The Weight of the Falling Snow

The clock read 2:17 AM. Not that it mattered. Time had stopped for Arthur hours ago, stuck in a thick, silent amber. He stood by the living room window, a mug of cold coffee forgotten on the sill, watching the snow fall. Big, heavy flakes, like torn bits of cotton, drifting down in an impossible hush. They piled on the branches of the ancient oak outside, mounding on the fence line, swallowing the porch swing whole. Everything disappeared under it, erased. The world outside his window was a clean, white lie.

The silence was the real killer. It wasn't just quiet; it was a physical thing, pressing in on his ears, making his own heartbeat sound like a drum solo. Every creak of the old house, every shift in his weight on the floorboards, felt like an explosion. In that kind of quiet, your own thoughts get loud. Too loud. They claw at the back of your skull, demanding attention, bringing up things you swore you’d buried deeper than any snowdrift.

He’d been trying to outrun it for years, that particular thought. Kept himself busy, too busy to think. Worked too much, drank too much, laughed too loud at Mark’s terrible jokes. Mark, his best friend. His oldest friend. The kind of friend who’d give you the shirt off his back, then lend you the spare twenty he found in the pocket. The kind of friend Arthur hadn’t deserved then, and sure as hell didn’t deserve now.

It was Mark's face that came to him first, not Sarah’s. Mark’s wide, honest grin, the one he had when he’d first told Arthur about her, all those years ago. 'She’s the one, Art,' he'd said, his eyes practically sparkling. Arthur had clapped him on the back, a fake, hearty sound even then, and told him he was a lucky bastard. He’d meant it. Mark was lucky. And Arthur, well, Arthur was just a bastard.

The night came back in flashes, sharp and unwelcome. Mark was out of town, some conference or other. Sarah had called, lonely, asking if Arthur wanted to grab a beer, watch a game. Innocent enough. He’d gone. He always went when she called, a habit he should've broken years before, but didn't. He liked being around her, liked the way she laughed at his cynical comments, the way her eyes crinkled when she smiled.

One beer turned into two, two into four. Whiskey chasers. The apartment got warm, fuzzy. Sarah was talking about Mark, about feeling neglected, about him working too much. Arthur was nodding, offering platitudes, but inside, a dark little thing was stirring. He saw the vulnerability, the crack in her composure, and instead of being the friend he should’ve been, instead of telling her to go to bed and call Mark in the morning, he leaned in. He leaned in when she cried, and he kissed her. And she, God help them both, kissed him back.

The memory was a punch to the gut. The smell of her perfume, the frantic, fumbling hands, the whispered 'no, we shouldn't' that turned into a desperate 'yes'. It lasted only a few hours, a panicked, stupid blur, but it had carved itself into his gut, a raw, burning scar. They’d both woken up sick, not just from the alcohol. She’d cried, truly cried then, and he’d felt a cold, awful dread settle in his bones. 'We can never speak of this,' she’d whispered, her voice raw. He’d nodded, unable to meet her gaze, already a coward.

Years. That’s how long it had been. Years of Sunday barbecues at Mark and Sarah’s place, years of watching them together, playing the good friend. Years of Arthur carrying this festering secret, a stone in his pocket, weighing him down with every step. Sarah, she played the part perfectly. Too perfectly. Sometimes, he’d catch her eye across a crowded room, a flash of something unreadable there, a ghost of that terrible night. He never knew if it was regret, accusation, or just the same awful burden he carried.

Now, the snow kept falling, relentless, silent. It coated the windowpane, blurring the edges of the world. He wanted to confess. He wanted to walk out into that beautiful, quiet white, find Mark’s house, and just scream it out. Tell him everything. Tell him how sorry he was, how stupid, how weak. Let the anger, the pain, the betrayal wash over him, punish him. Anything to stop this suffocating quiet, this knowing, this endless, hollow ache.

But he couldn’t. He never could. The words were there, a knot in his throat, but they wouldn’t come out. They never would. He just stood there, watching the snow bury everything, just like he'd buried the truth. The cold from the glass seeped into his palms, the silence filled the room, and he whispered, just a breath, to the empty air and the falling snow, "Mark, I'm so sorry."