"But what if the whole world is a mug of hot tea and I'm just an ice cube?"

Brigid sighed and closed her notebook. She had been finding herself doing that a lot lately.

She felt alone but couldn't pinpoint exactly why that bothered her.

She knew there weren't very many people in the world who were like her—and she was okay with that. She didn't care about people, anyway. They made her tired. They were so complex, so hard to figure out, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was how they were always changing. It seemed like every time she'd finally wrapped her head around her latest person project, they just had to run off and change again, and suddenly all of her work had been for nothing.

She hated the thought of emotions. They were heavy, cumbersome. They got in the way. She didn't understand how people could let themselves be so easily swayed by the most fleeting feelings. She didn't understand how they could change the whole course of their lives based on some one-time feeling.

It was unfair, reflected Brigid, how she was the only person in the world whose mind would be easy to understand yet she was also the only person who she couldn't challenge herself by analyzing.

She decided to pick up a book. She had always been an avid reader because she liked other people's thoughts; they were the only thing that could drown out her own. Besides, it was always so interesting to see just what they were willing to show the world.

The reason she had found herself hesitating to read as of late, though, was simple. It was romance. It didn't matter to her. It was frustrating and trite. It was pointless. Why did every story need to be a love story? Why couldn't slaying dragons or studying science or changing the world be enough?

People just never understood the things they were capable of doing. They were always too afraid to stand on their own too feet for fear of falling over. They never wanted to take the risk of looking at who they were when no one else was watching.

And another thing, they never wanted to take the credit they deserved. They were always afraid of being arrogant. Well, Brigid, she'd rather be arrogant than pulled down by dead weight anyway.

Her eyes started to wander and so did her mind. God, it was so hard to keep her attention span in check these days. She would vaguely tell herself that she'd grow out of it. It was biological or chemical or natural, whatever it was, it was a phase.

She hated phases, too.

She was fine with herself. She didn't need to drift away. She didn't need anything to break up the tedium of being her.

She checked her watch for the sixth time this minute.

It was almost dinnertime. Relatively. Relatively, it was always almost something. Even if dinnertime was three weeks away, it would seem a hell of a lot closer than if it was three years.

She didn't know whether that fact soothed her or simply made her angry. She didn't know why she cared.

For someone as smart as she was, there sure were a lot of unimportant things she didn't know.