“Hey, why are the stars so bright?” He asked her, knowing they were the only two awake at this hour. They and more specifically, he, rejoiced in the tranquility. They were lying out on the upper floor of the barn, where an unframed window and a door out to the porch bled with starlight.

“So we can see them clearly and understand everything in our lives lead up to now to see the celestial caesura among the bleakness of life.” She said to him.

He reached out his cold hand, and so did she.

Only he could be seen.

The time of six o’clock am was branded in the front of Eve’s mind, often waking up in time to turn off the ever-persistent alarm that rang beside like his many troubling nightmares of the past. He used to sleep clutching a stuffed Hare like his own child but ever since six months ago, he sleeps fine. He completed his usual routine: getting dressed, and brushing his teeth before he eats like how she used to.

“Eve honey, breakfast is done,” his mother yelled out, in her usual upbeat tone that today seemed  flimsy, like a broken bar stool with only three legs used in a fight.

“I’m not hungry but I’ll take some on the way.”

Eve could swear he heard his mom’s muttered breath after his response. He took two pieces of buttered toast and an unpeeled orange before running out the door to meet the bus that stopped there only for him. His father was outside but didn’t look over at him to wave goodbye.

Eve lived in a remote part of town with his parents. Eve was an only child but often pleaded with his parents to buy or build another bed next to his. They live a moderate lifestyle, a two-story barnhouse with an open acre of land in the background. Eve’s parents cared for him deeply and raised him the best they could. They treated him like their most prized possession, almost everything that hung on the walls or fridge was of their son’s accomplishments. They owned only a few animals to not have too much work on top of their regular day jobs and school. Eve noticed his parents often spent more time with the animals than they did with him but he didn't put much thought into it as it had been this way for the past six months.

The bus was segregated by grade, a rule enforced by the seniors and approved by the driver who no one knew, as he had a thick mustache and aviators. Eve, as a sophomore, knew this and sat in a spot he was technically allowed to be in, which unbeknownst to him was highly contested. As the next stop arrived while he was peeling the orange he took from his mom and putting the slices in the air as if to feed someone next to him, a group of people flooded the bus like gushing water in a sinking ship.

“Would you like to sit he-” 

Eve didn’t have time to finish his sentence before someone swooped into the seat beside him like a hawk upon a mouse, knocking the orange slices out of Eve’s hand.

The punk said nothing.

Eve looked down at the wasted food misty-eyed. Time seemed to speed up for him, imagining the food itself withering away into icy dust right before his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

The punk next to him turned over.

“What?”

“Oh nothing, I was talking to someone else.”

The other punk noticed throughout the ride that although he was quiet, Eve still mouthed words but in the opposite direction. 

Eve had already solidified himself as the weird one.

“No one gets me, and everyone treats me like a pushover and like a sissy because my name is a girls name, who even gets to decide that?” Eve said aloud at lunchtime while sitting outside, breath cold from winter air

“I do, and I really like your name, it highlights your traits and softness well,” she spoke to him

“I never knew you felt like that.” He blushed red despite being cold.

“I always have and will.  I’ll always be by your side.”

Eve was about to respond before a couple phased through where she sat beside him. The only hint of her being there was the slight shiver of the boy passing by.

“Babe, is it just me is it really cold now?”

So was born the legend of the Apparition of Frozen Breath.

Eve was laughing and chatting on his way home from school, like usual, and also like usual, no one could see who he was talking to. He sat down on the lower level porch that led to the front door of his house to take in the brisk air that made the ears of freezing rotting corn wiggle and bend. As he sat in the rocking chair, while moving another one closer for her, he watched the corn sway in the wind. The sound of shaking shucks, blades of permafrost grass gliding through the air. He felt peace in his sad existence. Quickly the sound of corn turned harsh, like an out-of-key piano chord. Sharp like glass, it cut deep, his ears felt as if they bled. Swaying turned to snapping, bending, twisting. Grotesque contortions. The corn spoke.

“Is he home yet? He is almost home now, it’s around that time.” the corn spoke with the voice of his parents.

So nervous and full of terror like they were going to be slaughtered the knives in the ominously long knife block given to us by the previous owners.

“He’s crazy, cuckoo, he’s gone off the deep end Mark. You hear him all the time right? How he talks to himself. Somethings gone wrong, we’ve gone wrong. Does he talk to spirits? Is he a ghost now? What’s happened to my son! What have we done to have to deserve this?” the corn screamed out in agony and despair. Eve shook violently, the creak of the rocking chair now echoed in his mind. He instinctively stuck out his arm toward the other chair. He felt relief knowing she was holding his hand as if she was comforting him going through labor.

“I know Martha but he’s our son. We can’t banish him from our house. He’s just stressed I bet.”

“Stressed? For six months now? He doesn’t even eat food, he takes it and it’s just gone. He always talks about ‘her’, and acts like ‘she’ is there. He doesn’t know what is real anymore, he isn’t right in the head. He isn’t ours. Ashe left him, told him that she didn’t care about him and they were no longer friends anymore six months ago. Why can’t he just be normal? I knew we should have just given him a normal name, a masculine and standard one to avoid all the bullying. Those kids bullied our son away and brought forth this creature. They cursed them. We cursed him, Mark. If only we had a girl so he could make friends more easily. If only he was normal.” His mother started out in agony before ending in tears. 

Eve’s delusions wore off and realized he was listening to his parents discuss his future as a freak who needed a straight jacket. Everything was so loud, so painful, Everything around him was bending. She kept whispering in his ear,” It’s going to be ok” and for the first time in six months, he didn’t believe it. Out of disbelief, and to prove to himself and her that he was simply hearing things, as he often did, he opened the door to his house with wide eyes and empty pupils to see his mother instinctively look over in fearful shock.

“Mother?”

There was an awkward silence as their eyes met

“Get away from me!” She cried herself to her knees and his father embraced her without looking at him.

“Why can’t he move on, why can’t he move on.” She muttered to herself, muffled through his father’s embrace. His father didn’t look over at him. 

No one ever did.

But her.