She's trying to listen, trying to keep her ear pressed to your skin, trying to keep her hand fixed on your shoulder and her mind on the snow, her thoughts in rhythm with the beating of your heart. And she's not sure, not sure of anything anymore, not sure whether this is imagined or real or anything she would ever have dreamed of, an illusion charmed up in her desperation, a fantasy crafted by the artists of her mind? For the first time, she's not sitting on this park bench alone, she's got somebody to squeeze her hand while staring into the sky, she's got somebody to stroke her cheek while facing the ice and the stabbing wind.

She blushes a little as you bring your finger to touch her lips; the same lips that you've taken kisses from in another reality, the same lips that spoke of love and hate and everything in between. They're warm. Warm unlike the rest of her body in the falling snow, shredded icicles that she once feared in the rage of a storm. But no, no, the storm is over: she has you now, she has you and your shyness to complement her own, the shyness that she saw in herself long ago but she felt you try to hide. She knows she was the first to reach out towards you even behind her facade, her mask of icy blue and porcelain white that today, this Christmas, you managed to crack. A mockery of symbolism, the baubles on the pine tree crashing towards the ground; crashing to the sounds of the beating of your heart? No, it wasn't a plummet, it was a graceful fall. A fall that she was willing to take again now that she had come crumbling down once, a chance that meant nothing to her except the final vestiges of her sanity.

Did you know that she would be like this; did you know that she would have golden hair and a pointed chin? Did you feel the racetrack of her mind pumping out the blood of her thoughts along to the metronome of your heart? No, she doesn't think you did, doesn't think you even knew she would be her; but for a wild, fleeting moment, she allows herself not to care, allows herself to sink into the fabric of your hoodie and for herself to act like this is true. And she flushes again and smiles, her body a hot water bottle in the cold, gazes up at you with rawness and apology and love, fidgets a little as you lift a skinny arm to tangle her hair- because you're there, you're not a thing like you pretended to be but she knew that long ago; she had never seen you through the distorted mirrors of a mask- and she laughs, wisps of giggles from her mouth, because you not being you doesn't change the fact that you're there and you're real.

Real. Real, real; she wants to speak to you, call your name, whisper it out loud just to solidify the moment, essence of emotion distilled forever in time. But she's not sure which of your names she should be using, knowing that no matter what, it will come out as a gasp, the mist of her words lingering in the air as vapour before effervescence turns it into nothing. Again she feels like a child jumping on her bed to see if she can touch the ceiling, the elves in Santa's workshop that know that they will never be called upon to join him in the skies, for she is moving her lips over and over again in silence but never uttering a sound. A slight yearning for this quiet, especially in the aftermath of poisoned words and fire flying across the room like darts of war, a slight yearning for the peace normally associated with this time of year and the emotions of love.

She presses her ear closer to you as you wince; for once, she's the more experienced one, she's the one that knows how to deal with relationships even though none of them have been materialized, she's the one that holds your heart on your sleeve and your feelings in her hands, when you should be the strong one, the one that's toying with her like you always have. But she can't expect reality to be the same as its projection, can she? She can't expect reality to hold the same faces and names, can't expect reality to be the same solace of escape. Reality has feeling and touch and chilling snow, kisses she can actually feel as she snuggles herself closer to you, reality has the roles reversed because she's older, wiser, supposedly smarter, but still afraid. Deathly scared of girls or not, she knows you love her, she can hear it in the thumping of your heartbeat and the light flush on your face so much like her own, because she's scared too, scared that she isn't good enough.

In reality, virtual ranks mean nothing, and she glows with warmth, glad for that as she sees your tentativeness in your black eyes, swimming with emotion and anger and surprise and fear as she smiles again, comfortable in your embrace and to just sit there forever watching the snow fall, watching frozen water shake itself into the ground like powdered icing on her cake. There's nothing between you anymore except blushes and quiet- no, no , it's not quiet as long as she knows you're there for her and always will be, not quiet as long as even relationships based in fantasy can have a happy end, not quiet as long as she can hear the thumping of your heart. It's not quiet as long as she has you, because the meaning of this meeting fills in the gaps, the meaning of her having someone to hold, to touch on Christmas Day when she's always been alone, love spoken of but never felt in her arms as closely as this.

And like always she's worried that you'll disappear and you'll be nothing but a dream, a tantalizing dream that gets whisked away with the calls of a new morning. She bites her lip to make sure, almost hard enough to draw the taste of blood, bites her lip to remind herself that you're flesh and you're human just like she is, that you're not going to vanish into smoke like the words she can't seem to find. She feels your fingers caress your palms, senses your fear, senses her own, and realizes for the first time that she's not weak; she's strong inside despite her meek front and blatant submission, she knows how to take charge when she wants to and knows what it is to fight.

Because everyone's got inner strength deep down, because she's willing to wait for you to find yours, because she's seen it once and twice and many a time, or was it just a projection of you that was strong? Was it just the other side that she had seen, the other side that she had fallen in love with? Was it just the darkness that she had wanted, the flip side to her light? Your heart's still beating, the questions are coming, tap tap tap like your heart rate and your foot on the ground and the steps of the passersby as they dance away. The snow's stopped falling, the sun's glaring at her face while she's wondering whether it's possible for a fantasy to become real.

Then she laughs it away. Of course it is, silly, she chides as she pulls herself away, warm enough to be able to glance you in the eye and mouth a Thank you . She can't hear your heart any more. She can't hear it beat, have her thoughts spring to its rapid pacing, so she's using words to fill that silence, words that make her realize that she has spoken and force a blush to return to her face. You raise an eyebrow in surprise, a gesture that speaks of bitter truth, a gesture that speaks of confusion mixed with mesmerized love. Her eyes gaze up into yours again, waiting for your response, knowing that you're scared like she is, knowing that no matter what, she understands how you feel because deep down, you and her the same, like most people are the same. It's not like her to speak first, so she's going to wait for you-

Hello, Sean, you say stiffly, briefly glancing into her eyes before turning your head away. She laughs at your tone, a giggle that sounds like the tinkling of Christmas bells, for she knows that this means something good. And the red remains on her face as she rests on your shoulder again, ready to tune in to your feelings through the beating of your heart.