Her

17

PHOENIX

"You know, if you're cold, you could just say so."

"I'm not cold."

Aza hands me a flannel shirt. "You're welcome, princess," she says.

I murmur a thanks and put it on. It smells like her; coffee, chocolate and forest. She goes back to making us hot chocolate. I have sat down on her bed after helplessly looking around and her finally telling me I can sit down on it.

"Here you go," she says, handing me a cup.

"Thanks."

She sits down opposite me, close, but not close enough for us to be touching. We sip our drinks, a few snacks between us and music which Aza has put on playing in the background.

"Do you want to see something cool?"

"Are you going to show me a photo of myself?"

"You're not cool, Aza. And I don't have photos of you."

"You will once I finish editing the ones we took today," she says. "So what's so cool?"

"Well, have you ever seen seahorses giving birth?"

"Well, no. I haven't."

I pull out my phone, look for a clip online and hand Aza my phone. She watches it, frowning a little. There's a male seahorses who's giving birth to over a thousand babies, and it pretty much looks like he's shooting them out.

"That's kind of..."

"...cool? Yeah, I know."

"You're so weird, Phoenix." She smiles. "So is that what you like to do in your free time? Watching seahorses delivering their babies?"

"Well, it's not all I like to do in my free time."

"Right. You like to read."

"Yeah, I do."

"Why? I mean, what do you like so much about it?"

"What I like about it?"

"Yeah, tell me," she says. "In one sentence, why do you like to read books?"

"In one sentence," I say, thinking. "I can escape reality."

"Okay. Explain."

"Well, it's like when I read, I'm reading someone else's story. I'm escaping my own. I can learn from others, get a different perspective, new experiences. I can see through the eyes of someone else, I can feel someone else's emotions. I can be someone else. There are other reason why I love it, but I think that's the main one." I look down at my cup, swirling it a little. "I'm sounding like a weird, huge loner."

"Well, it's because you are a weird, huge loner."

"Thanks." I look at her. "So what about photography? Why do you like it so much? In one sentence."

"In one sentence?" She pauses, thinks. "I can capture something meaningful."

"Explain."