The snow was perfect that day.

Not too soft, not too hard. Not too warm, not too cold. The bleak January weather had even been welcomed by the sun faintly appearing in the sky.

"So this will be our plan of attack," Douglas instructed, drawing in the snow behind our fort. "The enemy lies atop the hill, with the forest behind them and to the side. Behind them is not the best tactic, as the undergrowth will make too much noise."

"So you want us to go up to the road," Wendy guessed.

"Exactly. I'll go up to the road, within range of their fort, and rain fire down upon them!"

"Then I go in for the offensive," Wendy said.

"And I hold down the fort," I said.

Douglas nodded approvingly. "Fall back if Matt is overwhelmed, Wendy. And both of you, only throw the ice balls to scare."

"Of course," I smiled. "We aren't animals."

The three of us nodded in remembrance of the horrors of the past - when Ted in fury, seeing their flag was lost, hurled an entire shovel's worth of snow at Douglas in revenge. I did not like Ted. I would not have taken the experience in stride like Douglas had.

"Good luck soldiers," Douglas said. "By 4 o' clock, the flag will be ours."

The two left on their separate missions. Wendy hung back, pretending to head out into the forest, but hiding close to the tree line in case someone came near. Meanwhile Douglas began his long trip circling around the other fort to the road above them.

And I waited in solitude. My eyes tracked my surroundings, making sure to look in all directions, especially the forest. But that was too obvious. The empty asphalt of the nearby junior high had no cover - mostly. There were a few old trees.

I heard a commotion, and saw that Greg had been hit multiple times by Wendy. I readied my own ammunition. He retreated. We had less people today - far less unfortunately. Sometimes we were able to get larger amounts of our respective neighborhoods to join in, but today it was just our small group.

Most people didn't want to immediately go out into the snow after school was out, when they could just wait until the next day. And of course, most high school seniors were not interested in playing out in the snow. I could not imagine how someone could be so boring.

I heard the sound in the distance of Douglas attacking, including a poor victim's cry of "was that ice?"

I smiled. Perfect. Wendy would be going in for the flag soon. I wanted to be in the action, but I resisted the urge. Others gloried in the glamor of the attack. It was the resilience, the patience here however, that won the fight.

I heard the faint sound of crunching snow.

I began to fire.

I hurled snowballs as fast as I could before my mind even had a chance to recognize the figure. Even in the middle of me throwing as fast as possible, she withstood the fire, and dashed for the flag.

The moment they slid in, I knew who it was - Jackie.

She was the fastest person on their side, and she had pivoted in direction, gotten around me, and snatched up the flag, even as I got another hit on her.

"The flag is stolen!" I sounded the alarm.

I grabbed up ammunition as I made chase. As soon as I left the cover of the fort, to my relief, I spotted Wendy in the distance making a run for our side. I threw another snowball at Jackie, and missed. I threw again, and it flew in front of her, startling her for a second.

As she paused, I jumped in front of her, grabbing the flag. She yanked the stick upward through my gloves, but had misjudged the force, and flew backward down to the ground.

Before I could ask if she was alright, she once again slipped past me, breaking back into a run -

"We win!" Wendy announced - with Jackie still on our side. A few more seconds, and Jackie would've gotten to the other side.

"Hmph," Jackie grunted, glancing at Douglas, Greg, and Ted, who were catching up behind her.

"You," Ted said hoarsely to Wendy, "are a speed demon,"

"It's her fancy new snow shoes," Jackie laughed with a wry smile.

"Yeah," I said with a heavy breath. "I wish I'd had some of those."

"Should've kept a tighter grip on the flag," Jackie said to me. "If we'd just had more people playing today..."

"Then I would've had even more people raining down fire from the road!" Douglas laughed.

Greg spun around to him. "Ice balls dude? Seriously? One almost hit me square in the chest!"

"But it didn't hit you," Douglas smirked.

"If it was almost a war crime," I said, "it's still fair game."

The others laughed, and started talking about something else. My heart was pumping really fast from that sprint in snow boots. Gosh I needed a breather. I had that gross, metallicy taste in my mouth. I think it was from a lot of blood flow in the tongue or something.

I found myself taking bigger, deeper breaths, hanging my mouth open. Barely realizing it, I started hanging my tongue out of my mouth.

"Dude," Douglas said, "you pretending to be a dog or something?"

I flinched, nearly biting my tongue. I pulled it back in, embarrassed.

"Just tired is all," I said.

"Well you were panting like a dog," Wendy said.

What? I'd started doing it again? Oh no...

"It's... It's just a habit," I said. "I... augh. As a kid I played around, pretending I was a dog. I... I feel really stupid. Just... for some reason I got into the habit of... hanging my tongue out... and it just became a weird sort of habit. That's all."

"It's okay dude," Douglas said.

"Matt," Wendy said, "your tongue is like... really long."

I stuck it out. The others all voiced the same sentiment. I suddenly realized that I'd started panting again. And then I licked my nose.

Shock briefly came over me, and then I pulled my tongue back in my mouth, clenching my jaw. Oh gosh... I'd really just done that.

They all stared.

"Matt...," Douglas said. "That's... not normal."

I winced. "I - It's just a dumb, weird habit. It's nothing serious."

Douglas shook his head. "Like no dude, that's weird, but... your tongue is like, really long. You shouldn't be able to touch your nose."

"A lot of people can touch their nose with their tongue," I shrugged.

The others thus tried an impromptu experiment. Wendy could touch the bottom of her nose, but the others weren't even close. This... did not help my case.

"See man?" Douglas said, "you like touched the front of your nose. Something is seriously wrong with your tongue."

I groaned. "I have a condition called macroglossia, okay? I just have a longer than average tongue. Doctors say it's fine."

"And you... pant like a dog," Wendy said.

I squeezed my eyes shut. "Yes. Okay?"

"Sorry Matt," Douglas said. "It's just... strange. But if it's not harmful... you do you... I guess."

I definitely wasn't going to do it now. Even though I wanted to.

The others slowly took their attention away from me, and talked about something else. They started walking back towards the junior high's parking lot.

"Do you guys wanna do maybe one more round?" I asked.

"Nah," Greg said, "it's getting late in the afternoon, time to head home."

Greg, Ted, and Wendy began heading towards their cars. I caught a glimpse of Wendy and Douglas sharing a smile. I could tell something was happening with those two. Douglas interrupted my thoughts.

"Matt," he said as he, Jackie and I continued past the parking lot towards our neighborhood.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"We've been friends for like... years dude. Why didn't you ever tell me this?"

"Why," I said sourly, "would I randomly tell my friend that I have a long tongue?"

Douglas was silent. Jackie walked on the other side of him. She had her head hung low. She hadn't said anything the whole time I'd been making a scene. It was over. I had thought Jackie was cute, and had been considering asking her on a date since she'd started hanging out with us, but now there was no way she'd want to date "dog boy."

"I'm just concerned about you man," Douglas said.

"I've already said," I repeated, "that I got it all checked years ago, and it's an uncommon condition, but it's not harmful."

"I just...," Douglas sighed. "Jackie, like just... tell him."

"Tell him what?" she said. "I don't really care. He can do what he wants."

"I don't want to do it," I said.

"I thought you said you did," Douglas said.

I groaned.

They were quiet.

"I bet you all think I'm a freak," I said.

"What?" Douglas said. "No."

"Yes you do. You're all going to call me 'dog boy' or something."

"Dude. you're our friend," Douglas said. "I think it's weird, but I'm not going to make fun of you for having some condition. I just want to... understand."

I glanced at Jackie. She remained silent.

"Do you think I'm a freak?"

Jackie flinched. She'd been staring down at the ground, and turned her gaze towards me with what looked like a nervous look.

"You think I'm messed up," I said.

"No," she said with a slight panicked expression, "I just... I have some stuff... on my mind. I'm sorry."

We crossed an empty road, getting closer to home. Jackie kept her gaze away from mine. She couldn't even bear to look at me. She took one of her gloves off, and oddly reached up and touched her nose.

I shook my head. I didn't know what was going through her mind, but it probably was not anything that thought positively of me. As we got close to my house, I turned to Douglas.

"Douglas."

"Yes?"

"Can we please just pretend this didn't happen."

"Okay."

Jackie didn't answer.

"Jackie?" Douglas got her attention.

"I... I'm sorry, I won't bring it up or anything."

Another gap of quiet.

"It's going to be okay dude," Douglas said.

I huffed.

"I still sleep with my childhood blanket," Jackie said quietly.

She still did not make eye contact.

"And I put ketchup on my mashed potatoes," Douglas said, "we're - "

"You what?" I said in disbelief. "That, my friend, is a heinous crime."

Douglas laughed. "See, everyone has something weird or embarrassing they do when they're alone."

I frowned. "But I messed up and did it in front of my friends."

I stopped in front of the walk up to my house.

"And you're our friend too, dog boy," he laughed. He gave me a brief hug. "If you want to let your weirdness out a bit around us, I won't judge."

He took a breath. He would. They all would.

Douglas smiled. In some way, I found myself mad at him. The others weren't pretending what I was doing wasn't weird, but he was. He was doing it to try to be nice, but it was still a lie.

"I'll see you later," I said.

"See you later."

It had been awkward suddenly breaking that off. I hated myself for having revealed my secret habit. They acted like they were going to keep it under wraps, but I found myself questioning how strong my friendships really were, especially with Greg and Jackie, who I didn't know as well. And Ted of course I never trusted.

I glanced behind me as they walked away. They were saying something to each other. I shuddered to think of what it could be.

I walked into the garage, shaking the snow off of my boots, and taking off all my winter gear. I went up to my room, and thankfully Mom, Dad, and Ashley didn't say anything to me as I passed through the living room.

I collapsed onto my bed. I'd ruined it with Jackie. She looked like she'd watched me push a man off a bridge for how in shock she'd seemed. I wondered what I'd done to provoke that response. She didn't look disgusted, like I would have expected, but rather deeply disturbed. It was really weird and embarrassing, but it wasn't that bad.

But whatever. It was over with her. It sucked. My best case scenario was now that they didn't tell anyone, and I'd have to just never exert myself around any new girl I had a crush on. Exercise was what prompted the behavior the most, especially when I was pushing myself really hard.

It hurt, because the panting barely happened anymore. It was as if I'd wet the bed or something, falling into something I hadn't had issues with since elementary school. I'd thought I'd gotten it under control.

I groaned, sitting up, and grabbing my tablet. I stretched it to its larger size, and folded it, setting the bottom half to be a keyboard, and got to work on an assignment from school. My video design class was not that difficult thankfully. If nothing else, I was able to take my mind off of it all.

I could only hope that I'd be able to ride out this jarring bump in the road, and maintain the status quo. My friends would forget. I would forget. It would all be behind us.

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