A silent breath escapes your lips as you watch her brush her friend's hair. You begin to wish it were your hair under her hands. You watch her mouth move, hear the faint music coming from her soft pink lips. She sings a song of joy and love, and you feel it in your own heart. Your heart that, until now, you had thought was cold and black.

You listen to her sing, and you want to sing with her, even though you don't know the words. Somehow, though, she doesn't either. It's clear that she's making it up on the spot. She looks up from her friend's hair and her eyes meet yours; or, at least, you think they do.

She smiles at you and your heart leaps. You wish she knew, wish she cared, wish she loved the way you do. You've never felt this before in your life. You've prided yourself on being unfeeling, untouchable, unlovable. Now, however, you want to love, you want to touch, you want to feel. You want to do all the things you've never wanted to do before. You want to run, you want to laugh, play, jump, scream. Kiss.

You want to live.

So you walk over to her. You hear your voice talking to her, but it's as if someone else is saying the words, asking her how she's doing and if she remembers you. She smiles again, and nods her recognition.

She says she remembers your face, but not your name. You didn't think she'd even remember that much. To her, you knew, you were just a cold-hearted nothing. She pushes her red hair out of her eyes and looks up at you. Suddenly, her face changes. She remembers you, all right. You sigh, your face dropping, and you begin to walk away.

She calls after you. You turn hopefully; she's running toward you. Apparently she does think you're a cold-hearted nothing, and she tells you so quite forcefully. Then she softens. She says you looked human for that second when your eyes met hers. She says you looked lonely. So you walk with her, not speaking, through the trees. It's enough just to be in her presence.

Finally, she speaks, asking you what you want from her. You tell her you just want someone to talk to, and the woods become silent again. Then she turns to you. She asks why you don't talk if you want someone to talk to. You shrug and keep walking. Realising she's not following, you turn back. You blink at her; she blinks back. She says nothing, just begins to walk again. You fall back into step with her, and the words come out.

You tell her how you've been brought up cold-hearted, how your mother has been married seven times, each of her husbands dying mysteriously and leaving her large amounts of money. You tell her how your mother's brought you up murdering rats and mice, then rabbits and racoons, in preparation for the day when you would have to progress to murdering humans. She doesn't say a word, just listens to you. You tell her how you've never had anyone to vent to, no one to melt your heart of stone (though you don't use those words, naturally).

You tell her how your mother brought you a child on your seventeenth birthday and made you torture it, and then forced you to take its life with your own two hands. She blanches, but doesn't say anything. Then you tell her how you've been assigned to do something terrible, something you can't possibly do. She asks what; you can't tell her. You say you've made a mistake by getting involved with the wrong people, and then another mistake by not being able to fulfil your assignment. She sympathises, and then you've reached the edge of the woods again.

You part ways, not saying anything about meeting again, but you feel a thousand times better.

Over the next few days, you pass her in the hallways and see not a speck of familiarity in her eyes. You can't bear it. You told her your secrets and she's ignoring you. You go back to the woods, hoping she'll be there. She's not.

You visit the woods again the next day, and the day after that. She doesn't come both times, but you see her everywhere. You begin to think that she doesn't want to talk to you after all.

Then, one day, you're sitting at the edge of the woods (which has become your hiding place), writing an essay, and suddenly she's there. She sits down beside you, watching you write busily. She corrects your grammar in the last sentence, smiling as you scratch out the mistake.

You ask her why she didn't come back until now. She says she didn't know if you wanted her to. You tell her it's all right, and you stand up, packing your things away. You set off into the woods, knowing she'll follow you. She does, and you talk for hours, again until you get to the edge of the woods.

This time, she talks, too. She talks about how hard it is, growing up in a family of nine where she's the youngest and the only girl, apart from her mother. She tells you how her father nearly died two years before, and how she'd had her heart broken by the boy she'd been in love with since she was eleven. She tells you how she doesn't want to be left alone, with all her brothers fighting in the war. You tell her you're here for her. She smiles slightly, but she's slightly wary of you still.

The next time you come to the woods, she's already there, and you both babble the whole way. You really enjoy talking to her. Then you remember your assignment and feel rather sick. She notices and advises you go get some stomach medicine. You nod and leave quickly.

Over the next week, you steer clear of the woods. You avoid her in the halls. You can't face her anymore, not after you remembered what you had to do and realised that if you didn't, you'd be killed.

Finally, she corners you. She asks what the matter is, and why you don't want to talk to her anymore. You refuse to tell her. She hexes you and runs off, leaving you with great big bogeys flapping all over your face.

You continue to avoid her. You see her sitting by the woods every day, but you never go close enough for her to spot you. You realise that this is the perfect opportunity for you to go through with your assignment. You begin to harden your heart, preparing. You walk up to her by the woods, unsmiling, unfeeling, unreachable. You raise your wand to perform the task...

She turns. You drop your wand as her eyes meet yours. She speaks, but you don't hear anything. You can't believe you almost went through with it. You sit down heavily. She asks if you're all right. You don't say anything. She persists, and finally you get fed up and blurt it out: you've been assigned to get close to her, to be her friend - and then kill her.

Her brown eyes go wide with shock. She scrambles up and backs slowly away. She turns and runs, and doesn't look back.

––––

Now she's the one doing the avoiding. When she sees you in the corridors, she turns abruptly and goes the other way. She never visits the woods now, though you sit there often. It seems as if you're not the only one whose heart has hardened.

Then, she arrives at the woods. She sees you sitting there, turns to leave. You call after her. You run to catch up with her, leaving your things scattered behind you. She ignores you. You tell her, though she doesn't listen, about how you had got the assignment, got close to her, and then liked her too much to kill her. It doesn't seem to help. You tell her desperately how you would rather die yourself than kill her. She seems to soften slightly, but still ignores you. You stop walking, shouting after her, and this time, she turns, and you realise you just yelled out that you love her.

She walks back, her eyes soft and vulnerable. She asks you to repeat that truthfully. You look into her eyes and tell her again. You tell her that she's made you feel alive for the first time. You tell her that you're willing to die for her. She smiles, and your heart leaps. Then she sobers and asks you what you're going to do. You tell her you're going into hiding. She tells you she's coming with you in a fierce voice, as if daring you to say no.

Then the two of you stand in silence, looking into each other's eyes, and then you begin to walk back to the edge of the woods, your hands entwined, and for that moment, you feel as if all is right in the world.