- 2 -

"And when they asked me what my favorite time of the day was, I smiled, remembering the bright moon, glimmering stars, dark, black sky and replied-…"

The movement of my hand stopped, my pen stopping right in the middle of the blank, off white paper when a cold shiver ran down my spine, making me shudder involuntarily as I clutched the furry woolen jacket closer to my body.

"And you say you love winter." The old woman looked at me through her dark eyes that glowed in the orange-yellow light of the electric heater set up in my room.

"I do. 'I close my eyes and the cold is a cloud that envelops history. Sorrow is ancient.'" I quoted.

"It's dark. It's mysterious. Absolutely beauti-"

"Dead. It's dead." She deadpanned, giving me an unimpressed look when I rolled my eyes and decided to ignore like I had been for the past half an hour.

"La'voir elle c'est avoir les etoile." She spoke, a perfect French accent slipping through her lips as I stopped any movement, the words hanging around the quiet air around us as they settled into the dead of the night.

"To have her is to hold the stars." I whispered and saw her soft smile.

"I remember trying to learn it when I was younger. Had a thing for learning new languages and impressing people. Don't know why I even tried." She said with disappointment laced in her voice.

I cocked my head to a side to study her intently.

"I'm learning-"

"Italian, yes, I know. Loved that era." She sighed and closed her eyes while I scanned her face that was showed age when she smiled, when she talked, when she closed her eyes, and even when she breathed.

"How long?" I asked her curiously when she shrugged.

"Even I don't know. I guess my time's not up yet." She said with a small chuckle, making the corner of my lips tug upwards.

"I know why you love winter. I loved winter too." She said when I leaned towards her to know more, curiosity dripping from my eyes.

"It's cold. Like you." She stated simply, the simple words were like a knife to my heart and yet, the cold words only made me even warmer.

I was cold.

Good.

"So they say. Apparently I'm 'cold and unapproachable'." I replied bored as I leaned my head back on the sofa and watched the plain white ceiling as it displayed my shadow.

"That's because you are." She replied tentatively and from the corner of my eye I saw her trying to study me, read my emotions.

"Still as emotionless as I remember." She muttered, but I heard her thanks to the dead silence around us, the only sounds of light snores coming from the adjacent room.

"I won't get hurt this way. It's for the best." I turned my head the other way, looking out my window at the clear sky when I heard her deep sigh.

"I remember that I did not like to be touched." She started to speak, piquing my interest when I remembered writing something similar.

"It was a strange dislike. I did not like to be touched because I craved it too much. I wanted to be held very tightly so I would not break." I completed the sentence for her and heard her small chuckle.

"Yes, exactly that. It was a difficult time, I remember. When people hugged me or tried to come closer, I used to get-"

"Stiff as a statue?" I questioned and saw her nod.

"Yes. It was annoying, truly, when people used to touch me. I felt disgusted, but more insecure." She concluded when I frowned.

"What's there to be insecure about if you don't like to be touched?" I asked her in a slight accusing tone when she shook her head softly at me with a small smile playing on her lips.

"The fact that you don't like to be touched is a good thing, but to a limit. You crave attention, and yet despise touch." She said when I pursed my lips in annoyance.

"That's not true. At least the crave part. Yes, I despise it when people touch me but I am not-" I stopped short when she raised an eyebrow at me, as if daring me to continue.

I grumbled under my breath before rolling my eyes at her.

"Young people these days, always lying." I heard her say quietly and scoffed at her statement.

"As if you've never done so before." I stated as a matter of fact when she shrugged.

"I can't change the past, now can I?" She asked me but I simply ignore her.

Of course you can, in circumstances like these.

"You can't, not even in such circumstances." She said and my eyes momentarily widened when she said my thoughts out loud.

"Well, why not?" I quipped, closing my diary softly after putting the bookmark on the page I was writing on and set it on the arm rest of the sofa, on my left, before turning to give the aged woman my attention.

"I'm not answering that question." She said and turned her gaze away from mine and making me frown.

"Please? Just this once and I swear and I won't ever ask again." I pleaded, now feeling frustrated all over again.

"I thought you had this conversation already with you-know-who." She stated knowingly but I crossed my arms over my chest.

"It wasn't even a conversation, she just shut me down!" I defended myself when she shook her head at me.

"And you think I'll tell you?" She asked raising a brow when I shrugged, testing my limits.

Quite literally.

"Yes?" I hesitantly questioned when she clicked her tongue.

"Find out on your own. If you knew everything that were to happen to you, life wouldn't be so exciting, now would it?" She asked as she looked around the dimly lit room with displeasure.

"I'm quite sure nothing exciting will happen if you're still here, alive and well." I answered in a bored tone as I twirled my ballpoint pen between my fingers.

"Thought you'd say that." She said a little defeated when I shook my head, reaching for my diary once again and flipping through all the blank pages.

"You'll fill them. One day, you'll look back at this book and smile at the progress you made. All the ink you used to write in there, all the words that drifted out of your heart and printed themselves on this paper. You'll be so ecstatic, you'll memorize every single thing in there." She said as I looked back out the window.

Beautiful.

Looking back, the woman was gone and all that was there was the soft glow of the heater near my legs, the fruity smell of my perfume that I had so mercilessly spritzed on myself and my jacket so I'd smell good.

Then there was my shadow, the dark night outside and the light snores from the adjacent room.

Night sky, I remembered with a smile as I reopened the page and gripped my ballpoint pen, my eyes momentarily skimming across the previous page I had written on, every word imprinted on my brain as I softly recited the quote I wrote yesterday.

"Perhaps, I want the old days back again and they'll never come back, and I am haunted by the memory of them." I whispered, my eyes burning as I ignored the rising memories, shoving them back in the little safe I'd kept locked in a corner in the dark.

I adore the dark.

And with that thought, I rolled the pen between my fingers before gingerly writing down the answer to my previous question.

"3 A.M."