He tries to pretend he's joking, but I've heard it all before. I can hear the uncertainty in his voice. "My ice queen," he says. He's said the same before, during our fights that happen all too often. "Don't you feel anything?"

Another friend of mine sits beside me in the car. I'm pretending to concentrate on the road, holding my shoulders a little too straight. "Say something before I think you're a monster," he says, and I thought I heard anguish in his voice. I shift slightly and stare at the road. But I say nothing.

"How did you become so cold?" and there's anger now. He's hurt but it hasn't sunk in it yet, the anger still covering it's surface. I can see it in his eyes, flashing and wild.

Don't you feel? You're a monster. How do you handle it? Why are you so indifferent, so cold? Don't you love me? What's wrong with you?

In the darkness I can imagine I see shapes in the shadows. My lips move to the words unspoken, and at times I reach my hand out but nothing is there except the air. And I let the tears fall without wiping them away.

The ice queen has begun to melt.