The new day

The air was crisp, Tif could see her breath as she breathed out. Shrugging her shoulders against the cold minus 3 degrees of a normal Montana January morning, she shivered just thinking of it. She looked up only four blocks from her dorms to the cafeteria but it felt like a mile. Who had told her Montana would be a good idea? She couldn’t remember now. Another shiver as she pulled her book bag up onto her shoulder and trudged along.

Tif was not built for this kind of weather her thin frame had didn’t hold heat well. Even in the biggest fluffiest jacket she could find she felt the cold seep in. She had pulled her long red hair into bun and pulled the beanie over it and around her ears but she could still feel the freezing air around her neck and cheeks.

If it wasn’t for the credits she was getting for the classes she was taking she would drop everything and rush back home to SoCal yesterday if she could have. But with the new semester only just started she would tough it out.

She reached for the handle on the door to the cafeteria when it came flying open as a young man came bursting through. Tif was inches away from being smacked right in the face with the door. The boy she thought only gave her a nod and a gleeful “oh sorry” and he rushed past her. She huffed and turned to enter the building when an odd scent caught her off guard, that guy had a strong woodsy smell to him that gave Tif a moments pause something deep down in her memory trying to brake free. Then it was gone and she shivered yet again and rushed inside out of the ice box they call winter.

Once inside she gave herself a little shake and looked around to see who was in the dinning hall. She spotted Mary and Jillian already sitting at a table. Mary looked up and smiled giving her a wave. Tif waved back and headed for the food line. She grabbed her breakfast paid and headed for the girls. Plopping herself down in a chair she signed and greeted her friends. “Mother of all that is holy, how do you live in this weather for more than a year?” Mary laughed patting her friend on the shoulder “you’ll get used to it.” Mary a sixth generation Montanan had lived her whole life on the high line only moving for college and claiming she was going back to that barren waist land of nothing but wheat fields and boredom once she was done with school. Tif chugging her first cup of coffee nearly scolding her throat as it went down coughed and repaid “Oh hell no ma’am as soon as I graduate is the last time you will see this girl anywhere there is snow and ice” Jillian and Mary both laughing only shook their heads at their poor out of place Californian friend bundled in they were sure was at least five layers. They all smiled at each other and laughed again. Chatting as they went over class notes and finished breakfast killing time before heading to their first classes of the day.

It wasn’t until they wear standing to go that Tif remembered the odd smelling guy and in passing mentioned how he had coming blasting out of the doors nearly hitting her. Mary frowned and shook her head. “Jesus guys here can be so fucking rude.” Jillian said pulling her jacket on. Tif nodded thinking back to his scent. “My gos Tif was he hot or something your blushing” Mary said while nudging her. Tif blinked and brushed her fingers over her cheeks feeling the heat coming from them. “What… No, I mean I don’t know, I’m not even sure I saw his face. But he smelled.” Mary scowled wrinkling her nose. “Eww like bad?” Tif shook her head pressing her fingers to her cheeks. “No he smelled good, like I don’t think I have ever smelled a guy that smelled like that before. I wonder what kind of cologne it was.” She bit her lower lip thinking of his scent as they walked out into the bright light of a new freezing day. Hoping that maybe she would run into his smell again, but knowing it probably wouldn’t happen.