I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why.

Beautiful people don't need coats. They've got their auras to keep them warm.

You are a ghost, Andi," she says. "Almost gone." I look at her. I want to say something but I can't get the words out. She squeezes my hands. "Come back to us," she says. And she's gone.

The rain comes down harder as I write. It sheets off the roof in torrents. I wish it would pound against me. Pound the life from my body. The flesh from my bones. The pain from my heart.

She was his soulmate, as much a part of him as the very flesh and bone that made him. She was with him, in him, in everything he did. She was everything he wanted from his life, the very measure of his dreams.

Sometimes, when you catch someone unaware at just the right time and in just the right light, you can catch sight of what they will be.

They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can't see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can't get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper.