“Your hands are cold,” He tells me, cupping my fingers in his. “Here, you have to breathe on them to warm them up.”

He brings my hands up to his face and blows on them aggressively, flecks of spit and hot air landing on my palms. I snatch my hands away, wiping them on his jacket.

“You’re so disgusting.” I want to be angry, but I can’t stop the smile from creeping into my face.

“Come on, I’m just trying to keep you warm.” He’s grinning, the cheeky little smirk he knows will get him out of trouble. “Besides, it’s not like you don’t do the same to yourself. My spit, your spit, what’s the difference, anyway? We’re all human, after all.”

“The difference is that I brushed my teeth this morning, and I can never truly know if you did.”

His lips turn down in a mock frown, an exaggerated guilty expression, and his shoulders hike up.

“Wait. Did you actually not brush your teeth this morning?!”

“I ran out of toothpaste!”

“You are so fucking disgusting!”

I smack his lap with my purse, but my mostly numb fingers slip off the handle, and my knockoff coach bag goes flying onto the sidewalk in front of the bench, scattering the insides of my bag all over the wet concrete.

My sides hurt with laughter as I’m rocking back and forth on the metal park bench. Toby’s eyes are laughing, laughing so hard, I can tell. But he contains it somehow, and instead of laughing next to me he gets up and begins to pick up all the contents of my purse.

“Can I eat this last piece of gum?” He sits back down next me, handing me my bag.

“Please do. And buy some toothpaste.”

He turns to me and grins, his brown eyes staring into mine. It feels like he can see through my soul.

I turn away, suddenly nervous, for reasons I can’t explain. Ahead of me is a beautiful scene, a fall wonder, if you will. The red and yellow leaves on the trees rustle in the light drizzle, the smell of damp ground in the air. A cold breeze passes by, making me shiver through my sweater.

Toby sighs next to me, a deep and content sound, and it feels like a calm blanket has settled over the both of us.

Slowly, my nose gets colder and colder, the chill crawling up my toes and fingers.

“Willow?”

“Hm.”

A long pause. What could he possibly want to tell me? What could he possibly want me to know?

“You’re pretty cold.”

She slowly turns her head to face me, and her green eyes bore through my head, an incredulous look on her face.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

I laugh. She looks so mad, the way she’s furrowing her brow and staring at me. She looks mad, because she wants so badly to be mad, but I can tell she’s holding back her laughter.

I scoot closer to her, putting my arm around her shoulders and rubbing her arm. She tenses for a second, and then relaxes again, resting her head on my shoulder.

Fireworks explode in my chest, sharp and minty, like the gum in my mouth. She smells like oranges and chocolate, fresh and warm at the same time. It’s not like we haven’t hugged before; we’ve known each other forever. But this time feels different.

“Willow?”

“What is it this time?”

“You ever think about how everyone is a mosaic of every single person they’ve met before?”

She sighs, an exasperated sound, and pulls away from our embrace to face me. It feels colder than it did before.

“I know for a fact that that’s not an original thought.” She says, lifting one eyebrow. “I’ve read it in a poetry book before.”

I want to be serious, to be poetic and mysterious, but I can’t help it. I’m smiling again. She always makes me smile.

“Humor me, will you?”

“Sure, mister performative. Go ahead.”

“As I was saying, I’m a mosaic of every person I’ve ever met. My mom and dad hold bigger parts, while the stranger’s glass shards are smaller, but still significant.”

He’s looking at me now, Toby. His warm hand lands on my freezing one, but he doesn’t flinch from the cold. He squeezes it, hard, and doesn’t let go.

“Your presence paints the biggest picture. All the important pieces, they have you in it. You’re so, so important to me Willow.”

He blinks, no more smile in his eyes, only fear lingers there now. I look down at our hands, his awkwardly engulfing mine. I let go, and I look straight into his eyes, nothing in me nervous anymore.

“You little bitch,”

His eyebrows furrow.

“You’re in love with me!”

I grin, wide and true, and I see the worry melt from his face.

He knows my answer. I know he does. He can see it in my eyes, in my smile, in the way my shoulders are hiking up.

His chuckles turn into a roar of laughter, gripping his sides, his lungs overfilling with the cold brisk air.

My heart is full of joy, too, as I laugh with him, laughing so hard tears squeeze out of my eyes.

Two people, mosaics of each other, are sitting on a bench, both of them laughing so hard that all they could do was cry.