I try to concentrate. I don't know if it's the memory the master of Wolves caused or this extreme proximity with Shawn, but I think of winter.

Flashback by @Chess-raconte

The blow of the fresh winter evening sneaks quietly in my hair. It caresses my pale face, soft, comforting. I don't know since when I started to appreciate when it's cold. It should freeze me, push me at home, attack me hard that I'd want to protect myself from it with shot of gloves and woolly hat; however, I fell nothing but pleasure for the delicate shiver that shake my skin at the touch of the falling snowflake.

The snow came lately this year, and I was missing it. That's why I ran away from the jail that they impose me as home since many years, to take refuge under the darkness of the nocturne vaulted. There, my friend Night and Silence give me way better advice than all the teachers in the world would ever give me. They do not rush me neither urge me, containing to listen without a sound the prayers and the complaint that I told them in a whisper.

I don't know how much time I spent here, sitting in the humid grass of melt ice, eyes close on a world which I doubt I can fit in. Maybe ten minutes? Maybe and hour or even two? Time is illusive, and almost nothing facing the universe. It is counted like sand when what is around us represents a whole desert. And a second, and a third...

"Diane... Diane!"

A burst of laughter broke my tranquility but I don't show any naive joy. i turn around at the sound of my friend. Shawn runs toward me, smiling, his cheeks pink by the wind that bites us and his eyes sparkling. His hands are tight, like if he's keeping a precious treasure lock in a box.

My eyes scan him as he gets closer, while my heart does a lurch like always, these times, when the sheep is close to me.

It took me like this a few days ago. Like a sickness that get in your body and takes roots in the shadow. It grows up every day, blossoms in your organs without you noticing its presence. And one day, it becomes too invasive to continue to ignore it, and all at once, you let it go. At this moment, it is too late to get rid of it, so you live with it.

Yes, that's a bit what happened. One day, everything was fine and then, the next day, pouf! Butterflies in my stomach and my heart who plays this unbridled tango. Always the same rhythm, heady, throbbing and that, I'm sure, is tearing my entrails if I let explode.

That is a sickness. A virus that follows me every where, no matter where I go and no matter what I dream about. A tumor that developed itself in my soul and refuse to let it in peace. A cancer that tortures my brain turning it by thousand of unmentionable thoughts, all more torrid and embarrassing than the others.

But, does the sickness make you weaker? I've always been told that it hits the Men to push them. That it brings the death or the respite of the recovery. What I feel doesn't bring me to one of them. It's bigger, stronger, and scarier. But at the same time, it's terribly pleasant.

A look and I get excited, a gesture and I faint. What an irony when what kills you is at the same time what stops your heart and raises it! I could miss three heartbeats at the same time, it would suffice that I thin about this feeling and the electroshock would be instantaneous. What I feel fulls me at the same time of the Hell's distress and Paradise's joy.

No, I can't be sick. Quite simply because if I was sick, there would be a remedy. However, it doesn't exist for this kind of sickness. And even if it is real, I'm not sure if I would want to take it. Yes, I'm at the mercy of my desires and the worst, is that I let it do it with a unhealthy joy.

Out of breath, Shawn slows down and stops in front of me. He didn't leave his happy air, and seeing him so happy takes me out of my gloominess that my dark thoughts dove me in.

Once again, I thin about my difference. Why a thirteen year-old child should know that kind of torment? It's unfair, I have the sensation that someone forces my mind toward adult maturity. I would like to be as carefree as my sheep, to laugh and play, shout my joy of live like every of my classmates do. But, that's it some grow up to fast and see their innocence being torn far before the time.

My only comfort is this friend who's so important, more than all that I could love in this life.

Does a single presence have this power? The power of giving a bigger joy than the planet to a person for who's special? In my case, there's only him who has it, and I want him to continue to use it. With him, everything becomes more easy and light. I don't feel the weight of rejection on my shoulders like the one of the sky on Atlas' shoulders. I don't hear anymore the people who are making fun of me or who whisper in my back, thinking I'm deaf. I don't see the contempt in their eyes that I have the misfortune to see. There's only a friend's face who smiles at me and predicts my life.

"Look," whispers Shawn while staring at me.

He opens his hands, and a butterfly gets out of them and flies around us. It shimmering colors sparkle under the low artificial lights, throwing iridescent reflections on every solid that get in their way. It's almost like seeing a living rainbow, like it was free from the sky, who explores the world before disappearing.

"It's magnificent," I whisper so low that only my friend can hear me.
"Like you," he says

He looks at me with a face that I never saw before. Like if I was unique and fabulous. Like if I was at the origin of the play of light that light his face. Like if it was me, the precious treasure...

"You're like a star, Diane," he whispers and sits beside of me. "Glittering and bright."

I blush in an uncontrolled way. This wizard that controls my emotions once again upset my organism. I don't know anymore where I am, I don't know anymore who I am. But I know one thing, it's that if being a star means live in the sky far away from him, even if I am as free as the wind, even if I am admire for my bright, I don't want to be one.

"But," he continues "unlike the stars, you, you don't have a billion of fellows to equal you. You don't have any in fact."

I suddenly feel uneasy. These words, I dreamed of them. This look, I imagined him a million times without getting close of the perfection that I see at this instant. And yet, I'm not sure if I want to hear what should logically comes after.

I'm scare. Scare of losing these feelings that are so precious if I show them. Scare that going that far doesn't beautify things but broke them. Scare that the person who's the most important to me be torn of me violently...

"We... we should go inside," I say piteously. "I'm starting to be cold."

It isn't true, of course. It'as a coarse, idiot and blatant lie. Although Shawn isn't fool and I saw the deception replacing the adoration in his eyes so gray, so fascinating. But it's the best. Nothing will change, every thing will stay exactly the same. We will stay the best friends in the world, "always together, for life and more". We won't break this childhood promise, exchanges two years ago and that beats like the heart, in my chest, which he made me award of.

We will shut up the other feelings, the one that are not allow and could mess everything. It might hurt, but the end of everything will be worst. We can restrain the urges that throw us in each others arms, the looks way too tender and the word too soft. We can still save our old relationship.

Yeah, it's the best. Even me, I don't think about the possibility of a 'back to before'.

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Sorry for being so inactive. Thank you @Chess-raconte for this beautiful text.

Next chapter this Friday!