Pink Lime

"My name is Everest," she rubbed her eyes.

I wrote, Angus.

"Nice to meet you, Angus," I shook her fragile hand, "May I accompany you to breakfast?"

I shrugged.

"Thank you, I won't be any trouble, I promise," And she held my hand as we walked to Daintea, where my mother was.

Everest was truthful, she wasn't much trouble, in fact she was the opposite of troublesome, she had most likely been a pleasure to have with. My mother seemed to really like her as much as I did, since she could talk about painting, a subject which my mother loved.

We talked and ate and laughed throughout breakfast, and when I wrote something on the notebook, she would reply with a smile or chatted with me as if it was normal and I wasn't any different than she was.

When she excused herself to the bathroom, I was left with the familiar loneliness that I haven't met in hours, and I wanted badly for her to come back because I didn't like that loneliness anymore.

"Where did you find her?" my mother asked, her smile cleared out the wrinkles on her forehead. I wrote, on the bus. "Keep her," I smiled and shook my head as she leaned in and pinched my cheek like I was ten years old again.

On the bus, we listened to Freelance Whales and she wrote down her phone number on my notebook so I wrote, I don't speak, I'm sorry, and she looked at the page, then at me, and back at the page, then at me again. Suddenly she started sniffling, and covered her face with her shaking palms but the tears still ran down between her slender fingers incessantly.

I tore off the page that wrote "I don't speak, I'm sorry" and used it to dry her cheeks, but her tears seeped through the black ink grimily. Everest took the pen in her trembling hand as she dapped her tears on the paper, and wrote on the notebook that laid on my laps:

It's OK. I'm sorry, I'm lonely.

She made me promise to call her at least, so she'd know that I liked her company. I loved her company. When I got home, her lemon scented hair still lingered my shoulder as I lay down on the sofa, my thoughts wandering back to everything that happened. Her name was Everest June, the girl who shone brighter than the summer sun in the middle of winter...

*

I lost my voice when I was very young, I don't remember when and why, but it just floated away one day and I never cared to look for it again. My teenage years passed in silence, from me and from everyone around me, but I hadn't care about other kids or worried much about the future, so I thought I was fine. Which was why I worked in the library, where everything was quiet and nobody questioned why I was always silent.

It made my mother laugh when she heard that I was to be a 'male librarian', the word librarian somehow tickled her funny bone. But I didn't care, I was getting paid for smiling and checking out books for book-lovers like me, and to top it off, I could read any and all the books I wanted. I didn't see the dark side of it, except for that I was a few months late on my rent, but I was catching up since I stopped buying movies to watch alone.

Despite what everyone talked of me behind my back, I'm still human, but just more conscious of how I'm dying faster than everyone else. Now I don't think of it anymore because I met her.

I decided to call her on the 25th of December, after I just booked the last two tickets to the Alt-J concert that was happening in February.

Everest picked up the phone after the second ring and somehow she just knew that it was me on the other line, for she spoke excitedly, "Angus?" I breathed slowly, opened my mouth only to close it just as quickly.