Iceman on Fire

He pushed her away. Not physically of course; he prided himself on being a gentleman. He pushed her away with subtle words, making her decide to leave him before he started to thaw, before he started to melt, the victim of his own success. Like the other girls, she was burnt by his flaming passion, and maybe she was hurt more than the rest, because she was special. After all, she had made him feel on fire. Something that had never happened before.

Nobody knew this, but he was an Iceman. Looks can be deceiving, of course. His exterior was nondescript, a lean but muscular young man with a boyish countenance. Nothing about him looked extraordinary, except that if you looked closely, if you dared to, that is, to look into his dark hazel penetrating eyes, you could see the slightest hint of an icy glint.

He was not very popular at school, because he seemed aloof. However, the few friends he had loved him because he was their friend, and they were his. To friends, he showed his interesting side, his gentle side, even his silly side, but never his vulnerable side. They all thought he was like a fortress, with no weak points. In a sense, he was a fortress, albeit a frozen one.

But his coolness was an advantage when it came to dating. Rarely did a girl he ask out turn him down. Of course, he would never ask the same girl out more than 3 times.
Date 1 : "Nice to meet you"
Date 2 : "I had a great time"
Date 3 : "See you again sometime"
He was becoming an expert at this; after all, he had been doing this all the time.
As they say, practice makes perfect.

J asked him one day, "W is getting married soon, A has gotten married, and I intend to in one or two years' time. How about you? "

He replied nonchalantly, "I am still single."

"But not available, are you?" J said perceptively.

"Who says I am not available? I go out on dates, don't I?" he retorted.

"Sure you do, but they all fizzle out, don't they? Come to think of it, you have not gone out with the same girl more than 3times" J pointed out.

"I guess they call it 3rd time (un)lucky. hahaha" he laughed.

"I'll ask S to talk sense into you when he's back." J said in a half-exasperated, half-joking manner.

S will understand how I feel, he thought to himself.

How I feel about her. Even now, she still appeared in his dreams sometimes. She was the first, and maybe the last who managed to enter that crimson chamber of his. Even he himself was amazed at the speed with which she broke through all his defences. His masks were ripped apart one by one, his walls torn down faster than you could say L-O-V-E.

He found himself falling in love, and that fortress of ice thawed at an alarming rate. He lost himself for a while, in the flames of passion. When he rediscovered himself again, he found that she was gone, leaving only a letter behind.

"I am sorry that I had to leave. The days we spent together were the happiest days of my life, but your fiery love was too much for me. I am just a young lady who is still unsure of what I really want, and I am not ready to reciprocate your affection the way you want me to. Maybe if I were more mature, or if you were more ... Never mind, I just want to say, thank you for the memories. You will always be someone special, someone who made me happy during that melancholy season called Autumn. Goodbye"

He reread the letter and folded it again, keeping it in his notebook that he carried with him all the time. Next to the letter was the photo of the two of them, in happier times. Since then, he had been to many places, done many things, met many people. However, whenever the leaves turned crimson, and the autumn wind started playing its melancholic melodies, he would feel something in that frozen crimson chamber, as though there was a fire inside.

But it would last for only an ephemeral eternity, because an Iceman can never be on fire, can he?