***
The Compton family was staying at the Winter Hill hotel in Downtown Stockholm and took a short walk to Gamla Stan to go shopping. It sat in the center of the city’s biggest attractions. The sun was faintly visible and the sky was a pale white overshadowed by a few ominous clouds. The structure of the buildings consisted mainly of something close to a chapel painted in lambent colors of red and yellow that stood out to the heavy green garland that wrapped around them. Stony ice crunched from underneath Meredith’s boots as she quietly followed behind her two sisters while they discussed frivolous gossip. They entered Ahlens. The curvature of the roof gave a train station atmosphere and Meredith looked up to the skylight ceiling. She could see the snow lightly start to fall from outside and thought of something warm to heat her up. Meredith walked down the corridor of the mall in hopes of finding a coffee store. She came across a store and laughed at the name but when she looked inside, she found herself standing outside of the doors gawking at the clothing. She finally decided to step inside when someone brushed passed her too roughly without apologizing. This must’ve been the store that Payton was talking about. It had a long board workshop in the back, sunglasses and beanies in the middle, and the rest consisted of clothing. Meredith smiled. She was in the right place.
***
It was disgustingly cold outside. There was a faint sound of bells ringing in the distance along with Swedish musicals being played on violins that Gabrielle wished she didn’t know the words to. She tugged at the grey scarf that wrapped around her neck and increased her stride until the discordant sound was out of earshot. She blew out a small puff of frosty air as she counted the number of lights that hung on each street. She had spent the better part of Christmas day wrapped in her sheets nursing her excessive hangover with sleeping and lots of Advil. She hadn’t planned to take shots with her teammates the night before on an empty stomach but she was having fun and the more shots she took, the less she was painfully aware that she was spending the Eve of Christmas at a cocktail lounge with drunken women slurring Swedish expletives rather than a warm cozy home with her family. She hadn’t seen the light of day in almost a week and felt the need to attach herself to the world again before she completely fell off of it. Her teeth chattered and her cheeks flushed as the wind blew past her ears and seeped in her neck that her scarf was miserably failing to block out. The coffee shop was warm, the bell rung above Gabrielle’s head as she entered and the staff immediately greeted her with excited waves. The owners happened to be huge soccer fans and gave Gabrielle her first meal free the first time she visited. (They even ordered a cardboard cutout of her that stood at the front of the door for a while). Gabrielle replied with a tired smile before she scanned the area for a place she could rest her head and warm her hands. She rested her head on the window and soft cerulean eyes followed the flakes of snow as they fell down on the windowpane. Gabrielle began blinking heavily and thought she would soon fall asleep right in the coffee shop but her thoughts drifted away when her favorite barrister, Isak placed her flat white macchiato and croissant in front of her. She softly thanked him in her adopted language and watched the patterned swirl that the crème made until it fully disappeared. Gabrielle rested her elbow on the table and gently blew into her mug. She brought her lips to the cup and sipped carefully before continuing to stare outside the window settling into a pensive mood. It was days like these when Gabrielle didn’t feel like functioning as a human. She wanted be as careless as the snowflakes that fell from the sky and as free as the cumulous clouds that liberated them. She didn’t want to think about her upcoming game and if her performance would be up to par or if she would get into another fight. She didn’t want to agonize over her shattered love life that she was so desperately trying to piece back together or the fact that she was trying to do it from the other side of the world. It was all to unbearable to think about it and Gabrielle just wished she could escape it all. It was the quiet hum in the cafe and the slow traffic outside of it that relaxed Gabrielle’s thoughts. It was the way familiar smell of crushed beans and warm spirits in the air that made Gabrielle forget.
***
Gabrielle sat in the cafe and noticed time had passed when the pace of the store had slowed. It was 2:00 and there were more empty tables than full and the smell of fresh coffee had long gone and was replaced with stale bread. Gabrielle thought she had done enough thinking for one day and should return to the real world so she did her normal duty of leaving a tip for Isak and grabbed one last hot coffee to-go before waving goodbye and exiting back into the cold. She blew into the tip of her cup and decided to walk back home instead of taking the metro, giving herself time to continue her thoughts where she last left off. The snowflakes began to fall heavily and Gabrielle tightened her pea coat. She sipped on the piping hot coffee hoping it would warm her entire soul but the pestering snow kept falling. Gabrielle heard her heart beat
