The snow was cracking under their feet as the two girls walked on the sidewalk. Yellow light shone from windows around them, giving the surrounding front yards a faint hue. It was quiet here on the outskirts, aside from a family getting into the car nearby, the parents driving their kids to school. Dawn and Cindy both watched them joyfully play in the snow.

"On my way home, I hit a po-pothole that was hidden under the snow. My wheel got stuck." Cindy held the bandaged hand with her other. "I... f-fell."

"Heavens are you alright?" Dawn gasped.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Only sc-scratches." Cindy responded and Dawn released the breath she held. "But... my f-front wheel is bent..."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know much about bicycles... can you fix it?"

"No... I'd need to buy a new one, but I don't have money." The tall girl sniffled, then looked away. "I feel so... s-stuck." Was that a tear I saw?

"Understandably so. Do you always travel on your bike?"

She nodded, "Yes. It makes me feel... free."

"I get what you mean. For how long have you used bicycles instead of walking?"

"Ever si-" her voice cut off as the loud beeping of a snowplow moved down the road. As the noisy vehicle came closer, Cindy pressed her hands against her head, grimacing. She seems to have sensitive ears.

As the truck passed, a wall of snow grew between the road and the girls. As the masses started to topple, Dawn moved away. However, Cindy, having her eyes and ears shut, didn't notice the moving ice and got her legs covered in snow about to her knees. She let out a small scream at the sudden cold.

"Ugh, I hate those things. Sure, freeing the streets is important, but at the cost of covering the sidewalks?" Dawn complained.

Cindy made two big steps, stumbling out of the wet snow. It stuck to her tights. She sighed and cleaned herself off, leaving wet stains behind on her clothes.

As the wind was picking up, the falling flakes started to feel like needles on Dawn's face. Just then came the rescue, as a bus rounded the corner. She hadn't taken the bus often in the past, but she knew that every line at this stop would take her to college.

"Come, let's hop on the bus." Dawn dashed and pulled Cindy along by her hand.

"B-But I don't have any money!" the tall girl yelled against the wind. Dawn halted and looked back.

"Money? Wha- Oh, you don't know? Students at our college can take the bus for free."

Cindy's eyes widened, indicating that this was something she would have liked knowing before. How did she not know that? Then again, no one would have told her.

Seeing two freezing girls sprinting, the bus driver luckily waited at the stop for them to catch up. Right after they got on, the bus took off, the snow chains rattling as the wheels started to move.

"Let's sit down. I have just the thing we need now."

While trying to loosen their scarves now that they were on the heated bus, they went and sat down. Dawn placed her cylindrical bag on her lap, taking out what she brought for Cindy.

Opening the beat-up vacuum flask, she poured a cup of cocoa and handed it to her companion. "Let it warm you. Then you can continue talking," Dawn spoke with a smile on her lips. She'll like this. I made it sweeter than usual.

Cindy took a deep breath as the warm liquid ran down her throat. "This is so t-tasty. Thank you." This morning's rush was worth it for this wide, long-canined smile. Heavens... but she really is beautiful.

"So, I used bicycles e-ever since grade school. The or- uh... my p-p-parents made sure I could get to school on my own."

"Did you grow up around here? A city like this isn't really a place for a kid to wander alone at."

"Yeah, they... c-couldn't take me there."

"Oh. I'm sure they had their reasons."

"Surely..." Cindy's eyes became glassy as she stared into her cup, so Dawn decided to let the awkward topic go.

"Right, I meant to ask. The weekend is coming up - do you have time for our first tutoring session?" Dawn was hopeful, she liked spending time with Cindy.

"Uhm, sure, I guess. But don't expect too much."

"Don't worry. For now, we'll just get you used to reading. Everything else comes after. So, Saturday, my place?" Cindy nodded and sipped her drink with a smile.

×××

"We continued our chatter until the bus arrived at our destination. Slowly but surely, Cindy was losing her accent. All she had needed was a bit of talking practice." As the light was fading outside, the snowstorm kept on raging. "I hoped it'd be the same for her reading."

"As a teacher-to-be, it got me wondering where and how things had gone wrong. It shouldn't happen that a student has to get through all of school without having learned to read properly." Dawn shook her head at the thought. "Someone had failed Cindy a long time ago. And this one fuckup reverberated over and over."

"I know she didn't have any friends as a child, but so did I. It didn't matter that I hadn't found friends, you and... Dad... were there for me. We played and talked all day." Dawn's lips formed a smile. Times had been peaceful once.

She looked at the neat calendar hanging on the wall. The page still said November, so she flipped to the next sheet. Various dates were marked with important events, "Dawn on stage!" on December 24th was one of them.

Dawn had trained months for her solo dancing performance, and her mother promised to finally show up to this one. It was only a few hours away. Then, surely, her mother will be proud of her. She'll get her mother to smile, she- Her mother never arrived at the theater.

"T-This... had been exactly three years ago." She glanced back at the calendar. Its pages were torn off after December 24th - that day had been scratched over and over until a hole was there instead. "Ever since that day... I had been alone. You never woke from the coma." Tears were streaming down Dawn's face. "And now, I am alone again. You aren't waking up and Cindy is gone."

"She never told me about her parents, and I didn't get to see her place." Oh, how she wished for more time with her. See that smile, smell her hair. Learn her secrets. "I'm guessing that her family was where it all began. For one reason or another, she never got to talk a lot. I... I can't imagine what that would be like. Even now, I still talk to you." Dawn looked for tissues as she imagined a pained grimace on her mother's face. Why couldn't she stop pretending? There was no movement. Hadn't been for damned three years.

"It's just so sad. If she couldn't talk with her family and didn't have any friends, she never learned to really talk. Consequently, she struggled learning to read. Because of that, she couldn't study properly."

Dawn took a deep breath and poured herself another cup. "I shouldn't be all analytical about this. I can't even understand my own mind. Ugh, let's get back to the story." She wiped her face and tried to collect herself. This wasn't news. She had cried enough in the past.

"So after getting to college, we parted ways and didn't see each other until after my classes were over. Since she didn't have her bike with her, we only talked briefly before I took the bus to the café. Cindy stayed behind and decided to walk home - it seemed that she had things to do."

"A short bus ride later, I had reached the café, not expecting to have a curious encounter that afternoon."