The cold seeped through her jacket and nipped at her cheeks as she walked down the busy street with Bob Dylan blasting in her headphones. A car honked at her. Vanessa had received fewer honks when walking home after she had cut her hair; now they assumed she was a lesbian. She liked to pretend she was a pixie, a pixie with her wings pressed flat against her body until she wanted to fly. Then they would come out of her, fluttering slightly and stretching after being confined for so long. They were butterfly wings, silvery-blue in color. They looked like multicolored muslin. A car honked as she crossed a street on the "Don't walk" signal.

She looked up at the gray sky, away from the snow which should have been blindingly white but had turned to a brownish gray under the wheels of the cars and the feet of the pedestrians. Icicles hung from the fences, roofs, and jutting edges of buildings. Vanessa imagined taking a stick and running it along the icicles as if she were playing the xylophone. She could almost hear their hollow, distant ringing in her head before she returned her attention to Bob Dylan's familiar melodies.

Her backpack weighed heavily on her and Vanessa bounced a few times as she walked to relieve her shoulders. It was dark and hard to see. The Gothic Church in front of her had two lit windows towards the top, looking like eyes glaring down on her. In her mind the stone turned to scales. They were dark green scales, so dark they were almost black. The dragon sat on its haunches and blew fire at her. The fire enveloped her in heat that did not harm her. It was a comforting heat and for a moment she closed her eyes, enjoying the unreal feeling.

It was then she felt it. She heard the sharp screech of tires and felt the sharp pain over her side, then on the other side, then all over her body as she spun off of the metal and onto the pavement. She lay on the ground as the driver of the car screamed, feeling the warmth she had imagined all over her body.

She heard harsh sirens and was lifted. She felt inert, it was hard to move. One of the paramedics spoke to her, his voice echoing in her head, but he talked slowly and his voice was bent out of shape. She dissolved the harsh sounds of sirens and honking of cars, and melted them away into angelic voices and gentle chimes. The heat left her and the pain took its place. She winced and stopped trying to move, attempting not to focus on the pain. The driver's head hovered over her, his face showing fear and concern. She closed her eyes tightly and tried moving her wings but found that they weren't there. She couldn't change the sound of the siren any longer. It seemed she didn't want to. Finally, she submitted to the darkness that had been threatening since she fell.

She awoke the next morning with a pounding in her head and bandages on her back where she had spun off the car and slid on the ground. There were bruises all over her right leg and she felt the pain more than ever. She looked around the room helplessly, the white walls and fluorescent lights seeming to close in on her. She tried to push them away. She tried to find some way to escape. She sat up with some difficulty and slid off the bed. She collapsed on the floor, resting a few moments. She used her arms to pull herself upright and leaned on the bed for support. She tried walking and found that it wasn't bad if she didn't pay attention. She tried to stretch her wings again, but the pain came back just as intense as when she had paid attention.

The door opened and someone both unfamiliar and recognizable entered. He carried a bouquet of flowers and a half-meant smile on his face. The man who ran her over. Her eyes narrowed.

"Miss Clark? I'm James Cooper. I was just wondering if you were okay. I'm...uh...sorry that I ran you over yesterday. I honestly didn't see you." He played nervously with the plastic water-holder at the bottom of the bouquet. "I brought you these." He stuck them out towards her, holding them as if he had never held a bouquet before. She smiled.

"I'm fine besides the feeling that I drank 5 bottles of whiskey and have had every muscle in my body pulled in opposite directions," she said. He frowned, still holding out the flowers, then smiled catching on to her sarcasm.

"Here." He walked over to the bed and handed her the flowers. "Tell me...how badly did I hurt you?"

"Not badly," she replied quietly, and then in her mind, "Yes badly. I can't make it go away." She flushed, her eyes beginning to water. She hid her face in the flowers, pretending to sniff them. They were white roses. She smiled into them, thinking, "Purity of intent..."

"Nothing serious?"

"No, just some bruises and cuts," she said into the flowers.

"Then the injuries are similar to your arms?"

She glanced down over the side of the flowers. Her right arm lay in her lap, bruised and scraped on one side.

"Pretty much." She arched her back, feeling the bandages.

"Oh." He looked at his feet, then at her. "Anyway, if you need any help, just give me a call." He handed her a business card that she set on the table beside her. As he left, she peered at him over the edge of the bouquet.

In two days she was released from the hospital. Her back had scabbed over and her bruises were beginning to fade. She walked out the door carrying her backpack and the bouquet of flowers and stood at the edge of the curb, watching the cars zoom past her at a ridiculously fast pace. She felt a shadow of the feeling of the car hitting against her. She backed away from the edge of the sidewalk a little. "How ridiculous am I being." She walked to the street corner and waited for the light to change. As soon as it did she ran across, fearing that the light would change before she reached the other side. Shaken, she leaned on the street sign, catching the breath she had barely lost. She couldn't walk home, she thought, remembering the pain at every street corner. She waited once more for the walk signal before sprinting across the street and walking shakily back into the hospital. She pulled out the card with his number on it and dialed his number at a pay phone. He picked up after two rings.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Brown? It's Vanessa."

"Vanessa?" he paused, "Oh yes, Vanessa. Call me James. How can I help you?"

"This might sound strange, but I was wondering, could you drive me home?"

"Sure, do you want me to come now?"

"If you could."

They said their not yet customary good-byes and she hung up the phone, relieved that she wouldn't have to spend the next hour afraid. She went outside and waited on a bench in front of a snow-cover bush, feeling the gentle cold embrace her.