I did a lot of stupid things growing up. Saw the alien movie where agents burned off their fingerprints, so I held mine to the stove ’til the heat forced me to pull back and spent days poking blisters the size of marbles. Heard of the actress who lay in ice water to stay young, so I did, too, my whole body seizing as it went so cold it was sure it was dead. I was always into things like that, things that made me more than human. Things that made me strong and fresh and secret. Always chasing that high into the darkest places.

All I felt when I came back was cold, like the ice bath was poured into my chest. Frozen down to my marrow. My breath came in sharp, frigid gasps, through lips and throat so dry I couldn’t swallow. Took hours to finally move. My veins crackled like my blood was slush and I shook so hard my tendons snapped over my bones. Shivered like my uncle when he quit the drink.

The cold forced me to get warm. The cold made me instinctual, animalistic and cruel.

I found Milo in the living room. He looked at me like he does when I clean his ears, back curled, tail tucked but wagging, pressed against the wall. Scared but trusting because it’s me. His fur was so short, warm velvet, and his skin was hot, the only heat in my world. His blood was hotter. It soothed the stabbing ache out of my teeth and skull, it freed me from the wracking shivers and thawed the brain freeze and ice in my joints and let me swallow and when it was over I took the cheap sewing kit I got in a Christmas cracker, two buttons and a paper spool of thread, and sewed him back up the best I could. Grey thread for grey fur.

He was a good boy. I buried him out back. My palms were cold and my fingertips ached as the frost of death climbed back into my empty veins.

I knew what I was. I knew what I needed. I knew Milo wasn’t enough.

Nothing could be enough.

I waited for dawn.

The sun brought heat, not comfort, but pain. Worse than the stove, too much to let wash over me. I thought it could end this, burn away my mistakes, but like the cold earlier, the heat took my thoughts and moved my legs and I came back to myself in the cellar. 

The floor creaked above me. My roommate, back from her trip. First her steps went to the closet where she’d gather the laundry, like she did on every return, then they’ll go to the stairs, then down here, where I sit on the washer.

Cold again, so cold. Lips cracked, shivering like an addict, choking on air. Waiting for her heat to help me swallow.