We stood there for a long time. “I can hear an owl,” I whispered. “What’s that creaking?”

“It’s the ice on the lake,” He whispered back.

We stood there for another moment. “I can hear you breathing.”

He laughed quietly.

“It’s like I can hear the air. It’s like I can almost hear the cold buzzing in my ears.”

“Good. Now I want you to open your eyes and look up, but remember that it’s just you and me…just us…”

I opened my eyes. The sky above us was unbelievably beautiful, filled with millions of stars. In the middle of it all, right above us, was the largest, silver moon I had ever seen. Without thinking about what I was doing, I lifted my arm and reached out to touch it.

“This is what it means to be alive, Silvia,” Oliver whispered into my ear, “The cold on your skin, the owls hooting and the ice creaking. That mind blowing black sky with a zillion sparkles in it. That big old moon in the middle shining down…that’s what it is to be alive. All of that and you and me and the rest just doesn’t matter.”

I turned. As beautiful as it was, all I wanted was to see was his face.

He took my hands in his and warmed them with his breath, then put them against his chest, “I love you, Silvia. I have always loved you. I loved you before forever began and I’ll love you still after forever ends.”

“I love you, too, Oliver. I always have.”

“Then come back to me?” His voice was as soft as his eyes, “Stay with me this time? I miss you when you go.”

I buried my face into his shirt, “I’ll stay with you for always if you’ll keep me.”

“Ah, Silly Sil,” He massaged the back of my head with his fingers, “I’ll keep you for always and then some.”

We stood in each other’s arms looking up at the sky for a long time.

“Silvia?”

“Yes?”

“I can’t feel my toes.”

“Me either. Let’s go inside.”

“One promise first?” He stared down into my eyes.

“Anything.”

“It’s Friday night,” He said gently, “Everybody’s in a good mood. Promise me no books until Sunday. Sit around with me. Let me have my Sil back.”

“That sounds like the most wonderful idea ever.”

We walked back to the school hand in hand. As we entered, Headmistress Pennyweather was passing through the hall with a pile of file folders in her arms. “Good evening,” She smiled and nodded her head at us, “The opinion of most from the seventh year common room is that you would make a fine caveman, Mister Dickinson, carrying your best girl off on your back out into the snow. I hope that the cold air has brought you back to your senses.”

“Yes, ma’am. Both of us it has.” He replied.

She gave him a look that said she was amused, but he needed to watch his step. “I am glad to see you made it back by the curfew bell. You two should return to your common room. The other Mister Dickinson has pilfered a large beach ball from the gymnasium and Merlyn Pierce has managed to wire a portable karaoke machine up to a loud speaker. There is…pardon me for using a phrase I am far too old to be using…a party banging up in the house.”

“Bloody excellent!” Oliver exclaimed with a grin that would have taken any woman off her feet.

Headmistress Pennyweather’s catlike eyes moved from Oliver to me. She continued to smile pleasantly as she shifted the files in her arms, “I really must go. Please inform Mister Pierce that that tampering with school property is a punishable offence. I am very busy, however, and I might forget that he did it at all if the loudspeaker is fully functional in the morning. We do have amplifiers in the music room that may be used with permission from Professor Adkins, for future reference. As well, Mister Dickinson,” Her eyes flashed back to Oliver before she turned on her heel to leave, “Tell your brother to return the ball in the morning and that I want the painting he made on the inside of his cubboard door removed tonight. He’s quite a clever artist, but it cannot remain. If word of it got out he was creating new depictions of professors he could wind up in detentions again. I am certain you didn’t have anything to do with it yourself.”

“I’ll be sure to tell him,” Oliver gave her a wave, admitting nothing, “Have a good evening, Headmistress.”

“See you two at breakfast,” She sang as she strolled away.

Oliver had been right. Sitting around our common room laughing hysterically at our fellow seventh years belting out karaoke was all the medicine I needed to sort out my priorities. Well, that and shamelessly snogging him on the couch in front of the entire student body. The highlight of the evening was when Alexander, Nina Jacoby and Deidre McDaniel, did a searing rendition of Doctor and the Medics “Spirit in the Sky”, complete with Alexander “going on up” by climbing the tapestry. Later, accompanied by Merlyn and Lance, they danced the entire dance from the Cure’s Why Can’t I Be You? video while Ian Phelps sang it. Quite well, too. When the final bell rang at a quarter to midnight signalling us all that it was time to return to our dorm rooms, Oliver and I were the last to leave. He reluctantly walked me to the entrance of the girl’s dormitory and gave me one last lingering kiss on the lips.

“I love you, Sil.” He held me close like he didn’t want to let go.

It was the second time he’d said it. I didn’t think I could ever hear it enough. “I love you.”

“Good night,” He took a step backward, “I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“Sausages and eggs,” I named his favourite morning foods.

“And bacon and toast,” He named mine.

“See you then, Sweetheart.”

“See you then,” He didn’t leave. The midnight bell rang.

“Run, Oliver! You’ll get detention if you get caught in the halls after twelve!” I opened the door and stepped through the threshold. “Leg it! Go!”

“I love you!” He hissed, spinning on his toes and taking off at a sprint.

“I love you, too!” I hissed back, but I was sure he did not hear me. He was already down the hall and around the corner, his long legs moving him to his own dormitory as quickly as they could take him.

There wasn’t anything after that night that could have possibly made me sad. I had what I had always wanted. I had someone who loved me and someone whom I could love the same in return. Oliver and I had no fear of each other. The whole, ugly world drained away around us until there was nothing left but him and me and whatever it was we were laughing about at the moment. We had heaven in each other.

I still worked hard for that scholarship. I still studied and sometimes I got a stressed, but I knew in the end it didn’t really matter. No matter what happened, no matter where we ended up, he and I would be together. It was really the only thing that mattered to me.

Almost through our final term of school that year, spring break came around. Oliver and Alexander had set up a camping and fishing trip for the two of them at the cabin their father had inherited from their late Grandfather. It was actually a decoy so that Alex could have a rendezvous with Meredith at her uncle’s cottage in Chipping Norton while the uncle was on holiday. Meredith and I conspired to tell my father that she needed me to stay with her to house sit. He agreed, as I knew he would, never asking a question other than the address. Hence, Alexander and Meredith were free to have their affair and Oliver and I were on our own for nearly two weeks.

Ollie and Alex said they needed a night to get the cabin in order, so the two of them headed out of Bennington with their mother and I left off with Meredith that Friday evening for her uncle’s cottage. I had never spent any real time alone with her other than in the corridors at school and I was not sure how we were going to get on, but the truth was once we got out of the confines of Bennington and her guard was down, she was really quite charming. I could see why Alexander liked her. She was funny in a sort of childish way and had keen, if not a bit rose tinted, insight into the world. Her uncle had stocked the ice box, so she and I prepared a buffet of expensive foods and spread it out in the sitting room. She changed into her pyjamas before it was even dark and brought blankets in. We sat and talked most of the night. Or, rather, she talked and I listened.