Alexithymia

When I met her, I was at a 7-11 buying a chocolate bar because I had been driving all night and I needed to snack on something to keep myself awake.
It was cold and she walked in with her long, frizzy brown hair speckled with snow and her bright blue eyes open wide like windows to a clear sky. She didn’t bother looking at me but instead dug around through the chips. I watched her, fascinated.
A single question burned through me.
“Sir? Your change?”
I glanced to the cashier behind me, who looked tired and uninterested. Feeling bad for making him wait (even for a few seconds), I grabbed the change and apologized to him.
“It’s cool,” I heard him say. I slowly pulled the chocolate off the counter, my eyes still fixed on the girl. She looked up at me and smiled, glancing around awkwardly and looking back to me and waving. Feeling embarrassed, I turned my gaze back to the ground, not so quickly that anybody would know I was staring but just fast enough to avoid the girl. I realized how weird I probably looked standing there so I went outside, feeling a blast of freezing air hit me like a thousand pins and needles being driven into my skin.
But even through the glass door, I couldn’t stop staring at her. I was amazed. How could she-
“Hey, dude. What’s up?”
I blinked and glanced around the store. She was gone. I turned around and I found myself locked onto those blue eyes. I backed into the wall and stammered, “Oh, h-hi.”
She grinned.
“Chill. I won’t shank you or anything, I swear. I saw you staring at me. It was really creepy.” She shoved a Dorito into her mouth.
“Oh, um, sorry for creeping you out. It was unintentional. It’s just that I wanted to ask you something...”
Still chewing, she nodded.
I took a breath
“How are you not cold?”...

... middle of paper ...

...e, a grown man sitting in your truck holding a chocolate bar and staring at strange coatless girls in the convenience store. You smell like an apple tree and you look like you haven’t cut your hair in, like, forever. And you have sad eyes. Like you’re always worrying about shit. But it’s weirdly endearing and makes you look less like a child molester so I guess I like that. But yeah, you look sad and well...kind of pitiful. So I chose you for the word.”
“Wow.” I sat back in my seat and rubbed my eyes. “Okay. That’s kind of...cool in a strangely rude way.” And then I smiled. “So, if you want to take pictures of random things and sit in my truck, might I ask which word I can associate to your image?”
She laughed and held out her hand.
“Violet. You can call me Violet. And what are you called by your peers, hobo man?”
“Dan,” I said, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you.”