Growing Pains

         

            Jack flew to Jamie's window with high hopes. He imagined his old friend throwing it open and smiling at him the way he used to, his eyes lighting up with joy.

            Instead, Jamie was crying harder than Jack had ever seen him cry. He sat by the window watching Jamie struggle with something that he did not yet understand.

            He knocked on the window, and the boy looked up, startled.

 

            Jamie saw Jack sitting there, looking forlorn and confused, as he had so many times this winter. After reliving all the memories of that first winter, he just couldn't stand to shut Jack out of his life anymore.

            He'd begun to shun Jack after the dreams had started. . . those dreams which had caused him to feel things he'd never felt before. They were confusing feelings which had isolated him and made him realize he was different from the other boys in his class. While they were all dating girls and talking about all the forbidden things they were doing with them, Jamie found himself uninterested in girls at all. What was wrong with him? Sometimes it made him really angry, and he hated Jack, resented him. Other times he was just very sad.

            He'd retreated to the safety of his room, and he'd been drawing all of the images flooding his mind. He'd thought, maybe, if he transferred them to paper they'd stop torturing him, but with every sketch he'd drawn, the feelings and desires had only grown stronger.

            Part of him was afraid because he didn't want his friendship with Jack to change. It was the most precious thing he had left from his childhood. Another part of him wanted very badly to change everything in an irrevocable way, but he had no idea how Jack would react. Would it ruin everything? Why couldn't he just be normal?

            Jamie wiped the tears from his face, not wanting Jack to see him crying anymore. He'd tried to keep as much of his pain away from Jack's prying eyes as he could. He wanted his friend to remember him as he had been: brave, honest and loyal.

            With all the changes he'd been going through both physically and mentally in the past year, he wasn't entirely sure where the fearless boy Jack had met eight years ago had gone. With all the hiding in his room, refusing to go to school and drawing things that he was keeping from everyone, maybe the boy who'd defeated the King of Nightmares had disappeared forever.

 

            Jack pressed his hand against the cold panes of glass that kept them separated. There was concern on his pale face and worry in his bright blue eyes, as he, too, was taken back to the winter they'd met. He remembered the night he'd helped Jamie believe again and smiled as an idea came to him.

            He drew a little heart in slowly spreading white frost on one square of the window and animated it with winter magic. The heart grew wings and flew into Jamie's room. He watched it from his bed as it made its way over to him, finally stopping just above his head and bursting into a flurry of light snowflakes that drifted softly down onto him.

            Jamie rose from the bed, feeling the faint dampness of the flakes on his face as he walked through the tiny storm, and he opened his window.

            Jack smiled and jumped through the window.

            "Jamie, I'm so glad to see you! Are you okay?"

            "I'm fine." Jamie shrugged. "Just been soaking up the heat all winter, I guess."

            "Well, it's a good thing you let me in." Jack winked. "Now I can nip at your nose."

            He pinched the end of Jamie's nose, playfully, and it became instantly chilly.

            Jamie finally smiled slightly and Jack saw a hint of the boy he'd met in his eyes again. Of course, as Jack was coming to realize, he really wasn't much of a boy anymore. He was quickly becoming a man.

            "You've gotten so tall," Jack mused, looking Jamie up and down.

            Jamie chuckled softly. It was true. He'd actually grown to the same height as the winter spirit in the year since he'd last seen Jack, and he no longer had to look up to Jack. Jamie met his blue eyes, and a sudden shocking wave of excitement stampeded up his spine. The desire to close the distance between their lips was becoming increasingly harder to ignore as they stood facing each other. He pushed the thought away, still not understanding why he had to be this way. What was making him want to do things like that with Jack?

            "Yeah, it kinda happened overnight," he said awkwardly, stepping away from Jack just a few inches. "I have to shave and all that too, now. It's so annoying," he said, looking at Jack's chin and studying the smooth, hairless skin. "Guess you probably don't know what that's like, though."

            The comment stung a bit, though Jack knew Jamie hadn't meant it that way. Jack had realized with sadness a long time ago that he could never actually grow up and become a man. He would always be the winter spirit Jack Frost, trapped in a boy's body.

            Jamie could tell he'd hit a sore spot, and he winced, instantly regretting his words.

            "I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that. Don't pay attention to me. When I talk, stupid stuff comes out."

            Jack was noting all the changes in Jamie that growing up had brought, and they weren't just physical. Jamie was sulky and self deprecating now. The teen hesitated and seemed nervous when the boy would have been bold and endearingly excitable. He'd looked forward to seeing Jack every year, like it was Christmas, and his enthusiasm had always made Jack smile.

            Jamie had told him once, secretly, that Jack would always be his favorite because he was there when he had almost given up believing, when he had given up, just for a few seconds.

            Jack felt like he was in the presence of that scared and sad little boy again, but he could still see Jack, which meant he still believed. What was the matter with him? This seemed like a different kind of problem, something more complicated. It would not be so easily solved with a cleverly shaped frost trick.