Dear Olive

"I didn't want this."

Four words that sounded flat and cold, like the desert in the midlle of the night. When I repeated them in my head, it was like all of the agony had been stripped away from Olive's declaration. I could think about her statement without letting my heart get in the way.

Did I have a heart? Yes, it was beating hard inside my chest. Blood was churning out and up. The pressure continued to rise inside of me.

I touched the side of my head. I could feel the stubble beneath my fingers, but the pain was underneath my skin. It felt like a headache, but worse than that.

Maybe it was a migraine? The sun seemed too bright and the silence was fartoo loud. I pressed my hand angainst my temple and waited.

"Charlie, I know that it's difficult to understand, but I didn't have a choice-"

"Of course you did," I interrupted. "No one forced you to be reborn. No one forced you to ignore me after the change either. What's difficult to understand is how that could have possibly been for my benefit. You said that you wanted me to hate you. Well I'm sorry, but I don't. I don't feel anything for you anymore."

Birds flew out of the oak tree. They dipped low and the soared into the bright blue sky. At that moment I wished I could fly away too...

"Do you see this body, Charlie? It looks perfect, doesn't it? Well, when I woke up inside this stranger, I did not feel perfect. I felt betrayed, angry, and really scared of who I had become."

"Olive, you can stop right there, because I know that's not true. I know that you don't "feel" things like you did before. You can control yourself and your emotions. I don't know if this is some kind of misguided attempt at apologising, but you don't have to. I understand why people change now and it's better this way."

"I wouldn't know," Olive replied quietly. "When I woke up I had this brand new body, but I was still me. That was the compromise my father made. He let them change everything, but he got to keep his little girl. I wasn't supposed to say anything, because that's not how the procedure is supposed to work... They made an exception for me."

"An exception," I repeated disbelieving. "Why would you wait until now to tell me that?"

"I was scared! They did this to me without my permission. I didn't want them to change you too. If we kept dating, I would need a perfect boyfriend, wouldn't I?"

Olive moved in closer as she spoke. She reached out her hands and I wondered if she planned on hitting me again. She didn't...

Olive did something that was even more unexpected. She hugged me. She tucked against my body like she belonged there and wrapped her arms tightly around my waist.

She started to cry again and I had to look anywhere but at her soft brown hair.

What was she doing?

Could Olive possibly be telling the truth?

My headache flared to the point where my questions didn't matter. The pain was excruciating and I couldn't make myself focus on anything else. I didn't realize my nose had started to bleed until I saw a drop of red fall into the brown hair that I was trying to ignore.

I quickly pinched my nose and raised my head. I felt dizzy, nauseous, and my vision was starting to blur. I tried to keep taking deep breaths through my mouth, but something was wrong.

I gripped Olive a little more tightly and then came the release. My vision went from blurry to black. I'm not certain what happened after that, but the pain went away.