The inside of the door is glossy white. A total re-paint. I touch it with my fingers, but it stays the same. It's so bright it makes the room waver at the edges. Every few years we disappear.

Sometimes if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen. If you miss someone so desperately that it wrecks your insides, you say their name over and over until you conjure then. It's called sympathetic magic and you just have to believe in it to make it work.

Then she says, ‘I love you.’ Like three drops of blood falling onto snow.

I'm me and you're you, and all of them out there are them. And we're all so different and equally unimportant.

You changed the rules of the universe when you fell in love with the enemy.

Her face crashes. She hasn't dealt with a single transfusion or lumbar puncture. She wasn't allowed near me for the bone-marrow transplant, but she could have been there for any number of diagnoses, and wasn't. Even her promises to visit more often have faded away with Christmas. It's her turn to taste some reality.

That slow smile again. I love that smile! DId I think he was ugly just now? No, his face is transformed.