That same night, Lauri and I closed our eyes on the sun chairs and fell asleep for a couple of hours, I woke up because of the terrible noises coming from Risto's house, too much scandal, so much celebration, for someone who is asleep in the courtyard, but that's how it is to be a teenager, I guess. The terrible breeze froze our faces, leaving traces of ice from our wetness in it, and small pieces of snow like flakes covered our clothes. Lauri was still asleep, and I would have left him there sleeping if I hadn't thought he might freeze to death, almost like Jack on the Titanic. I moved it him fastly, until he opened his eyes in fright and then turned around to see me in surprise.

We slumbered into Risto's house. It was enough to open the door for all the music to come out noisily from inside. The Valos always took advantage of the fact that the only neighbors around were my mom and me, and of course, we could never complain about them.

In the background was the song "Rahan Takii" by Antii Tuiski, it's a noisy and trendy song among teenagers of our age, Risto in particular, could repeat it over and over again without getting tired. I'm not sure why he likes this singer so much, personally, I prefer PMMP.

-Now, my sister and I will sing you a song together, -he said as soon as I set foot inside, raising her glass as if he would cheer with everyone, on the stairs inside her house.

The house was surrounded by red lights he had hired, and inside it reeked of tobacco and alcohol. I really wanted to go home... and I was sure that Lauri wanted it too, but who can say "NO" to Risto?

Risto turned off the music with his remote control and walked a little drunk to his piano. His outstretched hands discovered it, and the piano, it was still as if the years had never passed over him. Risto started to play some notes in tune.

-What song do you want? -he asked Lauri- After all, this song will be for you.

-That's nice, but I really think Ruth is tired... -he said, looking at me.

-Not at all! -Straighten me out- Pick a song, and then you sing us one...

-Good idea -said Risto- we can even have a contest.

-I don't sing well, but I'll try to sing something, I guess. How about singing me a PMMP song?

-You don't listen to that kind of music, do you? -Turned Risto to look at him in amazement-That's girl's music.

-Sure, because I'm sure I don't have the eyes to see that Paula, the singer, is very pretty...

When he answered to him in such a sarcastic way the people inside the house started to laugh, Lauri had always had that way of being, in which he said what he thought, and for many people Lauri's honesty was funny... but, for Risto it started to be irritating.

Risto whipped his hands on the piano when he heard the laughs. Lauri opened his eyes in surprise and then Risto turned around. On his face he wore a fake smile like his mother used to wear, and the villain's eyes that he seemed to have inherited from his father. After that he began to play a melody on the piano. It was the song from PMMP's "Joutsenet", which he had been able to fit quite well into his hand whippings.

That song was very well known among the young people of Rovaniemi, probably because of the lyrics. Many people hugged each other when they heard the chorus and started to sing together. Lauri also put his arm on my shoulder, and turning to see me he began to sing.

"The snow is eating everything,

The snowfall is killing this land,

Even swans freeze in the sky,

Dreams change for others,

Memories are getting left behind,

But it will never be the same, it will never be the same, it will never ever be the same."

"Always strong, never fragile, there are not enough angels for all of us", and more phrases that come out of that successful and sad song, which has been the most popular hit of the PMMP group. People were so taken that some began to cry with the song. I was also singing it with so much feeling, that in the last phrases I started to shed some tears.

Risto, at the end of the melody, started clapping slowly inviting each person inside his house to applaud, then he turned around getting up from the piano seat and saw me in that strange way, he usually sees me like that when I walk near him. He took an artificial flower he had in a vase, and put it behind my ear looking tenderly at me, an act that completely melted me. Deep down I have always been aware that whatever he says, I am the only princess in his life and in his kingdom.

-Only Ruth can sing like that! -he said, as the people continued to applaud deafeningly-only she can fill our hearts with her feelings.

After that, Risto forgot all about Lauri, and Lauri returned with Siiri to the background. I was trying to get out of Risto's lost environment, of talks that were not interesting, of people who were exaggeratedly drunk, and of the same music over and over again.

And suddenly, Lauri appeared again, he took me by the hand like when we were kids and took me outside the house. The cold tickled my nose, it seemed that night was the coldest night of all my years in Finland. Lauri saw me with his sky-blue eyes and smiled at me strangely, I think we were both still under the influence of the alcohol we had drunk, he never let go of my hand. Inside Risto's house his terrible music was still playing. I turned to see my house, my mother had already arrived, but surely, she still thought that she was inside the house of the Valo family... "Who cares? Nobody really" I thought.

Lauri kept moving forward holding my hand, and as I watched him move forward. I smiled like a fool, as if I really felt euphoric inside, trying to fix my gaze, but everything around me was spinning, and suddenly, I stopped feeling the hand.

Lauri took me to the park where we met and he dropped into the snow, moving around he started to make an angel, and I lay down next to him doing the same. It felt uncomfortably childish, but these are things you can only think of doing with Lauri around. Risto would say something like: "Get up, you've already grown up, what will they say about you at school?", and well... finally I would have listened to him and we would walked home, I would followed him like a mosquito to the light.

-Sometime ago, Santa Clause told me -Lauri interrupted my thoughts- "Never forget your inner child" and so I learned to take him out for a walk once in a while.

-Get him out? Someone got drunk by the mojito, huh?

-You have to learn to identify where it is, -he said turning to the sky, seeing the northern lights that reflected in his eyes- it always asks to leave out, and if you do not learn to see and identify it in time, -he said changing his direction to my wrist- it could cause you many problems.

-Do you think my inner child did this to me?

-I don't just think about it, I'm sure.

-Why do you say that?

-Because inside you, there's a little girl with a temper tantrum who wanted attention, and before you think about it, I'm not saying that you do that to get attention, I'm saying that you wanted attention and love from your mother, and so far, you haven't gotten it. Your little girl thinks that dying could be the way out, but it isn't... you just need to explain to her that she has always been loved and always been given attention.

-And what do you know? -I aked upset- Haven't you seen how my mother doesn't care about me?

-She doesn't care about you? Did she abandon you with your grandparents for five years, forgetting about you while she was taking care of a girl who wasn't even her own flesh and blood?

-She leaves me every day, alone, the food at home is always cold, she doesn't even ask me how my life is going... and she tries to repay her affection with gifts.

-Then what's the right way to love?

I thought about it for a few minutes with my eyes a little lost in the northern lights without knowing the right answer, without having a way to escape from there, lying on the ice and already numb.

-How would you have liked to be loved? -He continued-If you had a girl who was in the same situation, and you had to work day after day to support her, what would you do to make up for it?

-I don't know, -I answered nervously and strangely feeling like a child- I can't really think of anything better than what my mom does.

Lauri looked at me smiling tenderly as if I were a little girl...

-People will give you their love based on what they know, on how they are able to give it. Have you ever wondered if Siiri and I, or don't go so far, if Risto... has hot food every morning? Those little details... are called love...

-And why doesn't she ask me how I'm doing? What about my life...

-Everyone shows love as much as they can and as they've been taught. Siiri for example, she shows love through food, I don't know how she relates one thing to the other but, it is true, when she sees you sad, she will feed you, buy you a bread, a chocolate... Risto, on the other hand, manifests his love through luxury... so much so that he stayed at the fancy party he threw for me, although in the end he was the one who enjoyed it the most. Possibly when you love someone, you will show them your love as your mother shows you, or maybe not, it depends on how spoiled you are. So, the only thing I can tell you is that you will never receive love in the way that you expect to receive it, nor in the amount that you want. So, the only love you can receive in the among you want, is the love you could give to yourself.

My eyes lit up, for the first time in a long time. It feels like if I brook a vase on my head, as if I've been asleep for a long time, many years, and suddenly woke up. Maybe it's true, there's no right way or rule to love someone, maybe we all love the way we can, like I have my own way of loving Guinness, like I have my own way of loving my mother...

-You're amazing...

-Why? -he asked trying to get up from the snow.

I just watched him trying to get up and once he was up, his eyes matched the northern lights and his smile with the stars, and I smiled without being able to move. He extended his hand helping me to stand up beside him, it was hard for me to do so, I could be at his side at least physically.

-Because you are... -I finally answered.

-No, no, I've just had more time to think about things than you have. Having a life like mine, you learn to appreciate the little things of love.

Lauri walked slowly towards that frozen lake in the park, he didn't go far, but he tried to skate on it. Watching him there, and with the cold already invading our bodies, I decided to skate by his side. That night it seemed that I was in a black hole, as if everything else had disappeared, or maybe just Lauri and I... until a voice made me come back to reality.

-What the fuck are you doing there?! -shouted Risto with his recorded voice as he entered the park.

-Calm down, it's all right -said Lauri trying to calm him down, skating with his shoes out.

And then we heard a crackle in the lake ice, and then another, and then several, coming together like a symphony. And when I least expected it, the looks of Lauri and Risto on me, were the last thing I saw, after a stormy noise.

¡CRASH!

I remember myself inside the icy water burning my skin, inside I just thought "Somebody get me a towel" while listening to the desperate cries of Risto and Lauri. And then I thought about my mother, and I started swimming desperately, I had never thought about it in detail, but... I think Guinness and I are all she has, and we have her too. But also, part of me, I was not afraid, there was a voice that told me that I would not die there, it was not the bad voices, it was the voice that accompanied me since I was a child, the one that calmed me down.

Risto was pounding the ice with his fists and feet, he noticed that I couldn't find the way out. And suddenly, I saw a hand sticking out of a hole, and I swam towards it. When I reached it, Lauri pulled me hard as we heard more parts of the ice making noise.

-Run! -shouted Risto as the ice slowly began to break up and sink.

Lauri and Risto quickly began to take off their coats and clothes, it seemed a kind of game in which the one who would be most naked would win, and they were putting it on me little by little. My face had frozen, there were pieces of ice on it worse than when I slept in the backyard of Risto's house, "This must be the most Finnish thing I've ever done," I thought.

-Don't say nothing happens! -shouted Risto angrily -she could have died!

-It was your negative thoughts that caused the ice to open -said Siiri, judging Risto with his eyes.

-Shut up Siiri! -exclaimed Lauri- I never thought the ice would break.

-The problem is that you don't seem to think about anything, you make her drink, you throw her on the ice... -said Risto.

-I didn't throw her onto the ice -he interrupted, trying to bite her tongue.

Risto took me by the back, heading home without letting me clear anything up, I only saw how Lauri stayed behind looking confused and surprised, I didn't dare to say anything either, I couldn't really do it, I only heard my teeth shaking and watched the dense smoke coming out of my mouth.

-Don't go near her again! -he shouted angrily and threateningly as I tried to calm him down with slight movements.

When he concluded his words, I turned to see Lauri and Siiri, they were only still petrified, looking at me in the same way, while Risto kept pushing me forward.