I paced the tiny floor of her room, made even smaller by the clothes and papers covering most of it, my boots making squeaking noises as they flex and bend. Out the window, I could see the cold July skies heaping snow on the hillsides, covering everything in a perfect blanket of white. Somewhere out there, I reasoned, I’d be able to find it. Dogtags, simple army style dogtags. Except these were special, imprinted with that message, and without them I felt lost. From the corner she looked at me with soulful eyes and said nothing. I paced, back and forth, trying to think where I’d left them. It doesn’t matter, I thought, their just a couple of pieces of metal, nothing important. Not important, except that for the fact we had always worn them, always. From the time we were nine, when we realised we had something hard to find, even at that age. Even then we knew. I don’t know how, but we knew. Adults don’t tell you what love means. Your family will tell you the love you, always and unconditionally, and they will. What they don’t tell you is what it means to love someone else, for no reason other than that they love you for the same reason. We had it, we knew. And now I’d lost the one thing we swore we’d always have to remind us of each other, even when we were apart. I stopped pacing and held the window frame tightly, staring out over the blankets of snow. I heard the rustle of clothing and the faint pitter patter of feet as she came to me and held me close.
“It doesn’t matter.” She said, speaking for the first sounds in a long time.
“Yes. yes it does.”
“Why? They’re just things.”
“If I can’t take care of something like that, then why should I be able to take care of anything else.” I gently prised her from me and sat on her bed, knowing I should leave, not wanting to, wanting to be held, and wanting feel safe in her arms. She said nothing and retreated to her corner, holding herself against the chill.
I stood at the window, watching the snow falling, wishing for a moment that I was just one of those flakes in the storm, falling, not caring, one of millions.
“Perhaps you should leave.” she said eventually. I turned startled.
“Leave…?” In all our years, we’d never told the other to go, we always wanted them to stay.
“Damn you, just go!” She rose, and shouted at me. Struck dumb, I left.
The next few days past in a blur of endless hours, stretched out, every one just the same. For years, I’d never felt alone, and now, the feeling returned, intensified by it’s long absence.
I started walking, if for no other reason than to have something to do. Maybe I was searching, I don’t know.

On afternoon of the third day, I returned, wearily unlocking the door to my dorm, shaking snow from my boots wishing for a warmer jacket, or a warm someone to hold me.
The hallway was as featureless and as deserted as always, I check my mailbox, out of habit, and my fingers closed on something shiny and made of metal. I held it up to the light. It was a dogtag, but not mine, it was the one worn around her neck, that I had given her all those years ago. What did this mean?

I stumbled to my room, not wanting to think about what this meant, I closed the door behind me and looked up to see her sitting on my bed, wearing a dogtag… that looked strangely new. “I figured that if you had to have one, that if this was how you held onto it, then I could live with that.” She laugh and reached for me. Dumbstruck again, I fell into her arms, and then pulled away, thinking.
“You know…” I reached round my neck, grabbed the dogtag, reached for her’s with the same hand, and dropped them out the window into the snow. “I think I’m happy with you.” I pulled her into me, having her as her, nothing else.