them. “Yes, Alyssa. Don’t forget to show up tomorrow. I’m busy right now.”

“Mom, I’m going to bring some additional guests from school, okay?”

The grating silence of angry glasses clinking answered a frustrated Alyssa. “Hello? Mom, please just answer.”

She could hear her mom’s barely audible laughing as she cheerfully joked with someone.

“Mom, please. I’m serious.”

Alyssa waited for a few extra moments, breathless in both anticipation and indignation, until she heard a click followed by taunting silence.

She voidly blinked at the phone as she brought it down in front of her. She hung up.

Alyssa placed the phone down and walked over to her bedroom window, looking outside. Powdered snow kissed the barren winter ground, and the never ending hills of white made it seem like this winter would drag on forever; it was suffocating.

But, Alyssa loved the snow so much she didn’t know what to do.

She walked into her bathroom while ignoring the torn papers that lurked in the trash can under her desk. She turned on the faucet, wading her hand in the comforting water as it gently climbed the sleek walls of the bathtub. Lighting some vanilla candles, the affable scent reminded her of the winter evening she spent with Bruno.

After they had met that first time in the music room, Alyssa made it a habit to stop by every lunch — if anything, it became their little secret that made winter more bearable.

“Why are you in here every lunch,” Alyssa asked, resting her head on her arms while watching him practice. “Do you not have any friends?”

“Huh?” Bruno said, startled. “I mean, no, but I like spending time by myself. I don’t really fit in with the people here.”

Alyssa’s heavenly laughter was a harmonic tune in the room that Bruno could never replicate in his pieces. “I like it more this way. It’s convenient for me.” Her curious eyes met him just above where they rested on her arms.

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“Why are you spending time here now, too? You have tons of friends,” Bruno replied, genuinely curious.

“Me?,” Alyssa said, pointing at herself. “No, they’re not my friends. We don’t really know each other very well.” Before Bruno could continue probing her, she continued, “you’re doing pretty well alone. I’m surprised, though, that you don’t really have friends. You’re pretty cute.”

Alyssa laughed while Bruno began to aggressively play piano to tune her out. She hummed alongside his playing, and her melodic voice gave a brand new, magical tone to his playing even though she simply sang random notes.

That’s when their secret relationship began.

Until they were in the school hallways. Alyssa wouldn’t even risk a fleeting glance at Bruno as he walked down the hallway alone, even though he would occasionally risk a glance at her.

At home, Alyssa’s father was cold and distant, and her mother was very stern. Her mother cried and cried and cried while Alyssa tried to wipe away her suffocating tears. For days, she’d cry about their legacy and bills and stress and work, and one day, Alyssa would stop crying.

The last time she’d cry was when Bruno found her in the music room alone.

The bathtub was half way full now with steaming hot water. Alyssa turned the water to the coldest setting and got in, flinching at how the hot water seared her skin before the cold numbed it. Because pain in the body calmed pain in the mind.

When Bruno found her in the music room that day, a single tear had rolled down her cheek and the open window blew her black hair around her angelically. Bruno froze before pretending to look through his books as if he never saw her, rushing out. Alyssa burst out into laughter.

“How do you have no friends when you’re so funny? God, you have me crying tears of laughter now,” she wiped off the single tear and got off the windowsill.

“I’m sorry I burst in. I’ll leave you here and find another room.”

“No, please,” she said, almost desperately. “Stay here. It’s better this way.”

Bruno rubbed his arm nervously, looking to the bottom left to avoid her eyes. “Why are you crying? Are you okay?”

Alyssa flashed a reassuring smile. “I’m fine. I’m just crying, because I feel so much — sadness that winter break will be starting soon.”

Bruno blinked rapidly at her. “That’s a silly reason to cry.”

“I won’t be able to listen to you play anymore in this room, though. And, I really do hate winter. It feels like warmth will never return, and I’m exhausted waiting for it to come back to me. I want to end it.” The tone Alyssa said it in made Bruno look at her puzzledly, as if he couldn’t piece together whatever eloquent statement she just made.

“Well, you can come to music classes with me. My teacher would love to have you, even if it’s just temporary,” Bruno insisted excitedly. Even though he had been confused by the sudden start of their friendship, if he could even call it that, he began to look forward to their lunch meetings everyday, despite their short-lived nature.

“I don’t know if my mom would let me. She’s pretty strict about these things…”

“Oh, come on! You can tell her you’re studying at the library or something, okay? Let’s go out tomorrow morning, and maybe we’ll miss the snow. Then, it won’t feel so cold and dreadful for you.”

“Alright, deal,” Alyssa said, handing Bruno her phone.

Bruno took it and stared at it for a moment, looking at his reflection on the screen. “Do I have something in my teeth?”

Alyssa laughed again, and Bruno flushed, not sure what he did. “No stupid, your number. So I can call you.”

“Oh, I don't have a phone,” Bruno replied, embarrassed. “I can give you my teacher’s address though, and I can meet you there.

Alyssa’s face quickly flushed with shame. “I’m so sorry, that was insanely insensitive of me. Yeah, that works.”

Bruno wrote the address on a card and handed it to her before leaving with a friendly wave. Looking down at the card, Alyssa knew that if she went, she couldn’t keep going.

Now fully submerged in the bathtub, Alyssa took one big breath before plunging her head under the water's ghastly dissonance, and blew all the air out of her lungs.