If Ice Can Burn, Then Love & Hate Can Mate

Sometimes she thought about her heart, and wondered how it was doing without her. But the girl was never curious enough to go and find out. Except once, when she almost went back to see.   Except once, when she woke up one morning convinced that she was in love. All over her, her skin felt softer even than her breath, and her eyes felt wider, clearer, dreamy, lashed and lidded with an unknown stuff that had drawn a man in. For a week, she washed and dried and rubbed cream into her body with a special, happy care, and she realised that she was preparing her body for caresses. She found a taste for cold things that released their sweetness slowly - ice cream that slid down her throat before she could taste it, tinned peaches in chill syrup.   But there was no heart there in her chest.   When the girl remembered this, she forced herself to eat a bite of mashed plantain, and the first swallow was hard. But after that, life stepped straight again.