Cold Wave

Photo by Robert Ullmann for Scopio

{This short piece was a winner of the winter flash fiction contest by Brilliant Flash Fiction}

He asked to take her bracelet. “Sophie” engraved on a steel band along with memories—someone who had loved her. You’ll give it back? she asked. Jerod nodded. In untucked shirt, skinny jeans, bare feet, Jerod was as self-absorbed as he was blue-eyed-handsome. Practiced at silencing herself, she let him take it. 

Like the following week when he took her breath away. Covered her mouth and plugged her nose. So polished her disassociation that she analyzed the action rather than fought it. How long had it been? Why would he do this? Had he done this to others? She concluded that yes, surely he had done this to others. She waited for him to remove his hands as her mind, flooded and frozen, took note of his dorm room scents, scuffs on the ceiling, the chill on her bare and perfect torso. Observations more accessible than a young male’s quest for power. Jerod sat naked beside her on the bed, a casual grin on his face.

The next night, when he called to her from his dorm room window, she shook her head and walked into the cold. What happened to the bracelet, Sophie wondered. She never knew. Likely thrown out with accumulated detritus at the back of a bedroom drawer. As easy to lose as herself.