The fairgrounds.

In the steel gray moonlight your hair spikes up the wrong way in the front, casting a shadow over your eyes. The wind is heaving and sighing every so often, chilling our bones. I pull your canvas jacket a little closer around my shoulders, centuries of patriarchy have at least given me this privilege. Together we slip through the gate and crunch slowly across the frozen gravel.

Across the midway a barn springs up out of nowhere, the wind carries the stale smell of last summers livestock to us from it's open doors. Your hand in mine is strong and reassuring and I clutch at it. My timidity is nothing but a coy mask. Alone I would skip over to play in the looming shadows, with you I shrink into a giggling mess that jumps at the sound of the stars.

"The grandstand?"
"Oh yes! But don't let go ok?"

My boots breaks the ice that has just begun to form over the muddy divits and furrows. There is nothing quiet so satisfying as snapping something brittle and newly formed. I make a point to step on every icy web, grinning at my own childish fun. You stand by indulgently, jabbing your hands into your pockets and clapping your boots against each other. I almost feel bad for taking your jacket. Almost.

When the last crunch has echoed across the grounds I finally let you take my hand again and we turn towards the Everest of steel and aluminum before us. The top row is somewhere above us, hundreds maybe thousands of steps up. Clunk! One step. Clunk! Two steps. Clunk, clunk, thunk clunk. Twenty six steps until the top of my boot doesn't hit another metal tread. Up here there are no seats, just a wide isle backed with chain link fence. We are at the top of the world and only the moon and the stars can see us. You lean in to kiss me, and when you close your eyes I keep mine open, watching your lashes flutter in the ebb and flow of the embrace. You are so fresh, and so wonderful and so new. I watch as you let the kiss die slowly on my lips, and then just before you open your eyes I push.
Clunk
Clunk
Clunk
Snap.