11 • Gasping

You were my lifeline.

Then you taught me how to swim.

13 • Itch

I see her mirthful eyes from under her bangs, and it draws me in like a moth to a candle flame. It blots out everything else in my surroundings. Is this why Icarus flew too close to the sun?

I blink first, and look away. It's too bright.

Of course it was too good to be true.

14 • Chicken

It was a perfect summer day. The sky was such a brilliant blue, the breeze just light enough to ruffle the hem of her thin top. I still remember the feeling of the sun on my skin as she walked over and lay next to me on the cool grass, letting out a soft sigh.

"I got a text from my sister today"

I made a quiet sound of acknowledgement, my mind still half in its daydream.

"My pet chicken died"

My eyes opened at that. “You had a pet chicken?”

"Yea, it wandered into our house one day and just ended up sticking around"

"That’s a bummer, man."

"Eh, it isn’t too bad.. It wasn’t cuddly like a cat or dog, so"

I made another slight sound of assent.

"It’s also how I met my best mate"

"I’ll bet there’s a funny story behind that."

"Nah, not quite.. She just came up to me and said she liked my pet chicken, that was it"

"Nice how things work out sometimes, yea? Must’ve been fate."

"Mm, it must’ve.. Fate was good to me then, I can’t imagine not having met her"

"Pity about the eggs, though."

She laughs then. “Yea, thanks.”

16 • Lavender

She feels something creeping up behind her, and before she knows it, her eyes are covered by a pair of hands.

“I don’t like people touching my face.”

“I know, but I’m the exception.”

Her face pulls into a mock pout—”what’s the point of making me guess, anyway? I already know it’s you.”

“Well it might not always be me.”

“I can recognise your hands. They smell like peaches.”

He sniffs his left hand, unconvinced.

Later, after he’s left, she replays the moment in her head. Thinks about what he said, realises what he could have meant. There’s a moment of blind panic before rationality takes over and she brushes the thought aside. He just meant that it could be someone else, she repeatedly thinks. That’s all.

Thirty seven weeks later she would look back on this moment and mentally kick herself for believing that it would be different. She would think, why would I be special? Why would it be different for me, and not for someone else?

Then she would take a deep breath, jump into the icy water, and drown those thoughts.

•

One day, half a year after, she walks downtown to the secondhand clothing store. The air’s a little nippy, and she pulls her scarf higher up to her nose, but it just falls, so she gives up. She doesn’t really mind the wind—there’s something surreal about it, like being in someone else’s story.

The draft carries the sound of laughter, short and light, from behind her. She turns slightly, and smells summer peaches in the air. It’s not like how she remembers it—it’s more complex this time, a little floral, almost soapy.

She turns back around and continues walking, trying to identify the additional note in that scent she used to know so well.

Something stirs in the back of her mind, the aged memory of an old friend. It’s lavender, the smell of her shampoo.

She closes her eyes, relishes how the cold bites her skin, and keeps walking.

17 • Magpie

She always liked things mild. Mildly interesting, mildly good, mildly there. Things that were mild were everlasting—they didn’t lose their shine, if there was no shine to begin with. She would go back, again and again, to the same things, and still love it the tenth time exactly as much as the first time, if not more.