...of avoidance

The day I realised I could write things down was the day I first told Epsilon how I felt about him. It was the first winter after the lightning strike, we were always together, but every time I opened my mouth to say what I wanted to say, I got the unbearable urge to stick my tongue against cold metal, that way it would be attached to something at both ends, so I just kept my mouth shut.
One day Epsilon asked if I wanted to sit on the back of his sled. “Where are you going?” I asked. “Where do you want to go?” he asked. “I don’t mind,” I said. I put my arms around him, his hat smelled like wet wool. Then a girl from his class appeared, she wanted to sled with us. Surprised, Epsilon and I looked up at her. “I don’t think there’s room,” I said, but she’d already sat down. We set off, snow hit my eyes, so I closed them and nudged my face into Epsilon’s jacket. When I looked again, we were out over the ice. I asked where his friend was, she wasn’t sitting behind me on the sled anymore. We looked up the hill, but she wasn’t there either. “Maybe it’s a sign,” I said. Epsilon took my hands and helped me up, and we stood together with our wet mittens, holding hands. I wanted to tell him how much I cared about him, but instead I told him that last year seven people had been killed by sharks and fourteen by toasters. Epsilon gave me a strange look and I wanted to disappear. “I just have to…” I said, without knowing what I actually wanted. I knew what Epsilon thought I had to do, though, because he turned quickly around and left. I blushed standing there and heard his crunching steps on the ice. “I’ll make a snowball while I’m waiting,” he said loudly, as though he’d be peeking at me. I figured it couldn’t get any worse, so I began to take off my shoes. After some effort, I was done. “Come and see, “ I said. My tongue barely obeyed me. But Epsilon stood motionless, and I had to call his name again before he started toward me hesitantly, his eyes fixed on the sky. “Look down,” I said when he was close. I got anxious when he lowered his eyes and saw my scarf which now formed a heart on the ice. Withing the heart, my wet mittens and socks formed the letters: N I. I wasn’t trying to spell “nine,” as in the number of lives I had left. It was now or never. “Your real name is longer that it sounds,” I said and felt my toes turn blue.

[The Faster I Walk The Smaller I Am, Skomsvold, K. A.]