You won't be able to hurt me, or touch me.

You smiled then, and your whole face changed with it. It kind of lit up, like there were sunbeams coming from inside you.

Had you been lying all along? Mum gently stroked my hair. I whispered into her shoulder. “I can’t go back. Not yet. I can’t leave.” And she held my head tight to her chest and wrapped her arms around me. “You don’t have to,” she said, rocking me. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, not anymore.” And I cried.

I thought you didn't want to let me go.

The land wants you here. I want you here," you called. "Don't you care about that at all?

It was like I existed in a kind of parallel universe, thinking thoughts and feelings that no one else understood.

I remember that feeling of skin. It's strange to remember touch more than thought. But my fingers still tingle with it.