White Out

Months went by, and life continued as normal. Catherine and I proudly wore our engagement rings for the world to see, continuing to make plans and saving up.  But she still avoided forests (and any wooded area) and playgrounds like the plague with no real reason.

Sometimes Catherine would not return home for long hours after her shift at work without explaination, and Mr. Moore called more than once to see if she was with me or anyone else, as he could not reach Catherine by phone. But each time she would come home as if nothing happened, confused as to why we were all nervous. She told us that we had absolutely nothing to worry about. One thing you should know about Catherine: she never lied. Ever. So we all believed her.

One cold night we decided to go somewhere nice to eat, since we thought that it would be good to get out of our respective houses. We decided on a new German restaurant that opened up near us.

An old woman, so old we thought she would fall apart at any second, gently grabbed Catherine's sleeve and asked politely if she could have a sip of water. The poor woman was without any money, and she had been thirsty all day. With a smile Catherine gave her the entire water bottle. She drank it down in what seemed like a single gulp. The old woman tossed the bottle into the nearest garbage can and thanked my fiance many, many times as she hobbled away. We never saw that woman again.

That Christmas my family came over to our house to celebrate. Nothing unusual happened at all that night, but I did see Catherine look through the windows once or twice. My gift to her that year was a purple floral headband, her gift to me was a necklace.

The day after a heavy blizzard came in and covered our world with pure white. That was pretty much the sign that the time had come for an epic snowball fight. The roads, however, were far too dangerous for any of my friends to come by, so I instead played with my brother. He won, in case you were wondering.

Later in the week, Catherine texted me to go take a walk with her in the snow, which I of course agreed to. As we walked down the street, we talked about where she had been and what she had been doing. Catherine confessed that she had been looking for an apartment for us to rent out and had been doing research on where we could go for our honeymoon. It was supposed to be a surprise, she said.

That still doesn't explain why she hated forests and playgrounds. And not soon after our walk she began to dislike snow. No matter how much I tried to get her to open up and talk to me about these new fears, she refused. Even when I told her that I wouldn't judge or make rash assumptions. Catherine's parents, when they questioned her, had the same amount of luck as I did.  I don't know what else I could've done to ease her fears. If she was nervous about the upcoming wedding, she never said anything. Catherine was never the one to hold feelings in.