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It’s well before the 2000s, and Michael is still Michael, or Mikey, or kiddo. Mikey enjoys going to the great, big lake where grandpa has a rickety old cabin. There’s no electricity (he likes to play pioneer, boiling beans over a stove and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches over a campfire) and there’s no phone and sometimes, his dad joins. Mom and dad eat differently, and their parents sound different, and sometimes Mikey wishes other grandpa could come, too. That grandpa knew about life without electricity, as they often reminded their grandson with accents as thick as the honey they’d smear on the wounds of his boyish injuries; Mikey thinks he’d fare well here, but him and grandma had to talk to his mom this weekend for something they deemed “very important”, dad explained.

Mikey enjoys the car rides to and from the cabin. Likes watching dad, and dad’s dad, and picturing himself as das and dad as dad’s dad. He wonders if someday he’ll have a son in the backseat while he and dad sit up front and talk about which CD to put in next, the best song off of Déjà Vu, something called rehab, and what brand of peanut butter is the best for campfire pies. This time they’re being quieter on the ride home, certain conversations dwindling just quiet enough for Mikey to miss every other word.

What Mikey likes most of all is when they stop at a coffee shop right before the run-down apartment and get mom her favorite latte. Mikey tried it once- spit it out while dad and grandpa laughed and clutched their plush stomachs from the front of the car. Dad ruffled his dark hair and said he’d grow into it. Mikey didn’t know how mom liked that stuff, but she always smiled and hugged him and picked him up and kissed dad’s cheek when they brought it home.

This time, grandpa parks the car and dad slings their duffel over his shoulder. Mikey hops out of the car and stares up at dad, who isn’t moving, just standing by the passenger door and crouching down (he hopes to be tall one day, like dad is) to speak to his son.

“Mikey, you had a good time?” He nodded, of course. He always had a good time up north. “Mikey, your mom had a big talk with her parents this weekend. She might be going on her own trip for a few weeks tomorrow, so be extra good today, okay, bud?”

Mikey nods up at dad, and catches the look he sends his grandfather. Then, he’s bounding up the apartment stairs and bouncing from foot to foot until dad unlocks the door and he sprints inside, and down the hall to the master bedroom.

“Mom! We got your,” Mikey’s half-toothless smile falters when he sees mommy laying on the ground and a piece of paper on the bed. Why would someone lay down on the ground instead of the mattress? Mom and dad had a really nice bed, too; probably the nicest thing in the whole apartment, because they didn’t have a lot of money but they believed in having a big, soft bed to cuddle up in, usually with Mikey between them.

Mikey was suddenly hit with a feeling he’d never felt before. It was beyond him, and beyond his age: his heart felt like it stopped beating and his hands clammed up and he set the latte carefully on her nightstand and walked over to mom.

“Dad? Mom’s still sleeping.”

“Sleeping? Then lower your voice,” Dad is chuckling, and his voice gets closer, and then he must be in the doorway because when he yells a very bad word it sounds like he’s right next to Mikey’s ear.

The call was the closest to frantic that Jack Abbot had ever approached. One moment, Samira was elbow deep in sudsy dish water; the next she was rushing to dry off her soapy arms because her phone had rung with Jack’s caller ID twice in a row. He never called in such quick succession and it immediately put her on high alert. When she picked up the call she knew she had been right to suspect something out of the ordinary.

“Robby’s Mom fell again, I’ve gotta head over to help and the sitter isn’t answering,” Each of his words fell over the other in pure panic. 

“Jack- Jack, I’m coming over. I’m putting on my shoes now,” She said, digging through her dresser for shorts, a shirt free of stains, and a bra, “I’ll be over in ten.”

“Alright, I- geez, Mohan, you have no idea how thankful I- Mia?! Mia, c’mere,” His voice faded in the moment before Samira ended the call. After a sprint through her apartment building and down to her car she made it to Abbot’s house in 13 minutes- record time. Every minute the dread of the situation compounded on itself. Knowing what the woman meant to Jack, she wanted dementia-addled Mrs. Robinavitch to get to the hospital and be as okay as somebody in her position could manage. 

And, of course, there was the ‘Mia’ of it all.

Samira had yet to meet Mia. She saw plenty of photos and videos and already loved the little girl for the way her father’s eyes lit up just from thinking about her. At times she even felt that she knew the girl based purely on how much she’d been told of her. Mia was adventurous when it came to food, a voracious reader, bilingual, a piano player, and eerily intelligent for her age. She hated praying mantises and car rides. She was a loud baby until her mom died and, in her grief, turned into a reserved (at least, in comparison to how she had been before) little girl in the year and a half since. 

To say that Jack seemed fiercely protective of Mia would be a gross understatement. Considering the manner in which his wife had been ripped from him, and that Mia making it out of the same car accident was nothing short of miraculous, it was impossible to blame him. They had been officially dating for 3 months after a year and a half of dancing around their feelings and he had only just begun to float the idea of meeting his daughter. From their very first date he made it clear that his loyalties would always lie with Mia and that Samira was perfectly free to walk away, because he had as little interest in merely hooking up with Samira as he did with prioritizing anyone over his daughter. Samira adored it. She had also become terrified of the fact that Mia’s opinion of her could, understandably, mean losing Jack.

In her mind, Samira always pictured she’d be wearing a classy dress when she met Mia. It would probably be at a public place, like an ice cream date for all three of them. Her and Jack even considered Samira coincidentally running into them at the playground that was totally right next to her house, while she was on the daily walks that she definitely took. She didn’t think it would happen like this: running inside their home with unwashed hair and no makeup, lint-covered leggings, and a crew neck with a hole in the left armpit. Jack darted to her before the front door was closed, wallet in hand.

“She knows her routine but I wrote it out on the fridge for you just in case. No ice cream after 7:30 and a small portion unless she's giving you trouble, then you can give her more. If I’m not back you can sleep in my room or the guest room, my card’s on the table for dinner and whatever you want. I’ll talk to you as soon as I can,” He rushed, holding either of her arms and finally stopping to stand still and look her dead in the eye. “Don’t take it personal that I’m saying this but if you for some reason hit, bathe, yell-”

“Never, Jack,” Samira told him with a solemn nod, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips before shooing him out the door. Their eyes locked for one moment, and the I love yous died on their tongues at the newfound anxiety Mia might overhear. Jack walked them to the dining room where 4-year-old Mia sat; not a picture or a video, but in the flesh. 

“Mia, this is Samira, dad’s… friend. You be good for her while I help Uncle Robby. Remember our talk?” Mia looked up and wiped Goldfish dust from her chin while she nodded. “Good. I might not be home in time to tuck you in tonight, so I need you to be a big girl in case that happens. Samira’s in charge.”

Samira gave a tiny wave even though Mia was focused on Jack, who now hurried back to Mia to wrap her in his arms and kissed her chubby cheek. “Grandma’s gonna be okay, Mia. Daddy loves you very much. Gimme a kiss,” Mia grabbed his face with both hands and pressed a kiss to his nose. 

“Bye daddy, I love you,” She waved all the way until the front door finally shut. Only then did the little girl turn her attention to Samira with a blank stare. It evoked the exact same feeling in Samira that standing onstage for the fourth grade spelling bee had; exposed, underprepared, terrified. She was never meant for the stage, never excelled at being on display. 

“Mia! Can I… I can call you Mia, right?” Samira asked. She slowly approached the chair adjacent to Mia’s and sank into it. “I’m so happy I get to meet you! Your, ah, your… daddy, talks about you all the time. I see you’re eating Goldfish, that’s yummy, I love Gold-”

“Are you daddy’s girlfriend?”

Samira’s mouth snapped shut with lightning speed. Was she supposed to answer? In Jack’s briefing he hadn’t exactly mentioned it, and the last thing she wanted to do was mess with boundaries lest it mess up Mia or lead to a breakup. How much did Mia know about her? And why didn’t she consider that the Jack Abbot stare was genetic?

“I… hang out with your dad.”

“Do you kiss him?”

“Let’s not talk about that!” Samira clapped her hands together and hopped out of her seat. “Wanna order pizza for dinner?”

“Okay,” Mia’s eyes narrowed, and she mentally logged Samira’s avoidance of the question. For pizza, though? She could move on. “But I want stuffed crust.”

Two hours later they sat in the living room, stuffed full of stuffed crust and coloring with the fancy crayon pack that Samira was always secretly jealous of others for having. Mia was well behaved and reserved, just as promised, which saddened Samira as much as it relieved her. Would she be so well-behaved if she wasn’t grieving her mother? Was this her personality, or was it the grief? Speaking of her dad’s marriage:

“Are you dating?”

Samira opted to feign ignorance. “Dating? Like… in general?”

“My dad.”

“Do you want ice cream?” Again, Mia stared her down, but the desire for ice cream won out (just as Samira hoped it would) and quieted the coloring girl back down for twenty minutes. This went on; three more times, Mia asked if Samira was dating Jack. Twice, Samira deflected with candy, and then by offering to put on a movie. The third time, however, Mia smacked her paper down onto the carpet and marched over to Samira with wide, teary eyes, much to the horror of her babysitter.

“Why won’t anyone tell me anything?” She asked with equal parts frustration and hopelessness, voice cracking. God, Samira was so going to get broken up with for making her boyfriend’s kid cry. “First my mom dies, then dad is super sad and cries all the time, then he’s happy again and he’s gone during the day sometimes and he won’t tell me why. Nobody tells me anything! I just wanna know!”

Samira felt her heart splinter and crack for the girl. In an instant she was off of the couch and kneeling in front of her, taking her by the shoulders. “Hey! Hey, Mia,” The little girl opened her eyes; her propensity for staring was Jack’s, but her chocolatey brown eyes must have belonged to her mother. “You dad and I are dating. I’m his girlfriend, okay? We just,” Samira deflated a bit, sighing and closing her eyes. This was not her place, and Jack was going to break up with her for overstepping. At least she wouldn’t have to have that conversation with the girl.

“It can be really hard for kids when parents start to date again and we didn’t want to hurt you. Your dad really, really, really loves you Mia, he tells me about you all the time. And we just… we wanted to wait because both of us are really nervous.”

Mia raised her hand and wiped her nose. “Why are you nervous?”

“Well, I want you to like me because if you don’t, neither of us want to date. And your dad, well…” Samira trailed off. She leaned her back against the couch and picked at a thread on his knee, still avoiding eye contact with the child standing and staring at her while sniffling. “My dad, like your mom, um- he passed away when I was 14. I was a lot older than you and the first time my mom dated a boy, I was really scared, and angry at her. I thought he was trying to replace my dad, or that my mom never loved my dad, which isn’t true,” God, Samira thought, stop talking, this was supposed to be a father daughter conversation, not a father’s-girlfriend conversation, “But I was so sad about losing my dad that I thought if any of us moved on, we would forget we ever loved him.”

  Samira thought about her mom on a cruise ship with her younger boyfriend. She thought about what she said over the phone last Fourth of July.

Samira realized she really needed to call and apologize to her mom.

“Was her boyfriend nice?” Mia asked softly, lip trembling. Samira thought over the first boyfriend mom had. It was a few weeks before Samira’s 17th birthday and the man had a bad toupee. He was nice. Not a soulmate, but he was nice.

“I wouldn’t know,” Samira decided, looking at Mia and mustering up a small smile, “I made my mom break up with him. Maybe I was mad, or jealous, or protective. I don’t really know why.”

Mia sat back down, wiping away her snot one more time and picking a crayon back up. “What was your dad like?”

“Funny,” Samira said without hesitation, the smile lingering. “He was funny, and he was the life of the party. Everyone liked him. He had an awesome mustache- when I was your age he shaved it and I cried for days because I didn’t recognize him. He always told me to relax and he only watched movies if they were, like, 6 hours long or more.”

“Six hours?” Mia giggled.

“At least.”

“Everyone liked my mom, too. I’m named after her.”

“Yeah?” 

“Marisol Claudia Flores Abbot. Claudia’s my aunt, she’s in Ohio. She makes good cheesy potatoes,” Mia informed her, drawing rapidly.

“I love potatoes. I had a cat named potato.”

“Do you like the Muppets?” Samira tilted her head and thought it over.

“I used to. I don’t really keep up with them.”

Mia glanced up at Samira, furrowed her brow, then went back to focusing on her drawing. She did not ask about their relationship status again, leaving Samira plenty of time to begin thinking about how to break the news to Jack that she now knew everything.

Fifteen minutes until Mia’s bedtime, Samira finally ushered her off the living room floor and down the hall to brush her teeth; at least, she tried to, but Mia insisted that she sit down beside her. She shoved a paper covered with crayon artwork into Samira’s hands and wasted no time launching into the explanation she’d been working on.

“This is the rainbow connection.”

“The what?”

“The song from the movie!” Mia gestured toward the TV, where the credits of the Muppet film Samira hadn’t really had the energy to focus on were rolling. The young girl swiped the remote from the coffee table and skipped all the way back, until Kermit the frog began to croon a song she hadn’t heard in many, many years.

“These are the rainbows,” Mia explained over the music. There were two rainbows between three small clouds; the cloud in the middle had two stick figures that Mia clarified were Samira and Jack, because, according to Mia, he crossed the first rainbow already to get to Samira. 

“Kermit says that someday the lovers and dreamers are gonna find out what’s on the other side of a rainbow because it’s really magical and beautiful over there. Dad probably crossed his first one after Mom died, which is how he got you. And on the other side of that one,” She pointed to the second rainbow, the one Samira and Jack looked poised to cross hand-in-stick-person-hand. “My mom’s waiting with your dad. I bet they’re gonna be really happy to see us. My mom is gonna give your dad Peruvian food while they’re waiting and he’ll be way fatter than you remember.”

Samira’s mouth was agape, her finger tracing her father’s mustache. Even in crayon, it was unmistakably his. She did not speak for two minutes and thirteen seconds until finally, she asked, “That’s what’s waiting for us, you think?”

“I dunno, I hope so. Kermit says the lovers and the dreamers will find out. I love my mom. You love your dad. You and my dad love each other. So I dream of us all meeting. That’s probably the best thing that could be at the end of a rainbow.”

“That’s… yeah, Mia. I actually think you’re right.” 

Showing emotion in front of others was a weak point for Samira and tonight, she’d had her share. She met Mia’s eyes and nodded, sniffling just as the little girl had been earlier. Then, she stood up and gently set the drawing down before she could ruin it with her tears. Right before she did, though, she paused and looked over the page again.

“Mia,” She frowned, looking down at the girl and catching her mid-yawn.

“Hmm?”

“Where are you?”

Mia grinned. “Flip it over.”

Samira obeyed. On the opposite side of the incredibly profound, touching drawing she had surprised Samira with, there was a little girl riding a fantastical dragon that spewed hot pink flames from its fanged mouth.

This looks familiar

Vaguely familiar

Almost unreal yet

It's too soon to feel yet

Close to my soul

And yet so far away

I'm going to go back there

Someday

Sunrises, night falls

Sometimes the sky calls

Is that a song there

And do I belong there

I've never been there

But I know the way

I'm going to go back there

Someday

Come and go with me

It's more fun to share

We'll both be, completely

At home in midair

We're flying not walking

On featherless wings

We can hold on to love

Like invisible strings

There's not a word yet

For old friends who've just met

Part heaven, part space

Or have I found my place

You can just visit

But I plan to stay

I'm going to go back there

Someday

I'm going to go back there

Someday

It’s July 20th in Pittsburgh and there’s dew on the lake house grass. A little girl is trying to do a cartwheel off the coast of Lake Erie. She fumbles the execution; goes tail over teakettle and looks behind her to ensure the failure has at least provided apt entertainment for the pretty man and woman who feed her and tuck her in and sing to her and her stuffed animals. From the wooden steps that they watch her from, the man and woman laugh very musically and scold her very playfully and they’re already holding hands but the man leans his his on her shoulder and they look at each other instead of at her. She pays it no mind, much more interested in uprooting worms from the soil at the beach’s edge.

Samira spoke into his silver curls: “Did you think it would ever be like this?”

“Never. Not after… But I’m glad.”

“Still feel good about it?”

“Yeah,” Jack looked back out at their daughter before saying this, as if the great lake’s crashing waves, or his daughter proudly dangling a worm over her head for all to see, held the answer. “I guess I thought you only had to let go once. Then every few years, it’s just-”

“It starts all over again.”

“Right.”

“You’re always letting go.”

“Irony is, it never gets easier, but you always end up feeling better.”

“They’re there the most when you let them go,” She said. The girl pops up from behind a bushel of tall beach grass and waves for her parents to come join them. She has Jack’s shit-eating, trouble-making grin, and the eyes of a beautiful woman before Samira.

“Mia! No more worms. Come out here,” Jack clapped his hands together. When they arrived, Mia was waiting with a snake in hand. “I- Jesus, put the snake back, you freak!” 

Samira doesn’t bother hiding her own amused expression when Mia finishes releasing the snake and meets their eyes again.

“Mia, part of the reason we’re on this trip is… well, we wanted to talk as a family,” Samira said.

“Are you getting married again?!”

“I- no, Mia, hopefully that’s a one time thing.”

“Awe,” She frowns, taking Samira’s hand as they start to saunter down the beach. There’s a boardwalk off the shore which partially alleviates the issue of sand versus prosthesis, and Mia is intent that she will walk on every third board. “I want henna again.”

“We can do henna whenever you want! We wanted to talk about- well,”

“Uh-huh,” She allowed Samira to help her up onto the conveniently placed bench they stumbled upon.

“Mommy and daddy are thinking of having a baby,” Jack ripped the bandage off, just as they’d discussed.

Mia couldn’t look more thrilled at the words her father had just spoken, beaming up at them in an instant. She opens her mouth, and Jack cuts her off.

“No, we can’t guarantee it would be a sister,” Her face soured, but she let Jack go on. “But we wanted to see what you thought. Having a half-sibling can be complicated, we don’t want to have another kid without talking to you first.”

“Babies are really time consuming. We never want you to feel like you’re not included, or that we’re ignoring you. So, what do you think?” Samira asked softly. 

“What’s a half sibling?” Mia replied. Then, she took some time to think over their question, ultimately quirking a brow towards Jack and plainly questioning: “Is this about mom?”

“I- well,” Jack’s instinct was to say ‘no’ but he bites it back. Later, Samira will tell him how proud she is of this. “Maybe. It’s mostly about you, but it makes daddy think about your mom, yeah.”

“A half-sibling means you share one parent, instead of two. If we had a baby, you’d have the same dad.”

Mia blinked. Swiveled her head from Samira, to Jack, to Samira, and back to her father. “What does that have to do with mom?”

“Well, Mia, I loved your mom a lot. And I guess sometimes,” He glanced at Samira, voice wavering, “Sometimes dad is scared you’ll think I don’t, because now I love Samira, too. And… I get scared mom would be upset with me.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t know. Do you,” Jack’s breath hitched, “Even if you were okay with it, do you think mom would be upset if I have a baby with Samira?”

Mia pursed her lips. Like her father, she shifted and stared into the lake for the answers. Samira looked out, too, wondering what the Abbots saw that she couldn’t. 

“I think mom would be upset you’re upset,” She said, finally ending the suspenseful moment. “You make him happy,” This was directed towards Samira, who was currently using all the strength in her body and mind to attempt not to tear up, “Just like mommy made him happy, and that’s why the pelican brought them a baby.”

Jack made a note to correct that later, when he was sure his voice wouldn’t break and tears would spill over while doing so.

“Mia, it’s still important to us that you want this, too. It’s a lot of work. We’d have to spend a lot of time focused on the baby, and the baby is gonna cry all night for a long time, and, again, it might be a boy-”

“No boys!” Mia whined.

“It might be a boy,” Jack picked up where Samira had been cut short, “And we don’t want to do it without you. So?”

A line of ducks waddled out from nearby woods. The Mohan-Flores-Abbot bench all watched their webbed-foot procession, until sand gave way to shallow waters and the family began paddling off along the shoreline, bobbing for insects and quacking to each other all the while.

Without turning her head from the ducks, Mia broke the silence once again. 

“Do they get to call you mom?”

Normally her heart ached at the idea of being called mom by anyone but this time, Samira frowned, glancing downwards and finding Mia’s hand to give it a squeeze. “Yeah, why?”

“Well,” Now Mia’s lip quivered. Was the disdain for crying genetic, too? “What do I call you?”

“You don’t have to call me anything. You can call me Samira,” Mia sobbed and whipped her head towards Jack.

“So they get a mom and I don’t anymore?”

“Hey! Hey, kiddo, you always have a mom! Mom’s always gonna be your mom, even if you don’t see her again for a really long time, okay?” Jack cooed, pulling her onto her lap and wiping her tears away. Something about Mia’s outburst nagged and gnawed at Samira. Sure, Mia sounded angry, but there was obviously much more to it. While her dad died at a much later age she recognized ‘it’- recognized Mia’s bone deep fear, and even deeper longing. 

“Mia,” She scooted closer to Jack and met the same brown eyes he was staring into, “If you ever want to call me mom, you know you can, right? It doesn’t mean your mom isn’t your mom. It just means you get another one. Just like,” She sucked in an unsure breath, “Like you’re still my daughter, even if we have a baby. Even if you wanna call me mom sometimes, but not all the time, it’s okay. Promise.”

It had been a shot in the dark- an educated one, but a shot in the dark all the same- and it seemed to be a bullseye. Mia was still crying (most of them were, or on the verge of it at least) but she quieted, sniffled, looked at Samira and Jack and seemed to wait for someone to pull the rug out from under her and say it was a joke. One sideways glance at Jack told Samira he was waiting for the exact same thing. Neither seemed like they were going to speak anytime soon, so, one minute later, Samira filled the silence. 

“I get scared when I think about my dad sometimes. I used to feel like if I was happy, or I laughed or something, that I didn’t love him. Because if he died, and I was happy, maybe I didn’t love him. But I think you’re right, Mia: if they liked us being happy, why wouldn’t they want us to be happy now that they’re gone?”

Mia stared into her father’s eyes while Samira spoke. Some time after, she raised a hand to dab at his cheeks. “I want you to have a baby,” She said. Then, a moment later; “And, if it has to be a boy, you should name him after your dad.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Jack choked out, kissing Mia’s cheek. Samira reached up, brushing a curl behind Mia’s ear and wondering what secrets of the universe she knew to deal with her grief so beautifully at age 5, that Samira still didn’t always know at age 30.

Pittsburgh was miserably muggy that day, so much so that it felt as though she were muddling through soup broth instead of the open air. Had she been in a better mood, it might have gone without bugging her so- unfortunately for Anya Robinavitch, the weather’s misery merely reflected her own. Just in the five minutes it took her to slip on a pair of flip-flops and sulk over to the Abbot residence, her curls were absorbing the moisture and popping from the elastic that had held them in a bun so much so that she’d given up on trying to contain them in the battle with the humidity, swiping a thin layer of sweat from her forehead before arriving at the front door and giving a customary knock. No answer was needed, so she immediately stepped inside and discarded her shoes by the door.

“Hey, stranger.”

Anya exited the front hallway and looked towards the source of the first hello. Her uncle Jack was perched on the lounge chair of the living room sectional, leg propped against the side of the couch and a beer in hand. Infuriatingly- expectedly- his eyes assessed her. The way she shrunk into herself; the distant fog in the dark brown eyes. His gaze was not the only one fixed upon her, evidently, for a woman had appeared in the slider door to the garden.

With a smack of a closing screen door, two women made their way towards Anya. The first to put their hands on her was, naturally, her lifelong best friend, though her aunt spoke before Mia had even crossed the room. A question her and Jack both knew the answer to already, but was worth asking all the same; “What’s up? Sit at the table, we just finished dinner, it’s not even wrapped up- thanks Jack- and-”

“They’re fighting again.”

The nine (almost ten, as she’d been adamantly reminding people) year old’s bottom lip trembled something fierce. Marisol and Jack shared one look while their daughter wrapped Anya up in her arms and forced her downcast head onto her shoulder.

“It’s gonna be fine, Anya-”

“No, it’s not!” She pulled back from Mia with all the tears she’d held at bay while sneaking out of the house (hardly sneaking, and the tears hardly held back) streaming down her flushed cheeks and shook her head. “They’re breaking up for real this time, she’s gonna fully move out and everything!”

“Hey, hey.” Mari swooped in and placed a hand on each of the girl’s shoulders. She navigated the pair onto the couch and went on. “Not everything is fine, Mia, that’s not a very comforting thing to say.”

“But-”

“Ah!” A snap of Mari’s fingers and Mia clamped her mouth shut, though not without a vicious eye roll she could only have gotten from her mother. Having taken a seat between her husband and niece-slash-bonus daughter, Mari went. Her hand remained firmly on Anya’s back tracing small, gentle circles inches above where her daughter’s arms were still clasped around their best friend’s waist. “Anya, do you want to talk about what happened?”

A sob wracked her chest and she immediately turned her head left to right in a frantic, fleeting ‘no’. Her head raised from staring down into her lap to gaze blankly forward at the now muted living room TV for the sake of distraction. With a warbled voice she croaked; “I don’t want Heather to go.”

And nobody had a response to this. Not when every single person in that room felt the same way.

Jack knew when to leave the comforting to Mari. There was a bond between women he’d long known to respect rather than intrude upon. This was especially true with Anya- he loved his niece more than words could ever describe, but the only way she’d ever be closer with Jack than with Mari was if Mari wasn’t around at all. Thankfully for all involved, this would never be the case.

What Jack also knew was Robby. Better than anyone else, in fact, including Heather if the fighting was any indication. Comforting Anya might be a Mari job, but when it came to the many quirks and specificities of Michael Robinavitch, it was Jack’s turn to step up to bat.

“Kiddo,” Jack grunted, turning himself in the lounge chair to face her. “You know your dad- and Heather, for that matter- care about you more than anything in the world, right?”

“Then why is he breaking up with her?! I don’t want her to leave.”

“Wait-” Jack said at the exact moment Mari sat ramrod straight and said, “Woah, woah- stop it. He’s breaking up with her?!”

“Yes!” Her posture further deflated. In wake of this shocking revelation Mia had pulled back, and Anya took the space to sink back into the couch back. “Maybe. No? I don’t know. But they’re done. Like, done done. And she told him she didn’t want to, but she didn’t have a choice, and now she’s gonna leave and she said she’s not coming back. They weren’t even loud or anything. So I think it’s for real this time.”

Over her shoulder, Mari locked eyes with her husband. This information would be the topic of a particularly juicy (albeit depressing) pre-bedtime gossip debrief between the two, but for now, they had to stay trained on their sole objective of comforting their niece. A hefty task while they also came to terms with Heather understandably, no doubt, reaching the final straw in her long-strained relationship with her emotionally unavailable partner.

“Just because they break up, doesn’t mean Heather’s gone forever, kiddo. You know how important you are to her.” Jack said. His phone buzzed with a response he didn’t bother to check; he’d fulfilled his obligation to inform Robby that his child was safe and accounted for.

“I don’t know. I argued with her the other day and I really upset her.” Anya sniffled. “And I heard her tell my dad after I went to my room that he was making me just like him because- because she thought I was being selfish, which I was, and I don’t know why I say what I say or do what I do-”

“Hey! Hey, you stop that, okay?!” Mari’s order was stern and swiftly delivered. “You are not whatever terrible person you think you are. You are a lovely young woman, and Heather knows that. Everyone knows that.”

“But I yelled at her because-”

On the other side of his wife, Jack shook his head. “That doesn’t change a thing. That one yells at us basically every day-”

“We’d be worried if she forgot.” Mari chimed in, earning a glare from her daughter.

“-And we love her. Even when she’s selfish. We’re all selfish sometimes. You’re not a bad person for,” Jack searched for the right words in the right order, recalling his therapist’s words to the best of his ability, “ feeling things deeply.”

“And that includes fear,” Despite initial hesitance, Anya leaned into the feeling of Mari’s hand combing through her hair as she spoke. “And loneliness. You’ve always been such a kind girl, Anya. You need to be kind to yourself, too. Don’t feel guilty for being a normal kid.”

In an attempt to join in, Mia helpfully added, “I bet Heather will still hang out with you, like your dad still hangs out with Jake. She loves coming to our dance competitions, right?”

It worked. Anya shrugged one shoulder halfheartedly, casting her best friend a nod. “Yeah, I guess.”

Mia pressed onwards. “So, it’s not like she’s leaving you if she’ll still be in Pittsburgh!”

With a still-wobbling lip, Anya clenched her eyes shut, allowing herself to revel in the feeling of Marisol’s slender digits raking through her locks of chestnut hair.

“I mean… Jake doesn’t really hang out with me anymore, though.”

“Oh, he’s just a teenage boy. They’re all like that. Heather isn’t, though. And for what it’s worth, Jake should hang out with you. You’re a fun kid,” Mari’s hand slithered out of her hair and once out of Anya’s view entirely, she jerked her head. Immediately, Mia caught on. She scooped her best friend up into her embrace and whisked her away to the dog bed in the corner of the family room where an apple-head chihuahua trembled atop her throne. Through the wiry fur ran the tip of Anya’s fingernails, the neon blue polish long chipped off. Beneath her Chumpi let out a cartoonish squeak-grunt of delighted annoyance. Enough to let the humans know she enjoyed it, while still letting them know they were beneath her and therefore an overall nuisance.

Hushed murmuring from the adults in the kitchen melded with Chumpi’s fun-sized grunts and gurgles. It took one minute for her to turn on her side and expose a perfectly bubblegum belly, her tongue blissfully lolling out the side of her mouth. Mia joined her friend in showering the pint sized dog with affection and waited for her to speak on her own time.

“I wish I had your parents,” Was all Anya said when that time arrived.

“You do,” Anya raised an eyebrow at her response. “Well, you know what I mean. You’re basically their kid, too.”

“Not the same.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Anya’s vision was focused intently on the dog- the type of focus only made possible when somebody was trying very hard not to cry. “I hate that he’s all I have. And I know he hates me, too. Or, like, hates that he has to love me,” Her breath caught. Mia predicted what she’d say before the words came out her mouth, as it was a sentiment expressed a thousand times before, a thousand different ways, whispered at slumber parties, in math class, over a crackling bonfire at a cabin deep in the Pennsylvania woods. “I wish I wasn’t me.”

“Anya-”

“‘Cuz, like, I am a bad daughter sometimes. And I think if I were smarter, and prettier, and quieter, and friendlier, and more talented, then we’d both be happier, right? And what kills me- what kills me is that I could be working on all those things, but mostly I just sit around on my phone, or hanging out with you, or fighting with him and then sitting in my room and… not really doing anything.”

The minutes-long rant came to an end. A single tear escaped down Anya’s cheek and plopped an inch away from Chumpi’s head. The canine shot up and stood on the edge of her bed. She gave a great shiver and cough, making her displeasure known, then stretched her front legs. Her back legs followed with a lunge forward. Then she fell onto the thighs of Mia’s bent legs.

To her credit, Mia was doing a better job of holding tears back than her almost-sister. It was far from the first time Anya had said these awful things about herself. Even her earliest memories of little miss Robinavitch were of a woefully quiet girl. Mia was predisposed to whimsy, prone to bouts of flitting and fluttering around from activity to activity, challenge to challenge and unwavering in the face of social interaction. Whenever her latest grand idea or scheme fell through it was Anya, whether or not she’d been dragged into it herself, who would be sitting with a look of silent contemplation far beyond their age, and pat the spot beside her for Mia to take it.

What Anya was predisposed to was something else entirely. Something that, in her nine years of life, Mia had not yet found the words for. And it was- predisposition, that is. Mia’s parents greeted her with hugs and kisses (or scolding, which a child like Mia warranted plenty of) and sent her off into the world the very same. When he greeted Anya these days, Uncle Robby simply sighed. Looked down at the wide brown eyes tracking his every movement; begging, screaming, apologizing, though Mia had never understood what for. Then, on the good days, Uncle Robby reached out a hand to hold hers or smooth her hair. He struggled to touch her and struggled even more to let her go, all without a syllable spoken. It read as though their blood prevented them from admitting they needed the other; in greetings and farewells alike they jointly treaded a paper thin line: Need me. Please know that I need you. I want to be someone you need. I don’t know who I am if you stop needing me. I’m terrified that I need you and I hate that you need me and I am you and I hate me and please love me please please let me be somebody worth loving starting with you.

The Robinavitches were nightshades. Jack explained it to his daughter after her sixth birthday dinner: everyone from the dance studio had come, and girl scouts, and some of her cousins and the kids from the cul de sac and, quite frankly, plenty of people she didn’t know and probably weren’t invited but knew Marisol would have food prepared anyways. It was extraordinarily fun, and the cake tasted wonderful as she and Anya watched Marisol try to set Robby up with the first single auntie she could get her hands on. When Robby pulled Marisol into a sad excuse of a dance instead, teasing Jack over the blaring music and giving an exaggerated, off beat sway of the cackling woman in his arms, Mia turned to Anya and beamed a blue frosting-stained grin her way.

“You should have a party like this! You never have parties. Mom says everyone should have parties all the time.”

Anya was still scraping a satisfactory amount of frosting off her cake. She tried to get a middle piece instead of an edge with the hopes of getting less frosting, but no dice. Robby apologized when he handed it to her minutes prior, but didn’t lie and say he tried his best.

Smearing the once carefully piped buttercream onto the lifted edge of her paper plate, Anya began to cut the slice into smaller, bite sized squares. Still without speaking. Thinking over every letter, every breath, before saying, “We’ve never had a party.”

“Not even your dad?!” Mia asked once the shock wore off. Of course Anya had never really had a party- she would’ve been invited, thank you very much- but the idea of a grown man who’d never once had a party? Everyone deserved a party. Everyone deserved their own cake.

In response Anya shrugged, depositing half of her cake slice onto Mia’s empty plate and then stabbing her fork into the first of 6 grid like squares of cake. The words came quicker this time, instinctual: “We don’t like them.”

And that’s how Anya had ended her first night as a six year old sobbing in her dad’s arms. She tripped over her words, struggling to take in a breath between barklike cries, especially after Jack confirmed Robby had never thrown any sort of party or party-adjacent gathering for himself as long as they’d known each other. Now, Anya was ushered into the same life, whether or not it’s how she truly felt. This had greatly depressed Mia, and no comfort had eased her cries. Faced with the reality of his daughter crying herself to dehydration, he’d told her the Robinavitches were nightshades.

“Think of your mom’s garden. Most plants grow in the sun, right?” His hand scratched between her shoulder blades, lurching with every sharp breath, and he did not continue until getting a nod. “Well, that’s you. And your mom. But some plants don’t grow in the sun.”

She sniffled. “They don’t?”

“Some plants grow in the shade, so they do best at night. That’s the Robinavitches.”

This quieted Mia. Over the next several minutes she returned to regular breathing, cuddling the dog that Jack had allowed onto her bed for the night. After a bit more talking, and a quick kiss on the cheek from mom, Jack pulled his leg back on and began putting his exhausted post-cry daughter to bed. He tucked her in, wrapped her blankets around her like a burrito, told her to dream about him and not mom (and got yelled at from down the hall for it) and finally closed the door.

Mia turned her dad’s words over in her mind. Nuzzling her nose into the wetness of Chumpi’s, she shared a secret. Dogs could keep those, surely. Into her whiskers Mia whispered what she’d pinky-sworn not to tell a soul: “Anya hates the dark.”

Nearly three years had passed since then, yet Anya’s propensity for sorrow had not wavered. In fact, it deepened. In moments like this Mia was struck with the feeling that she’d never understand Anya’s bone-deep gloom. All she could do was be with her, and hold her, which she did. Now, and often, and without knowing the bittersweet feeling it caused in the parents that overlooked the scene from the kitchen island.

Anya’s eyes bore into the diamond embroidery of the dog bed’s fabric, flinching and closing them altogether when the arm wrapped around her. She tensed, warred with her resolve, then relaxed. Her head sank down with her eyes still shut. Maybe she’d open them and she’d have swapped places with the girl beside her. The thought had her feeling exceptionally guilty as soon as it crossed her mind. She knew better than anybody that Mia didn’t deserve it, whatever ‘it’ was.

Almost two hours had passed since they’d gravitated from the family room- that’s what the Flores Abbot household called the living room- to Mia’s bed. Her mother had deposited a plate full of snacks, even the unhealthy ones she didn’t like Mia eating after lunchtime, and the girls laid with Chumpi perched between them. A cheeto puff between her lips, Anya stared up at the ceiling and stretched her legs until her feet came into view. Not even the pearlescent polish now donning her toenails could distract her from the inevitable finality of her father’s breakup, though she commended her second family for putting in such effort.

Even now, she was blessed beyond measure to be with Mia. If she had nothing else in life, she had Mia. She let Anya exist in her misery. Had done so since birth. She knew when to push Anya and when to let her be silent and sad; just like she was at present.

“Mia,” She broke the quiet, still looking upwards at her painted toes. There was no response. It wasn’t necessary- Anya knew she’d heard. Yet, no question followed, for too many ran through her head. She knew she needed to ask Mia something, but hadn’t the slightest idea what. Just out of reach. Am I annoying? Do you think I’ll ever have a husband? Do you promise not to let me turn out like him? Do you promise not to let me turn out like the women who date him? Do you promise not to let me become what I’ll become? What I know I will become?

All that spilled forth was a shaky declaration: “I hope my dad gets married before he dies.”

Mia still didn’t respond. This time, however, was due to the sudden opening of the front door. Anya shot up before Mia could even make eye contact with her, scrambling off the bed with the flexibility she could never muster during ballet class and creeping towards the door. Her nosiness was rewarded: she overheard the adults speaking on the main level.

“-crying, but nothing you wouldn’t expect,” Marisol said.

“Yeah, I think Mia calmed her down,” Quiet. “You good, brother?”

“She tell you?”

Quiet.

“Yeah. She right?”

“Yep,” Robby grumbled. Mia watched from behind as her friend’s shoulders sank. “She’s comin’ over to get the rest of her things on Thursday. Think Dana’s letting her crash until she finds a place.”

The unmistakable clink of a Flores-Abbot wine glass being set down ended the next bout of silence. “Is Anya staying the night?” Marisol questioned with a firm undertone of accusation.

“She okay?” Anya turned over her shoulder and the girls jointly rolled their eyes. Asked purely out of obligation, of course.

“Not sure. You could ask.”

“Mari.”

“No, Jack, it’s fine. Yeah, I’ll take her home, talk to her. Probably shouldn’t leave her with you on a school night, finals coming up.”

“They’re in fifth grade.”

“Yeah, but she’s in a prep program for college prep next year.”

“I can’t believe you’re preparing her for college prep.”

“Mari, name everything Mia’s enrolled in?”

“That’s different. Mia was born with too much energy, she was sprinting at eight months. She celebrated her first birthday by breaking out of her crib and cartwheeling into our bedroom. We have to keep her busy to keep her alive.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Jesus, do you two ever stop bickering? Girls, get down here!” Jack boomed, adding as they trudged down the staircase, “Before your moms start fistfighting.”

“James.”

The girls arrived just in time to catch Mari glaring at her husband. Mia pitched in with a helpful: “You’re the mom, dad. They’re the dads.” And ignored Jack prying his wife’s crossed arms apart to try and pull her close to him.

Anya slowly came to stand before Robby. Their identical eyes locked on one another and just as quickly looked away- few things unnerved a Robinavitch as much as a mirror.

“C’mon, kiddo,” Robby said. Head angled down to avoid any more eye contact with anyone in the room, she stepped into her sandals, hair cascading down into her face. Her father’s hand raised to brush her curls behind her shoulder while the other popped the front door open. “Thanks for watchin’ her, guys.”

Bitterness flooded her system. Anya contained it, barely: leave it to Robby to imply she needed to be supervised, when he’s the one who went and got broken up with without his daughter there to correct him. She mumbled some sort of thank you to the Flores Abbots, unsure of the exact words she actually ended up uttering, and helped Robby accept the tupperwares of dinner shoved into their arm by Marisol. With a side hug from Mia, they were off to make the ten minute trek back to their apartment. As they walked Anya lagged a reliable step behind her father; a combination of his long legs and her unwillingness to stand beside him. He batted a moth away from his face under the rays of the cul-de-sac’s streetlights and then hooked that hand behind her shoulder, pulling her next to him.

“You getting kidnapped between the lights,” Robby chided, "Is the last thing I need on my plate right now.”

The first words he’d said to Anya all night, and it was condescension. She snapped without warning, planted her feet and cried, bewildered, “That’s what you’re gonna say?!”

“Anya-”

“You didn’t even ask how I was, Mia’s mom had to- you don’t even care. You should’ve just left me there!”

“-quit making a scene,” Robby hissed, jaw clenched. His head moved side to side, swivelling to ensure there were no onlookers beyond the bug-ridden hue emanating off the streetlights. “Would you stop-”

“They actually like m-”

“Jesus, would you stop being so,” He bit back a cuss word, “Stop being such a kid, Anya, for one second?!”

“I am a kid! I’m your kid, idiot, I’m almost nine!” She cried.

“Hey, hey! Anastasia Robinavitch if you don’t watch your mouth-”

“But it’s true! You are an idiot. Because if you weren’t, then she wouldn’t have left!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not sure it helped having a bratty kid in the mix.” Robby’s jaw snapped shut immediately. The lamps buzzed and flickered. In such quiet, the two of them heard crickets chirping all the way on the opposite side of Pittsburgh. She regretted saying it at once, and her lips wobbled with equal parts guilt and remorse.

Resigned, Anya backed up several inches and fell onto the bench that eventually pressed against the back of her thighs. Sucking a big breath of air in to stuff down the sob threatening to rip from her chest, she toed her sandals off and on over and over again, eager to do anything that meant looking anywhere except towards her father.

From a factual standpoint, Robby was right; she was a brat. Having inherited at least trace amounts of her father’s intelligence, Anya knew that. She was as picky an eater as he was, got nervous in public and begged to go home when it got too loud and she started to feel each particle of air against her skin, refused to leave the house without triple checking their dust-collecting oven was entirely shut off even though Robby they were already running late.

She didn’t know why. She didn’t like it, either. Knew something was off, wrong, ever since she was four years old and had first cried an hour’s worth of apologies into Robby’s pyjama shirt. Nobody hated it more than Anya when she snapped at him these days if he attempted to snag a hug before they started their walk to her school. Nobody stayed up longer at night swearing to be better for the people- person, really- in their life than Anya, the first girl to ever be born with a guilty conscience.

Traitorous tears freely trailed down her splotchy cheek despite an honorable effort to contain them. Each droplet that rushed from waterline, to jaw, to lap or ground, served as a knife through Robby’s heart. The words shouldn’t have left his mouth. It wasn’t the first time he’d resorted to such petty cruelty, and it was far from the last. Robby sighed and took one slow step in front of his daughter.

“Kiddo, if this is about your mom-” Her eyes flashed red beneath the lids, furious, defensive over someone she never knew.

“It’s not about mom, it’s about you,” She sniffled. “Mom’s not here, you’re here. You’re supposed to be here!”

“Anya-”

“So what did I do?! What did I do that made Heather leave?!”

“You didn’t do anything,” Robby roared, a sharp contrast to the question she’d posed in the quiet, trembling voice of a child who’d believed his outburst; who’d believed that it had been her fault. “She just left, Anya, it’s not about you!”

“What did you do?”

In response, Robby hooked his hands at the nape of his neck. He turned away from Anya and paced one, two, three steps forward, then paused and remained with his broad back facing her. With his weary head slumped towards the cement, Anya watched his fingers flutter from where they intertwined above the curve of his shoulderblades. Stomach turning over after a mere ten seconds, she looked away, eager to fixate on anything other than her father and their mirrored deterioration.

It had been impossible not to notice the uptick in arguments the last two months. Not even arguments, entirely; let downs. Frustrations. Dad’s voice had started to rise more often around the apartment, while Anya learned to fall asleep to the hushed tones of his and Heather’s concerned and disappointed conversation. It wasn’t wholly dissimilar from the leadup to them moving out from Janey’s house. Of course, Anya at least had Jake on her side- good old Jake, who would catch the young girl lingering in his doorway and knew it was because of another heated conversation between their parents before ever having shed his gaming headset. Dad had always gotten along with Jake far more than he got along with Anya. When she thought Anya was asleep, Heather had once seethed that he hated his own daughter because he hated himself. Something about shared DNA- genetics, she said. It had stopped Anya dead in her tracks and spun her back towards her bedroom, no longer thirsty for the late night cup of water she had been seeking out. She tossed and turned with a parched throat, facing away (as always) for the inevitable moment her bedroom door opened and she would once again convince her father she was asleep.

Anya often wondered if she had been right to tell Heather on one of their first daughter-girlfriend outings that Jake proved Robby was a great Dad, provided it wasn’t his daughter he was parenting. In one of their worst arguments prior to tonight’s, Heather had let that little quote slip past her lips in the heat of the moment. The resulting sting of betrayal had been a fleeting one- Anya couldn’t, for too long, hold such an error against another one of the few women on Earth who mothered Michael Robinavitch in their day-to-day- but the damage had been done. On his darkest, most genetically Robinavitch days, he was quick to hurl it back in Anya’s face.

Robby ran his calloused hand over his face, resting at the beard he’d adopted in the last year as his regular look. Scratching at the stubble he gave another weak shrug of defeat.

“I… wasn’t good enough for her. Wasn’t doing good enough,” He corrected himself, coughing to clear his throat before taking a seat next to Anya and finishing with a soft, “Nothing out of the ordinary, huh? You’d know better than anyone.”

Thwack. A miniature smudge of mosquito blood was now on top of Anya’s knee. She watched as Robby’s hand lifted to his mouth, his tongue wetting the pad of his thumb, and then entered her line of sight to reach out and wipe it off without a thought or a word.

His hand lingered, then moved upwards until he wrapped a slender arm around her shoulders. “I like Heather,” Anya said and sunk lower in her seat.

“Yeah,” Robby sighed, “Well, she’s a great woman. You should like her. I’m sure she’ll still want to see you-”

“It’s not the same.”

Silence. The sky was officially pitch black outside the reach of the streetlamp bulbs.

“Why couldn’t you be good enough for her, dad? I really liked her. I thought you guys were gonna get married. We didn’t even finish our show.”

The flicker of a smile, laced with bittersweet nostalgia, lifted the corners of his mouth at the mention of all the nights he’d been sandwiched between his girls as they watched ‘their’ show. “You’re probably too young to be watching M*A*S*H anyways, kiddo.”

“That’s not the point,” She faced him with tears of anger, and frustration, and disappointment and loneliness and begging and love and confusion. This man was, despite her best efforts, her hero- the person she loved more than anyone on the face of the Earth. Why, when it came to Heather, or Janey, or Anya herself, couldn’t he be half the man he was in her eyes? “Why do you always let them break up with you? Why don’t you… you could’ve done something about it! You could’ve stopped fighting with her, and-”

“Would’ve happened anyway.”

“-you could’ve stopped yelling or, or, I don’t know, stop picking up shifts when you don’t have to, and you could’ve spent more time with me. Her. Us,” Anya paused after her fumble and once again looked away. “And, and, now you’re sitting here, acting like there was no point in trying! Why?!”

“I don’t know,” Robby’s voice cracked, “I don’t know. I don’t know how to be good at this.”

“That’s not a good enough reason, dad!” He flinched at her raised voice.

“Anya, my mom didn’t even love me enough to stay with me. Neither did my dad. I’m not- I’m not someone who’s meant to be loved by other people. It’s not easy for people to love me. They don’t want to stay with me, and I don’t want them to-“

“I love you! I want to be with you! Probably lots more people do. Janey did. Heather did! That’s why she wanted you to stop being… being… how you’ve been.”

“And how have I ‘been’?”

“First off, you’re always yelling. You get so sad, you either shout at us or you don’t talk at all. And if you’re not saying sad stuff, then you’re angry! Plus,” She sniffled, the fight slowly dissipating within her, “you never hang out with me anymore. You don’t like being around me, so I don’t even get to try and help. That’s how all of us feel.”

“All of us?!”

“Uncle Jack, Aunt Mari, the people you date, literally everyone at the hospital,” Anya gulped before adding, “Grandma told me you’ve always been like that, too-“

What escaped him and cut off her sentence was a bitter, seething laugh. Realizing the hatred in his voice, mistakenly aimed towards his daughter, he took a shallow breath and attempted to reel himself back in. “My grandma’s dementia was already bad when you were born. She didn’t know what she was saying.”

(She definitely did.)

Slinking even further until her chin dug into the air above her collarbones, she bit back her own vitriolic words in a show of maturity that Robby hated she’d learned so early. Traitorously, and very unhelpfully, her mind now replayed the best of Heather’s time with the Robinavitches: one such memory involved “Grandma”.

Grandma wasn’t really Anya’s grandmother, but her great-grandmother who, along with her husband that had passed before Anya’s birth, raised Robby since childhood. Her age nearly crossed over into the triple digits and she was riddled with rapidly worsening dementia in the two years before she passed, right before her great-granddaughter's sixth birthday. Before it progressed to the point that Sofya Robinavitch was put into a nursing home and had no idea who or where she was, she lived with them in the very apartment dad had been raised in. Anya remembered being surprised at her foreboding nature; even as she shrunk and withered with age, with thinning white hair and wrinkles to match, she had fleeting memories of the woman croaking out for Robby to sit up straight and visit more than just once a day. She spoke in a mixture of English and Russian (Anya didn’t realize the languages were different until she heard her dad describe her to a teacher as “loosely, barely bilingual”) and often wore a cloth around her head.

Two years after grandma died, Heather was standing over Anya holding a tattered note. It was from the basket full of handwritten recipes she’d procured while they cleared out her room and Anya, just as much as Heather, craned her neck and squinted as if it would make her understand the paper’s contents any more.

“C’mon, you’re seven! You read, right?”

“I read lots, but my Russian sucks now,” Anya explained when she was egged on to translate, “And that’s cursive!” She flipped through a handful of other recipes and concluded, “Actually, I think they’re all cursive.”

With a groan, Heather fell back to lean her hip against the table. She’d explained to Anya several times now that she wanted to make him one of his grandma’s dishes, especially with his birthday approaching. “Okay,” She reasoned, slowly, “Okay. Can you think of anything? Maybe we can just search up a recipe. Has he ever mentioned a specific dish?”

She glanced up from her math homework. “Can I have a pop?” Anya asked, quirking a brow. Heather barely contained her eye roll.

“Yes, Anya, I will get you a soda. But I want the name of a dish. And you can’t tell your dad I gave you one!”

“Obviously, geez,” She scribbled out her last fraction and sat her pencil down, raking her memory while Heather dug into the fridge and retrieved a Sprite. “They ate a lot of poor people food, so dad likes that.”

“Poor people food?”

“Well, Soviet stuff. Cold boiled potatoes with no seasoning. Kolbasa on rye bread- have you ever had real rye bread? Dad likes it, but you probably won’t. Solyanka, lots of fish actually-” Heather snapped.

“That one! That sounded… authentic.”

“Solyanka’s good. The grocery store probably has some, or else you have to pickle a bunch of stuff.”

“Does your dad like it?”

Anya sipped the Sprite, closing her eyes to savor it. After this brief interlude she replied, “I think so.”

“You know,” Heather sat next to her, sighing, “My grandma liked hamburger patties without anything but ketchup on them because they ate it during the depression. I tried it as a kid because I saw her doing it and sometimes, I still eat it like that. What about,” She showed Anya a recipe on her phone, “This?”

“Herring under a fur coat? No, never heard of it.”

Deep in thought, Heather zoned out and stared at the fraction worksheet. Finally, she grabbed Anya’s pencil and a piece of scrap paper.

“Cold, unseasoned potatoes… What else?”

Three days passed. Dad was due home any minute and in the meantime, Heather and Anya stood over a vast array of platters and bowls giggling and cleaning a mess of sour cream off the floor tiling.

“I- how did you- you dropped an entire tub of sour cream!” “I was distracted! The potatoes were boiling over!” “How?!”

The women howled with laughter as they lobbed sour cream covered paper towels into the garbage can. They were still crouched on the floor when the front door swung open to reveal a bone-tired soon-to-be-birthday boy, backpack slung over his shoulder and a long empty coffee tumbler in hand.

Taking in the sight before him- his girlfriend and daughter giggling over a shared mess, a table full of surprisingly beige looking food and pickled vegetables, a sink full of pots and pans- Robby inhaled a long, deep breath, feeling (for the first time that day) a notable amount of relief. He slipped his shoes off, kicked them onto the front carpet, and approached.

“Do I want to know what’s going on?” Heather laughed harder and heaved herself up to greet him with a kiss on the lips.

“Go,” She said, ushering him out of the foyer and down the hallway in an attempt to hide the feast they’d assembled. “Take a shower. Dinner’s almost ready.”

The food was plated for dinner when Robby emerged twenty minutes later, the dishes even halfheartedly scrubbed down and left to soak. He finally gazed over the assembled dishes and allowed a smile to wrinkle his weary features.

“This my birthday dinner?”

“Yeah, I tried to find find fancy dishes, but Anya said-”

“It’s perfect,” He said, “All my favorite comfort meals, and lots of sour cream. You know,” He directed this towards Anya, instinctually teaching her about his grandparents. Heather’s heart warmed at the sight. “Before I lived with my grandparents, when she would check up on me, my grandmother always brought food. With that food, I’d always get an unlabelled mason jar or empty tub full of sour cream. ‘Cuz my parents,” He lobbed beef liver and onions onto his plate, automatically putting a smaller portion onto a plate for Anya, “Would forget to go grocery shopping for me.”

Before the offhanded memory could register enough to do any mood-killing he handed Anya her dinner, a habitual gesture. “Thank you both.”

“You really like this? You’re sure? Because we can always order some pizza instead of,” Heather gazed over the food she’d helped prepare, “Cow intestine soup.”

“Meat was hard to get back then. Which is why I’m really, really curious about this,” Robby dangled a single sad, plain looking hamburger patty from his fork.

“That’s courtesy of my grandparents,” Heather said. He took half the patty, slathered cooked onions onto it, and retired to the couch. There, as Robby ate and shared with them the foods that flavored the memories of his grandparents, they watched two episodes of an Anya-friendly (mostly) show. After a small cake was presented, blown out, and quickly devoured by the trio, her and Heather teamed up once again to clean the kitchen up. They caved into his demands to help and one hour later than her normal bedtime Robby opened the door to her room, turning her light on for one moment to bid her goodnight, and thank you. Heather echoed the thanks from the bedroom she’d begun to frequently overnight in.

Anya considered, not for the first time, that the issue between her dad and Heather was the same as the issue he had with Anya herself, or any other woman- hell, even with Grandma, though she’d been quick to get him in line once he mellowed out in his teenage years. His mother had been his first heartbreak; after losing her, he never came to fully understand how to love a woman without reserve, or why anybody would be stupid enough to. The pain of his mother and father’s departure was a tough shot to swallow on its own, but to then be followed with a ‘you will now be raised by your elderly grandparents who you will watch die and then inherit the house you grew up in with all of their ghosts and all of your memories and the knowledge that they broke their backs far longer than they were supposed to so you could be provided for’ chaser?

Robby didn’t understand love because love had never come without unspeakable amounts of pain for him, but realizing that never erased Anya’s heartache the way she thought it would.

With the keen sense that she was not the only occupant of the bench that had been reminiscing on memories of his grandmother, Anya turned to look at her father again. He glowed against the light some distance behind him. She loved his browbone, his hair, and his nose. She adored his eyes, especially loved that hers got compared to his because they were so expressive and haunting and beautiful, even (especially) when he laughed or was trying not to laugh or, like now, was on the verge of tears. That had been happening more and more the older she got, or he just stopped hiding it as much. Anya wished she could swap brains with him to see what it was like being the smartest person alive; maybe while she had it, she could fix up all the bits of it that made Robby unable to see how lovely he was to her.

“Do you wish you thought differently?” Anya asked. He seemed to have momentarily forgotten she was there, jumping slightly as he was pulled from the throes of his memory.

“Wha, why- what do you mean?” He stammered.

“Do you wish our brains were different?”

“Ours? Anya- no, I don’t want your brain to be different.”

“But we have the same brain.”

“No,” He chuckled, “Trust me, we do not. You are,”

Anya tensed, waiting for whatever adjectives were to follow. Bratty, insensitive, over dramatic, weird, annoying, particular- all true, she believed.

“You are so brilliant, Anya, and you’re so much better than me. I don’t know how because I’ve… I’ve never known how to do this, and I wish I did,” He gestured between the both of them. Fatherhood. She got his point just fine- same brains and all.

Anya picked at a hangnail for a full minute, until Robby reached over and separated her fingers. It was then she finally spoke.

“I think we were made more sad than we’re supposed to be.”

Again, Robby huffed out a laugh. A tear spilled over. He angles his face away before anything could be said about it by his unusually talkative daughter. “You’re ‘made sad’ too?” Anya nodded, brief confusion flickering across her features. It was far too obvious a question to her, a fact which settled itself like lead in his chest. Robby chewed on his lip and gave one slow nod. “Well, maybe that makes us the perfect family.”

The two of them sat for several minutes longer in a silence broken only by the occasional sniffle. When Robby finally stood and extended a hand to pull her towards him, finally making the adult decision not to have his daughter out on a dark street past midnight, Anya just stared back without moving. Finally, she repeated, “You never hang out with me anymore.”

The tears hadn’t left his eyes. This certainly did not help. He chewed on his chapped, split lip again, and gladly pulled her onto the sidewalk with a ‘c’mon’ when her hand finally rested in his. Robby didn’t drop her hand until they were in front of the bathroom and he was ushering her in to brush her teeth. Heather’s shoes were missing from the front foyer as they entered.

Anya had laid in her dark bedroom for fifteen minutes, yet was no closer to sleep than when she had tucked herself in. The hallway light flickered on, socked footsteps approached her door, and it hardly opened all the way before a tall shadow of a man was dancing towards the edge of her mattress to sit beside her.

“You were made very good, Anya, and I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything. If you didn’t know that- if you never knew that you are the most beautiful thing in this world,” He cut himself off. Stroked her hair. Took exactly two crackling breaths and groaned as he laid down beside her. “I would never forgive myself,” He finished, wrapped a lanky arm around him. Dad smelled like their toothpaste and laundry detergent and his beard tickled her shoulder and she wished to bottle this moment up and never forget it as long as she lived.

“You promise I’m very good?” She questioned. It sounded childish even for a 9 year old. Without hesitation he gave a hum of confirmation. Anya snuggled into her father, wrapping her arms around him the best she could. “Then we are made the same.”

Robby let out only one sob. He buried his face where his daughter’s shoulder and neck made way to cotton bedding and squeezed her too tight. She smelled like toothpaste and detergent and flowers, and stroked his hair, and, when she thought he couldn’t hear, whispered that she loved him right before falling asleep.

Luxury penthouses existed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It felt oxymoronic. Pittsburgh wasn't exactly Dubai, New York, or Tokyo levels of fancy. It wasn't a world renowned city, and struggled to maintain any sort of relatively similar status in its own country. Sure, Pittsburgh was a notable city stateside- but it was not so important that Jack, a resident of nearly three decades, predicted the presence of the pricey penthouse he now stepped into. A great window overlooked the Steel City and filtered the sunlight through a tint, casting an amber light throughout the home that would have made it seem warm and welcoming, if not for the sheer emptiness of the place.

How long Jack waited after the dark-haired, strong-chinned man had greeted him and gone off to fetch the residents? He couldn't be sure. Some time after the last of the man's footsteps had faded into the vastness of the main hallway Jack began to shuffle from foot to foot, alternating to give his legs temporary respite from the many hills and curbs he'd spent the last hour peregrinating. Note to self, he scratched at the top of his yellow notepad- DO NOT WALK HERE AGAIN. DRIVE. EVEN IF PARKING IS ANNOYING.

The couch that sat before the great lookout finally tempted Jack beyond the manners he was trying to have in what he assumed was a home rife with tradition. He looked over each shoulder after he approached it, holding his pen and paper in one hand while the other traced the fine leather of the couch's backing. Jack walked all around it, glanced around once more and confirmed the room was empty, then sat. It was plusher than it looked- not one of those couches too fancy to actually sit on- and it nearly elicited a sigh of relief out of Jack.

"Nervous to sit?"

Along with his military experience, Jack had been expecting creepy- this meant that the sudden voice of a figure who had appeared out of nowhere, did not surprise him. Disgruntled, sure. Scared? Hardly. He set his duffel down by his left foot and braced his hands on either side, preparing to push himself off and stand to shake the hand of the woman who now stood by the window, but she stalled him with little more than a polite smile and shake of her head.

"No, no- please sit. Nice to see it getting some use. I apologize for leaving you waiting," The woman took eight precisely, controlled steps towards Jack, extending a flawlessly manicured hand after the echo of her high heel's last click fell silent. "Samira Mohan. I've eagerly awaited our meeting, Doctor James Abbot."

"Jack," He held out his right hand and looked anywhere except the blood-red makeup meticulously painted onto her shapely lips. "I'm, uh, honored, I guess."

"You guess?"

Jack sighed, meeting her eye with a sheepish half-smile. "Sorry. I feel like I should sound as fancy as you. Not really a guide out there on how to interact with a…"

"Vampiress?" Her polite smile shifted to a smirk. Samira was incredibly endeared by him already- so much so that Jack even caught on. "You haven't read the books? The movies?"

"I had a crush on the girl that played Buffy, but I never actually watched the show. She was kind of distracting. Hey, is the garlic thing real?"

Samira stood still. Her smirk widened and her teeth began to show- all strikingly white and even, without a fang to be seen- and all at once she was seated next to him, without so much as a blink of his mortal eye.

"Perhaps that can be your first test!"

"Woah," Jack bit back his own grin, shaking his head and reaching into his duffel bag. "Like we agreed- if I do this, I do it like you're any other patient. Which mean we start off with," He looped his stethoscope around his neck; Samira was glad he wasn't focused on her, lest he notice the way her cognac colored eyes widened as they took in the sight of him resting the tool against his jugular. Jack propped his yellow notepad on one of his thighs, clicking his ballpoint pen and scribbling on the top left corner until it began to draw, and asked her what he would ask any other patient in his emergency room.

"Alright- I'm Doctor Abbot, can I get your name and date of birth?"

"Samira Mohan. December 16th, 1939," She said. Normally, such an answer would prompt Jack to ask a nurse to page for a psych consult. But there was no nurse, just like there was no need for a psych consult.

"And what brings you," He looked around, considering his words, then corrected: "What brings me in today?"

Samira took in the curl of his cherry gray hair; the wrinkles and the muscles on his neck, head down-turned to focus on his writing. She wondered if the faint freckles had always been there, or if they were a result from too much time spent in the sun. Finally, she answered with a reverent whisper.

"We both wish to understand the vampiric body."

The only reason Jack didn't call himself an atheist was the almighty beauty of the human. It would be easy to believe God was fake if not for the utter perfection of the body. Scientists had tried for centuries to mimic the clarity of the human eyeball or the precision of the hand, and they had yet to come close to succeeding. Its mechanisms were flawless; the entirety of man's design still defied explanation; in short, the flesh was nothing short of divine.

This awe translated to the vampire. There were few differences when simply observing a vampire, with their fangs withdrawn and their bright, but not unbelievable, irises. Making vampires hideous, cloak-wearing, castle-dwelling garlic antis was an easy answer to an unsettling truth: you could pass by 1,000 vampires a day and think nothing of it.

One of Jack's simple pleasures was the sight of an outstretched arm; when the elbow turned and gave way to the arm's inside, with its tapestry of vessels and veins peeking through from just beyond the skin's surface. Samira extended her arm and offered it to him with the grace of a prima ballerina, watching him (as she had been) with rapt attention. She had been a medical student once, but it proved impossible to juggle the schooling with the need to avoid the sun. It was clear she shared Jack's artistic fixation on the body, asking little questions here and there about the name of this vein, or muscle, and it was just as clear when she stayed silent and watched (mouth slightly agape in her awestruck state) him wrap a pressure cuff around her bicep.

Jack operated with a sole focus on the science. He had done this a billion times before, and still performed each act with such intensity nearly brought a blush to her face. It intoxicated Samira to know that should it happen, he wouldn't even be looking at her to see.

"Is everything looking normal, Doctor? And are you always so quiet?"

"Bad habit," He said in place of an apology, "Some people are better at socializing with patients than others. I get so zeroed in on what I'm doing- it's ritualistic."

"It calms you?"

"Always."

"Even if they're bleeding out?"

They migrated some time ago to the kitchen so that she could perch herself neatly on the marble counter. He seemed to prefer standing than kneeling while she sat on the couch, and at her question, he glanced up at her and smirked. "A vampire asking about blood? You know, some might call that stereotypical."

"I wasn't," Samira began to defend herself out of habit, even though Jack had given her no reason as of yet to believe that she had to do such a thing. The cuff began to tighten around her arm, and she smiled in return. "Does it scare you?"

"I wouldn't have taken this on if it did," He said.

She remained silent as the cuff stopped tightening. Jack took a measurement, then the air came hissing out and he reached out with both hands to rip it off. When that was done he returned to her arm simply to observe it, with one hand absentmindedly resting under her hand and the other at her elbow.

"Beautiful veins," He muttered. It sounded like a compliment, save for the fact he clearly didn't care if Samira heard or not. Jack was compelled to say it to and for himself, and himself alone. She hadn't divulged that she could read his mind yet (only because he had not asked, she defended to herself) and she heard his admiration expand upon itself. His mind wove an unbelievable web; he was willing to speak aloud that he considered her veins beautiful, but that was nothing compared to what his brain made of them. One of her veins cast a line like fishing wire through his conscience- from it, Samira Mohan's circulatory system blossomed into glowing blue, red, and purple ivy vines. In his eyes they glittered, and the veins circled around themselves, spiraling together into an unmistakable helix, dancing around each other, both pumping on their own and slowly, slowly beginning to sync into one circulatory symphony. His observation was worship. Had she ever been regarded in such a way? Had any human? Had every human, who had come into contact with Jack Abbot?

To Whom It May Concern: The guardians of MOHAN ABBOT, SAMIRA MARISOL and

MOHAN ABBOT, VENNILA SAMIRA are formally requested for an in-person meeting at 11:00A.M. in the administrative office of the K-5 campus.

Jack reread the note pinned to the fridge once, twice, three times, all the while Samira stood feet behind him in silence.

“A meeting,” Jack finally said, and turned to her while scrubbing a hand across his weary face. “They say what for?”

“No,” She lifted her mug to her lips and took a long sip of coffee, “They said they’ve never done anything wrong.”

“Great. I really hope we aren’t raising two mini-Jacks. I was a little shit.”

Perfectly on cue, two voices sounded in quick repetition: “Shit!” “Shit!” “Little shit!” “Daddy was a little shit!”

“Girls, don’t say that word!”

“Daddy said it.”

“And he’s in trouble. Do you wanna be in trouble?”

“No,” One of the girls said. Even with their matching pajamas, Mira (the oldest of the twins, named for Samira, went by Mira, which had once inspired Vennila to try going by Mira so their names combined to be simply ‘Samira’, though their parents quickly shut that down) distinguished herself immediately with her instinct to take the lead. She got it from Jack, no doubt: at 4 years old, she already had a handle on one-liners and smug charm. Unlike Samira, Mira was also incredibly, unbelievably, straightforward: “What I want is scissors.”

“No scissors. There’s two days left on the sharps chart,” Jack said, pointing at the calendar hung next to the fridge that dictated how long they were prohibited from sharp objects. Without fail, every time access was restored the girls would manage to sneak off with craft scissors, despite constant supervision, and “perform surgery” on stuffed animals, pillows, and hair.

“It’s important,” Nila whined, leaning further into her sister’s side from where they had walked into the room, wrapped in the same blanket.

“What’s important is this meeting we have to go to with your principal. What did you two do?”

The twins went silent as they watched Samira tap the slip of paper, then stare back at them while standing next to Jack. Several seconds passed. Nobody moved, and the twins kept their gaze trained on their parents, each one taking a different parent; Sam, Jack; Nila, Samira.

If they were allowed a knife, the twins could have cut the palpable tension in the air. Instead, they broke their eye contact at the exact same time, turned on the same heel, rejoined hands, and scampered to their bedroom without a word. Left in their wake, their parents turned to each other with no more than a raised brow on both of their faces.

“They’re so weird,” Jack said in a whisper. When Samira began to stifle her laughter, he grinned, reached out, and pulled her into a kiss.

The following day the girls squeezed into one chair between their parents, hugging each other and remaining silent as the meeting was underway.

“I’m sure you’re busy and wondering why we’re here,” The principal finally said, watching Jack and Samira nervously glance at each other over their children’s heads, “So now I’ll get right to it. Your daughters are incredibly, incredibly intelligent.”

Samira relaxed. Great; no, more than great. This was a meeting to declare the girls child geniuses. College would be a breeze; not that money had been an issue but now, with all the scholarship money they’d get from their perfect SAT scores, they could invest that money into stocks for the girls-

“They also,” Her blood ran cold as the principal went on. Wasn’t that it? There couldn’t be more. They really didn’t want there to be more. “Have a proclivity for sharing their intelligence with their peers, who are often not at the level of understanding they are. We understand that you may teach your daughters about your professions, which I assure you they have told us about, but we would like to ask that you have a conversation with the girls about the content they’re sharing with their classmates. Both in conversation, and physical media.”

To Samira and Jack’s horror, the principal reached to her side and produced a surgical textbook with sticky notes peeking out from between the pages; the same sticky notes that were currently sitting at home, on the twins desk. The principal flipped through three sticky-noted pages to give them the gist: Gory. Graphic. Photos of mangled bodies being cut into, ribs being separated, blood seeping from a head wound.

Jack and Samira turned to each other with matching faces of horror, though not out of disbelief. They had no idea the girls had gotten hold of the book, but the entire ordeal was about as surprising as walking into a storm without an umbrella and getting wet. Noticing that, for some reason, nobody was speaking, Nila decided to fill the silence:

“That’s a cranial reconstruction.”

“The next page shows it after a post-craniotomy empyema,” Mira spoke slowly, her brain working much quicker than her 4 year old conversational skills, “with osteoporosis.”

“Osteitis,” Jack and Samira corrected at the same time. He stared blankly at the principal, while Samira pinched the bridge of her nose. The principal sucked in a breath, nodded slowly, and handed the book to Jack.

“Right. Well, a few kids have gone home crying to their parents over what your daughters showed them-”

“We didn’t show them! We were reading, ‘n they looked,”

“Or they asked to see,”

“Yeah, we didn’t do anything wrong!”

“Girls,” Samira’s voice remained calm despite its sudden sternness. “No more of this at school. Principal Mason, we are so sorry. We will talk with them after school.”

“I knew you would. Pleasure meeting with you both; sorry to interrupt the work day. The girls can go back to class. Nice seeing you Nila, Mira.”

“That’s Mira,” One corrected, pointing at the other.

“And that’s Nila.”

“They’re lying. Ignore them,” Jack grunted, walking them out of the office. They sent the girls off with a kiss on the cheek and a promise of a dinner table talking-to.

Once sat in the car, Jack dumped the book in the back, between the carseats, then turned to Samira. She met his eye with the exact look of confusion, horror, and hilarity that he expected.

“They’re. So. Weird,” She told him breathlessly, then combusted into worried laughter with him shortly after.

-

“Principal Rodriguez.”

“Mrs. Mohan, welcome in. You know the drill,” The man gestured to the seats in front of his desk. The middle two were occupied by the twins, clutching each other’s hands and staring into their laps.

“As per usual, they’re not… in trouble, per say.”

“But?”

“But, Mira has been telling her classmates what embalming is.”

Samira sighed, shaking her head to herself. Great. “And Nila?”

“Insisted that if Mira was being called to the office, she was going with her.”

“Naturally. I’ll take care of the embalming… thing. We told her to keep the mortuary science to herself, but… you know kids,” She smiled, reaching over and squeezing Mira’s hand. Principal Rodriguez blinked, forcing back any instinct to change his expression.

“Right. Well, have a good day. Be sure to have that talk. Oh, and don’t forget about fifth grade registration sheets, they’re by the door on your way out.”

Samira smirked as they walked into the main lobby. “You’re lucky you two are really, really smart,” She told the girls on the way to the car, weaving through the last of the pickup crowd and students getting on the last bus. “Or I don’t think they’d want us back.”

“I don’t wanna come back. They won’t even let me start a taxidermy club.”

“Mira, quiet. Nila,” She caught the eye of the younger twin, “Stop letting your sister tell kids what embalming is.”

Mira groaned melodramatically as Samira lifted her into the car and buckled her into her car seat, lamenting: “I’m unappreciated for my time.”

-

Nila was the only fourth grader at her school who knew how to play the recorder, which was especially impressive considering that she and Mira spent the exact same amount of time in private piano lessons. While the other children were crying onstage and miming clearly incorrect positions, she played a hell of a Mary Had a Little Lamb. Next to her, Mira held the recorder at her side and watched her sister with a smile, even clapping with the audience at the end as if she weren’t meant to be part of the performance.

“Do you think she has stage fright?” Jack leaned over and asked as Hot Cross Buns started up (to the misfortune of everybody’s ears) and Mira once again just watched her sister.

“No way. She’s just bored- you’ve heard her play it a million times.”

“When’s their ballet thing?”

“Two songs from now, shush!” She smacked Jack’s arm, then lowered her hand to take his again and focus on the absolutely miserable song they were meant to be listening to. The diddy ended and the twins calmly exited amidst the lines of crying children and kids waving to their families. After a less-than-inspiring Frosty the Snowman performance from the kindergartners the stage cleared, only for two identical little girls to toddle on in glittering white tutus. Nila made for the piano, climbing onto the bench beside the wrinkled old accompanist. Mira marched right up to the principal introducing them, twice her height, and said nothing.

The audience laughed. Samira and Jack did not, because they knew Mira was meant to stand in the middle, wait for her dance, do the dance with Nila, then walk off.

With a nervous laugh to join the audience ‘aww’ing at the girls they clearly had not heard of, the principal handed the mic over with a nonchalant shrug, a show of what a good sport she was. Mira turned to the audience without hesitation and spoke.

“My sister and I are supposed to dance for you. But we wrote our own Christmas song and we want to sing it first. Hit it, Nila,” She demanded with gusto, garnering even more laughter from the audience and even more horror from her parents and (already regretful) principal. Beautiful chords sounded from the piano, a simple progression. After several seconds, Mira discordantly half-sang, half-spoke over them with no rhythm or rhyme scheme to be heard of.

“My sister and I wrote a Christmas song,

but my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas,

and you all have Jesus’ birthday wrong.

This is Jesus’ fake birthday song.

Jesus would think you all sucked,

and he wasn’t born on Christmas,

and you killed him anyways- wait, stop! Stop, I’m not done!”

The principal was already wrestling the microphone back from the incredibly strong child by the time the crowd was in an uproar over the song’s controversial lyrics. Several parents scoured the crowd for Jack and Samira to ask them what was wrong with their kids: hiding behind their programs and sinking as far down as possible into their seats, trying to disappear into the pandemonium, they were quite sure that, actually, nothing was too wrong with them at all.

From the stage, Jack caught the principal’s eye.

“Let me guess. She wants to see us after?” Samira asked. Hiding back behind the program, Jack glanced over to her and sucked in a breath.

“Can you believe it?”

-

Samira and Jack had been planning to spend their day off figuring out just how much Jack’s age was starting to limit him in bed. Instead, they ended up in a familiar place: their daughter’s school. It was bad before they even parked, because they saw a crowd of students sitting outside the school.

“Are our kids leading a protest?”

“It looks like it. I’m not mad about that,” Jack groaned as he stepped out of the car and joined her on the other side, heading towards the teachers and administration watching with their hands on their hips. The middle school principal and eighth grade science teacher marched right up to Samira and Jack.

“Your daughters have gone too far this time!” The teacher spoke before the principal, livid. “This is completely unsafe! All over, over-”

“Mira, Nila,” Jack stepped past the teacher and towards the identical girls sitting furthest from the school, both facing their loyal classmates. Between them, their hands were clasped in one another’s. They turned to look at him with their heads at the exact same angle, curls done nearly the same, and same blank expression. “Why are you out here?”

“Mr. Jansen wants us to dissect frogs,” The glittery pink bow in her hair ruffled in the wind as she calmly stated her reasoning.

Jack’s jaw dropped. He picked it back up enough to utter, “Mira, you’re the creepiest kid I know, you love dissections!”

“When the subject is respected,” Nila added sharply.

Samira took a step past the teacher as well, halfway between the administration and Jack, also watching her daughters. “What?”

“A lot of these kids didn’t want to do the dissection. I said they should. Mr. Jansen decided to ‘join my side’,” Mira added air quotes. God, if pre-teen sass could kill, everyone in Mira’s vicinity would have died years ago. “And said they shouldn’t worry about it, because they’re ‘just frogs’, so their life didn’t matter the same. But disrespecting the dead is not a part of dissection- mom, dad, I would hope you of all people know that- and I will not take part in unethical dissection. We created a simple list of demands,” She gestured out towards the students, who were silent and all staring at the twins with an odd amount of trust, “All we wanted was an apology from Mr. Jansen, and a paragraph explaining where he went wrong. He refused and said this is ridiculous to do for ‘some frogs’.”

“So,” Nila finished, “We organized.”

Samira had caught up to Jack by now. Behind them Mr. Jansen called out, “See? Get your daughters inside, this is absolutely ridiculous-”

“Hey!” Jack bellowed, “Don’t tell me what to do with my daughters, especially not when they’re right.”

“Excuse me?!”

Samira wheeled around to face the administration and spoke before Jack could. “You’re telling me all he has to do is apologize and say he shouldn’t have disrespected a previously living creature, being dissected for the sake of your students education, and he won’t? They’re having a peaceful protest. There’s nothing wrong with any of this.”

The principal, gobsmacked, stammered out, “I- It’s unsafe!”

“Girls,” Jack barked, “Can you move it inside?”

Nila and Mira locked eyes. Spoke without speaking. Then, they both stood up.

“All in favor of moving into the main hallway, raise your hands,” Gradually, well over half of the hands went up.

“So it has been democratically chosen: Our protest moves inside.”

The crowd stood up, some grabbing signs- “MR. JANSEN IS MORE SPINELESS THAN A FROG” being a personal favorite of Jack’s- before shuffling inside. The administration stood, wordless still, watching the kids and then shifting their focus back to Samira and Jack as they snapped photos.

“You’re really not- you don’t care?!”

“Are you kidding? Of course we care,” Jack huffed.

“Yeah,” Samira smiled, bringing her phone up to snap a photo of the protest as it filtered inside, flanked by the twins leading a frog chant, “We couldn’t be prouder.”

-

“Dad, we need three hundred dollars.”

“No. There is no reason either of you need that amount of money. I just took you shopping last week,” He pointed at Mira, dressed head to toe in frilly, glittery clothing and heeled shoes far too fancy for a freshman, “And you just got those fancy emo shoes-”

Mira rolled her eyes hard enough to go blind. “She’s goth, dad, not emo, get a clue! God, this house sucks!”

“Right, well, goth, emo, purple, amphibian, you aren’t getting three hundred dollars.”

Mira collapsed to the ground in front of him, crying, “It’s for a good cause!”

Nila, ever the calm to her sister’s storm, went on. “The little girl playing Jojo in Suessical can’t afford jazz shoes, and it’s her birthday soon. We want to get her what we need for the show, and some birthday presents, and leave it in her locker.”

“Do you hate that little girl?! Do you hate kids?!”

“Well you didn’t say all that!” Jack spoke over Mira, using his foot to nudge her in the side from where she’d come to lay down on the floor. She yelped, jumping about ten feet in the air and sprinting towards Samira as she emerged from the laundry room, evading any more tickling.

“Mom! We need-”

“Your dad has 200 in his wallet, take it. If you spend any of it on yourselves, and not that little girl, I’ll know.”

“See? This is why I like you, mom,” Mira calmed down in an instant, smiling at Samira and fixing the bow in her hair. “You agree with us, and spend dad’s money.”

“My money is too busy going towards your cheerleading, and dance, and piano, and theatre-”

“Don’t ruin it, mom. Hey,” She held up a fifty, turning and displaying it for all to see. “Dinner’s on me!”

“No, it’s-” “It’s not.”

On the second day of tech week, Jack and Samira went to pick up the girls together. As the twins skipped out- Mira in bright stage makeup, Nila carrying her piano accompaniment score- a little girl wandered out behind them, escorted by her mother. In the mother’s arms were subtle bags; on the girl’s feet, brand new light-up sneakers; in the girl’s hand, a box of brand new jazz shoes to match her complexion.

The girls found their parents' car and broke into a dead sprint, laughing to each other, braids and curls whipping behind them. Looking between their kids, and the little girl getting into a rusty old car and showing her mom a brand new pair of jazz shoes, Samira and Jack joined hands.

“Not many kids would’ve actually spent all 200 on her.”

“Maybe not. Thank God we don’t have most kids.”

“I like our kids,” Samira lifted his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckle. In front of them the girls joined hands in front of the car, standing perfectly still. Over the sound of them repeating ‘come play with us’, Jack honked once, then twice, then pretended to shift the car into drive and watched them giggle and part ways to get into the car from either side.

“You two are weird,” Jack told them as they buckled up. Despite being a pair, they had immediately filled the car with the sound of 4 or 5 kids, talking and making noise just for the sake of making noise with each other.

“Weird,” Nila parroted. Mira joined in, repeating the word with an increasingly mocking tone. Samira joined, facing Jack with a wide smile on her face and joining the girls in getting louder, and louder. All the way home, the three women repeated the same word over, and over, and over. All the way home, he pretended not to love it. All the way home, they could tell he did, anyways.

That night, as the girls collected their parents' ice cream bowls and set them to dry, Mira stopped in the living room.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you,” She began. Samira was about to cut her off, tell her they had seen the little girl exit with the gifts, that they already knew and how proud they were of the girls, and thankful they were for their honesty; instead, she let Mira go on.

“Mrs. Wilson wants to see one of you in the office tomorrow before or after school. Something about Nila and I breaking into a locker and damaging it. We definitely did it, but it’s probably best if you convince them we didn’t. Night, love you!” She chirped, scampering through the hall that Nila had already disappeared down. Samira and Jack stared at the now empty space she’d been standing in, not even turning to face each other.

“Your turn.”

“No way!”

“Rock paper scissors?”

“I gave birth to them.”

“Fine,” Jack conceded. He tightened his arm around Samira, and pulled her in to place a kiss on her temple. “You’re still my favorite, you know.”

“Course I am,” She snuggled into his side, right as a loud thud sounded from Nila’s room that was followed by loud, repeated, siren-like whooping from both girls. “We should check on that.”

“Later,” Jack insisted, his voice little more than a grumble into the curls atop her head. He pulled her ever closer and listened to her breathing, and the muffled sound of their daughters laughing several rooms away, and the cars outside and the movie the girls had picked out. It was so peaceful, so blissful, he was falling asleep with his wife in his arms on the couch, their couch, of their house that they’d made such a beautiful life in- and then, of course:

“Oh my God! Mom and dad are totally doing it on the couch! My eyes!”

“Oh my God!”

“I’m scarred! Call the- call someone! Call a therapist! Call uncle Robby’s therapist!”

Samira and Jack didn’t even open their eyes. In fact, Jack called out: “Yeah, we’re totally doing it!”

“Oh my God! Ew!”

“What the Hell is wrong with you two?!”

“How do you think you were made?” Samira asked, voice crackling with the sleep they’d been enjoying.

“My ears! My sweet baby ears!” Nila wailed, as Mira screeched in horror from where she’d sunken to the floor and was rolling around.

“I’m pregnant!” Samira added.

“You’re gonna have so many siblings,” Jack said.

“The horrors! God, I’ll start believing in you if you make them stop!” Jack chucked a pillow at his daughter, which was, of course, followed by more screaming.

“Ever wonder why we had locks on our door when you were little, but you didn’t?”

“Oh my God, you guys are so weird! Stay away from us. Creeps!” Nila ordered, ushering her wailing sister back down the hall. Jack and Samira didn’t move from the couch for a full minute, until Samira asked, quietly, knowingly:

“Want to go annoy them?”

Per his request, Samira watched from her living room window as Andrew worked on her oil change. It wasn’t as cold as the days before it, some of the snow even melting into an ugly gray slush at the temporary thaw, but he still demanded she stay indoors to watch him instead of subjecting herself to any amount of cold weather. The tools, oil pan, and car jacks he used all looked rather new, as if he’d gone out and purchased them that day, but as soon as she popped the hood he’d gotten into the job and under the car without any hesitation.

“Your dad’s kinda weird,” Samira told the kitten, currently rolling around by her foot as she dangled a feather toy over it, “But he’s nice, isn’t he, sweetie? Yeah, he is.”

While she cooed, Samira kneeled down until she was sitting on the living room carpet. She sat just in time for the kitten to leap onto her lap; its tiny claws dug into Samira’s undershirt, stared up at her, and yawned. In response Samira yawned back, then lowered herself until she was laying on the floor. “You know, you need a name. A pretty name for a pretty kitty.”

The kitten yowled as it crawled up her torso. It began to knead at the collar of her shirt, beginning the slow process of laying down, continuing her howling. It looked up, surprised, when Samira’s chest lifted up and down with quiet laughter.

“You meow like a siren. Like an ambulance. Are you mama’s little ambulance?” She laughed, truly laughed, for the first time in what must have been months. Samira yawned again, right as it dawned on her: “Ambulance. Perfect name for a Mohan baby. Doctor Ambulance, Resident Doctor. When you officially learn to use the litterbox, you’ll be an M.D.”

Samira didn’t stay awake long enough to appreciate her own joke. The next time she opened her eyes was at the sound of a single knock at her front door. Assuming it was Andrew, and tired enough not to care if it was someone else coming in to rob her, she called out, “Come in!”

Thankfully it was Andrew. He took one single step inside, just enough to close the door and absolutely no further. Samira scrambled up less than gracefully and cupped the kitten in hand, murmuring, “Sorry, Ambulance.”

Andrew raised a brow.

“Ambulance?”

“Her name. We can call her Lance for short.”

“Right.”

“You sure you don’t want money for the oil change? I can-” Andrew cut her off, speaking louder than she’d heard yet from the mouselike man.

“Stop that. You takin’ her… Ambulance, tonight, or me?”

“You should take her. Don’t wanna freak her out by making her sleep in a new place overnight. Maybe I can visit tomorrow? Your place was much,” Samira glanced around, “Much more organized than mine, anyways. Is that okay?”

Andrew nodded. He shifted his weight to his other boot. He felt like he should say something, like that would be the normal thing to do, but nothing came to mind. Instead he reached out for the cat, mumbled ‘okay’, and left her nice smelling apartment.

For three hours, Andrew sat on the couch with a nature documentary playing silently onscreen. Every five minutes he checked the clock, then went back to staring ahead. Ambulance liked the brand new smell of cologne and climbed all over him, up his broad chest and over his shoulders until she fell into his worried hands and instantly had her fur smoothed back out.

“Amnulance, c’mon, she could be here any minute. Quit messin’ up your hair,” He grunted. In response, Ambulance stared up at him, unmoving, for several seconds. Then she yowled for twenty straight seconds. Drama queen.

Three hours of this passed- with occasional trips to the litterbox, where he helped Ambulance dig her front paws into the litter and cover it back up- before there was finally the sound of a door opening. All at once his heart rate sped up, his hands grew clammy, and, quite fittingly, he felt like he needed a doctor despite that being the cause for his sickness in the first place. He took six steps towards his door and waited, gulping nervously as her footsteps began to ascend the staircase. She barely knocked once before he opened the door.

“Morning, Ambulance. Ambulance and Andrew, both A names. Can I come in?”

She was polite. She was so polite, and normal, and took her shoes off once she got inside even though he was wearing his. There was a moment he debated doing the same but it passed and instead he busied himself with handing ambulance over to Samira.

“I haven’t had a cat in years. I had a rescue named Lil’ Wayne, but he died two years ago and I gave away most of his stuff- of course, now I wish I hadn’t. She’s gonna need a climbing tree, one with a scratch tower on it.”

“She needs a tree?”

“It’s not an actual tree. But that brings up a good point, do you have any plants?” Andrew shook his head ‘no’, “Good, because there’s a lot of plants that are toxic to animals. Then-”

“Write a list,” Andrew grunted, finding a pen and setting it on the first piece of scrap paper he could find, then setting it on the table for her. “I ain’t gonna remember all that.”

“I’ll come with you to the store. C’mon-”

“Hold it,” He said, grabbing his keys. “I’ll warm up my car. Wait here with her.”

Normally, Samira wouldn’t even be out of bed at 10am on a weekday. Now she was in a near stranger’s apartment coaxing their shared kitten in its carrier to go out and get cat supplies for it. A stranger who was only ever rude or talkative if he was cutting her off when she suggested she pay him for something, or that he didn’t have to do a task like shoveling, or wiping off her windshield; a stranger who had met her eyes for all of three seconds since they’d met; a stranger who seemed perfectly content to never interact with her, had she not caught him clearing off her windshield yesterday.

There were alarm bells, of course. Samira wasn’t naive. This man could have been stalking her for years and this was the final phase of his master plan, finally getting her to fall in love with him or die trying. Maybe he was going to rob her for all she was worth, in which case he was going to be really disappointed with anything but her costly medical equipment.

Something about Andrew told her that wasn’t the case. In fact, talking to Mel had been incredibly enlightening; she was kind, and well meaning, and really bad at making eye contact. She, too, seemed to have a strict social battery, sometimes excusing herself mid interaction (never work related interactions, of course) to gather herself and recharge. She sometimes moved in ways that gave Samira the impression she was only doing so because it’s what the people around her did as they were talking, or listening, and not because it was actually natural movement to her.

It was strikingly similar to Andrew though, to Mel’s credit, she was much more graceful compared to his rugged demeanor. Upon reaching that epiphany last night, Samira decided to throw some caution to the wind for the first time in her life and take a chance on her intuition, and her intuition told her that he wasn’t going to hurt her, or blindside her, or rob her.

He was gentle, in his own terrified way. Scared to hold the kitten, scared to talk to Samira, scared to be caught doing nice things for other people. He held every door open for her on her way to and from his warmed up car- nothing flashy, but certainly newer and nicer than hers, furthering her theory that he had no incentive to steal from her- and scowled when she started to reach for her purse at the pet store checkout. Andrew didn’t smile, though Samira liked to imagine it was possible, but she caught him taking photos of Ambulance as she learned to bask in the attention of customers passing by and ‘awe’ing at her. He didn’t let her help load anything into the trunk, just opening the door and closing her inside the passenger seat. Chivalrous to a fault; awkward by all definitions; and endearing, in his own way.

Samira decided early on that she not only trusted Andrew, but even enjoyed him. Having visits with him and Ambulance to look forward to, no matter how brief they might be based on her hectic schedule, made the clock move much quicker during her usual snail-like shifts.

At some point Andrew had given her a key to his apartment, denying her offer of returning the gesture because according to him she shouldn’t trust people enough to give them keys, and she knew she could come in to see Ambulance whether it was before or after a shift, or in the middle of the night on off days when she couldn’t sleep. No matter what time she did so, Andrew was there; silently sitting on his couch, or dining table chair (she’d given him one of hers, stating that just having a couch was inhumane and she never had four people in her apartment anyways) watching Ambulance and waiting for her.

On Thanksgiving she got back home and a piping hot meal from a nearby Mexican restaurant was on her snowless stoop. Reviewing her doorbell camera footage would reveal a delivery man set it down less than five minutes before she arrived; no note was attached, but she didn’t have to guess who ordered it. Of course, she went upstairs to share it with him.

Christmas- well, two days before, before ER doctors didn’t get Christmas- there was a knock at her door at 10am. Samira reminded herself to thank him; he’d knocked once at 7:15am, and she had to tell him later that she wasn’t an early bird if she didn’t have to be. When the door opened there was a steadily fattening cat dressed in an outfit and tucked against Andrew’s broad chest, a gift bag in hand.

Andrew slipped off his shoes after she invited him in. Still not having said a single word, he extended the bag to her. When she moved to open it he visibly tensed up, to the point she actually paused and met his gaze with a worried expression.

“I can wait to open this, if you want,” She said. Andrew’s shoulders relaxed the slightest bit and with flushed cheeks he nodded, sheepishly, clearly having made no improvement in the area of accepting thanks. “Well, I have something for you, too. You can open it if you want, or wait, it’s your choice. Nothing special.”

Andrew’s throat swelled. Samira was rifling around her awfully disorganized dining table to retrieve a gift that she had purchased for him, and that was supposed to make sense? She had purchased, or made- made, he wasn’t sure he could handle- something specifically for him?

Sure enough she returned with a medium sized box wrapped in newspaper and addressed “To: Andrew, From: Samira + Ambulance”. Taking a seat, Andrew carefully peeled each piece of tape up and slid the box from the newspaper with minimal ripping to the paper itself. Ambulance darted by, jumped up enough to grab the neatly folded paper, and flitted away to tear it up under the dining table, but he paid no mind.

Instead, he focused on the gift. It was a photo of him and Ambulance he didn’t know existed, set inside a frame that read “WORLD’S BEST CAT DAD” in cheesy bubble letters. Samira was saying something he couldn’t make out, and he had to finally tear his eyes away from the treasure to hear that she was apologizing for it being so small, that it wasn’t a great gift, but she thought he might like it. All a load of nonsense for the greatest gift he could have possibly received in his lifetime.

“Thank… thanks for,” He stopped speaking. Andrew didn’t move. He stared at Samira, really stared at her without looking away when she registered it.

“I feel like I always meet you for the first time,” Andrew finally said.

He didn’t understand it. Maybe she would, being better than him in every conceivable way. He stood, turned, got into his shoes, and left Samira sitting alone at her couch with a slightly bewildered smile on her face. Shortly after his door closed upstairs, Ambulance ran out to the front door, then to Samira, as if to ask ‘did I miss him? Did I miss him?’. She bent down and scooped her up.

“Let’s see what your dad got for you, huh? Yeah, lay down, there you go. Someone’s being sweet today,” She murmured, still sporting the smile as she opened the gift.

First, a gift card to her favorite brand of scrubs with a sticky note that said “For your work things. Andrew 2nd floor.”

Second, a gift card to her usual grocery store.

Third, a gas station gift card.

Fourth, a box not dissimilar from what she’d handed him. In fact, when she opened it, there was a frame sitting on top; it was a beautiful photo of Ambulance from the early days, much skinnier and tinier in her Jack O’Lantern sweater, which she’d long grown out of. Beneath it, something was wrapped in tissue paper with a note on top;

Hope this is right. Tried to find right clothes. Please tell me if it is wrong and I will order it right.

Andrew 2nd floor.

Which was intriguing, certainly, and made no sense until she opened it up and gasped.

“Oh my- how did he- I never even- how?” She asked herself, then Ambulance, repeatedly.

Andrew’s watery eyes had just settled down when his phone rang with an incoming text message. From where he laid in bed with the photo on his chest, he unclasped his hands and reached over to open it.

[From: Samira

Thank you. You didn’t have to do all of this. I will admit that this was the last gift I ever expected- it’s perfect. I didn’t even know this was an option. Merry Christmas, Andrew.

ATTACHED: 3 IMAGES]

Andrew scrolled through the photos of Ambulance in a custom-made saree. While the execution was imperfect, the idea was there, and if Samira enjoyed it that was all that mattered. She’d been the one to offhandedly mention Etsy, anyways, followed by a video of a cat being put into a pleated saree from social media that she said reminded her of when Andrew dressed Ambulance up. She’d come up with it, practically; he just had to order it.

Over the edge of the computer as she updated her latest charts, Samira eyed Princess just like she had all morning. Must have been doing so pretty intently, too, considering that Mel picked up on it and broke her focus by asking if she was okay.

Samira swiveled to face her with an automatic smile and nod. “Yeah! Yeah, I’m good, just… something kinda weird happened to me, and I feel like Princess would have good advice but,” She watched Princess giggling with Perlah, “Not sure I’m ready for anyone else’s opinion, you know?”

“Princess? I’m sure any other nurse would know what Princess would know. You know, we’re really lucky-”

“No, I mean,” Samira sighed after cutting Mel off, “It’s about a new neighbor I have. It’s a man, and I can’t tell if he’s plotting against me or just kinda… you know. And Princess-”

“Knows a lot about weird guys. Right,” Mel finished her sentence. They both sat in the silence for several seconds before Mel attempted to go on, deciding there hadn’t been a clear conversational cue to stop and she might be rude not to continue. “If you want to talk about it, you can always talk to me. I don’t even get to gossip with my own sister anymore, so,” She laughed, sort of, and adjusted her glasses, “Just, you know. If you want.”

Samira debated the options before her. Wait and maybe get a chance to Princess, who would definitely tell Perlah at least, who would probably get the wrong idea the guy had been coming onto her because she was always pestering Samira about being too pretty to be single. Or, talk to Mel, who might not have any advice in the area of unique men, but was sure not to tell a soul. After weighing them both she realized it was too strange not to talk about before the day was over, and told Mel about the entire three minute interaction.

“So,” Samira said, “My gut feeling says he’s not dangerous, just a little shy. But what if he murders me? Am I stupid? Does he have a tracker on my car or something?”

Mel waved off this particular concern with a small smile. “If he does murder you, it’s a good thing you told me because I’ll make sure he’s the prime suspect. But it kinda just sounds like he’s a little awkward. This is the only time you’ve ever met him?”

“Yeah, but… but the sidewalks have been clear every time it’s snowed, and they’re always freshly shovelled right before I get home even if the rest of the street isn’t. My parking spot is always clear when I get home, and someone cleaned the leaves and wrappers off my front stoop in October when I was working. Also,” Samira’s eyes zoned out as several different puzzle pieces began falling into place, “The sidewalks and dirt plots were weeded for the first time ever after he moved in, and the pop I put in the backyard to stay cold during October… I don’t think I ever bought more. I wonder if he was replacing them- we share a backyard… and the cat food! The food! Oh my God. Is he a psycho?”

“He might be. Or he’s just lonely and sees his neighbor is gone all the time,” Mel said. Samira furrowed her brows and nodded slowly. He did say that, right? Or at least something close to it. Something about not having anything to do.

Mel King was a genius.

“Thank you, Doctor King. I think you’re right. Oh, and… not that you would, but between us, right?”

“Of course. I would never break that promise,” Mel told her seriously, standing up with a formal nod and disappearing to her next patient. For the rest of the shift Samira had an extra pep in her step; it’d been a long time since she had any excitement in her life outside of work and her mother. And if she didn’t have to scrape her windshield off every single morning- hell, even if she got out of it just for today and Andrew never did it again- was that really so bad after all?

When she pulled into her parking spot at 7:26pm that night her spot was perfectly cleared out. She didn’t worry about slipping on ice or snow on her way into her apartment, because there wasn’t any, and prepared a cup of food to turn around and head outside to fill up the stray cat’s bowl. Samira nearly did fall this time: her stoop, which had been clear one minute ago, had a small carrier on it. She pulled it inside and closed the door to the harsh cold.

The carrier had a manila envelope attached; rifling through the paperwork inside, it was veterinarian paperwork from earlier that day. On the very back was a note:

All yours. Wanted to help. Tortured. Very scared of humans right now. Please be patient DO NOT SEND TO SHELTER PLEASE. Will take her.

Would have died without you.

Andrew 2nd floor (from this morning)

“Oh, baby,” When Samira set the manila envelope on her kitchen counter, there were tears gathering at her waterline. She brought the container up and popped open the door then slowly inched her hand further in towards the cowering animal. It took forty five minutes before the kitten- which Andrew had somehow wrangled into a Jack O’Lantern sweater that must have been on clearance after Halloween- was curled up on her chest, but she would’ve waited four years if that’s what it took.

“I’ve got all the time in the world for you, sweet girl. Gonna be much nicer to eat inside, huh? Yeah,” She murmured, pressing her lips to the spot atop her head where a shrivelled burn patch met a wiry fuzziness of leftover fur. “You’re safe now.”

As soon as those words left her mouth she glanced up to her ceiling. She never heard Andrew walking around, contrary to the herd of elephants that must have occupied that second story apartment since she first moved to Pittsburgh, but she had a distinct feeling nevertheless that he was standing around upstairs, anxiously waiting for some confirmation that she’d happily received the kitten. How could she deny him that?

Andrew must have been at the door already when she knocked. It immediately swung open and he immediately avoided eye contact. This time, he focused on the Jack O’Lantern Samira was stroking as it slept, stretched across her forearm.

Samira wore a warm smile, looking away from the cat and up to Andrew. How could she smile after twelve hours of doctor-ing?

“Hey, neighbor. Mind if we come in?”

Andrew ushered them out of the drafty hallway into his apartment. It was barren, and the cleanest bachelor pad she’d ever seen. Not helping the thoughts of him possibly murdering her but, then, the only thing she had left to live for these days was in her hands and Andrew didn’t seem like the type to want to hurt the kitten.

“I should’ve figured someone was helping me out,” Samira said, softening her voice and adding a sincere, “Thank you, Andrew. From both of us.”

The kitten yawned. Andrew watched intently and then, in a bold shift of demeanor, glanced up to look at Samira. She was pretty even when she was tired, which just wasn’t fair to him and the rest of the world’s uglies.

“You did it. Nice that you… fed her,” His words came out too slow, too unnatural. Not like hers. “I never had a pet but… if you’re comin’ up here ‘cuz you don’t want her, I get it. I’ll-”

“I want her! Are you kidding? Andrew, look at her. Look at what we did,” She murmured, holding the cat out to him. Andrew wasn’t sure why, especially not after she repeated the gesture, and when he finally realized he was supposed to take the cat he immediately put even more space between him and Samira.

“No, no, I don’t wanna hurt it,” Andrew shook his head. His hands rose and fell limply back to his sides, while confusion threaded itself onto Samira’s features.

“Andrew, you’re not gonna hurt her. You’re the one that got her in this and took her to the vet. Here, just,” She stepped towards him and extended the cat again. How Samira had calmed her down so much, he had no idea- this was not the shivering kitten he knew several hours ago. This wasn’t the kitten he’d carefully lured into the carrier to trap it in the first place. Leave it to this magical, mysterious doctor woman to fix that cat so quickly.

In his hands the kitten was further dwarfed. Even with the fat it had gained from their dedication, it was still far too small for its age from malnutrition. In his large and sinful hands the cat looked tinier and more beautiful than ever. Never had something so pure existed, and Samira had been the one to bring it out.

But she didn’t want it.

“I didn’t know you could feel them when they,” Andrew gestured vaguely with his free hand, then quickly returned it to resume stroking the hair between her ears. Her body was crackling in his hands and she rumbled like a miniature engine, rolling around until she tucked her little nose against his shirt and nuzzled into the warmth Andrew’s body provided.

“Purr.”

“Yeah, that. She’s loud,” He ran the pad of his index finger over one of the bald spots and frowned. “You really don’t want her?”

“What? No,” Samira shook her head and gave a small almost-laugh, “No, I love her. But I was wondering if you might help me out? Like you said, I’m at the hospital a lot. Maybe we can do shared custody, and I can come visit or watch her on my days off? But she’d be better getting used to your apartment, don’t you think?”

“Shared custody,” Andrew repeated slowly, raising a brow. Samira was still smiling. She was very nice, he thought. He wondered if the landlord would let him build a back porch come springtime, to give Samira a place to relax after her long hospital shifts. Somewhere she could watch the kitten run around and play when it was warm out, or drink a can of pop in a nice chair.

“I’ll come check in on you two tomorrow?”

Samira reached out and pet the cat with a featherlike touch. Again, the cat gave a great stretch of its body amidst its slumber, but that was hard to focus on when her hand ended up floating an inch above the forearm holding the cat, and her fingertips nearly grazed the fabric of Andrew’s shirt. Her voice was so soft and gentle and her hair had come undone and it was dark and curly and he liked when it wasn’t back in that funny clip thing.

She asked him a question. Andrew remembered this, and replied with a solemn nod.

“Alright,” Samira rolled back onto the heel of her tennis shoes and turned for his door. His general demeanor would take some getting used to, but she was definitely skewing towards that being due to extreme shyness rather than serial-killer-ness. “Have a good night, you two. Come knock if you need anything.”

Andrew didn’t move from where he stood. When she opened his door he said: “I’m going to look at your car when you get back from work tomorrow. It needs an oil change,” And met her eyes again so she knew he was serious.

Her eyebrows raised. She still smiled, which he didn’t understand. And then she nodded as he had, but much more normal and prettier, and closed the door. He watched from his living room window until she disappeared and listened for the sound of her door as it opened, closed, and latched beneath him.

Andrew’s skin still burned from where she’d come close to touching him; he immediately had to shed the shirt she’d come into contact with and throw it in the laundry, unworthy of wearing it and nauseous at the thought. There was a pit in his stomach that hadn’t been there in months. Years, even. He stared blankly up at the ceiling and laid like a corpse with his arms across his chest and tried to stop thinking about Samira while being in bed because that made him a creep and he should stop because she deserved better than a creep thinking about how smart she was or how pretty she was or how kind she was. Mostly the last one. In any case, she didn’t deserve to be sullied by a man thinking even innocent thoughts about her in bed. He should be pushing her from his mind entirely.

Samira knew he’d gotten out before she ever even parked her car.

Slowly, she’d pulled up the gravel drive and onto the cement pad. Today, each and every pebble seemed to crunch extra loudly beneath the tires on the trip up the driveway, and the golden hour sunshine found every possible space between overhead branches and leaves to slip through. When she stepped out of the car (it had gotten dusty since she’d had it cleaned two days ago, she noted) there was nothing to be seen, save for the family of ducklings swimming in a perfect line around their pond. There was nothing to be heard except for their occasional quacks, the breaking of a twig from a group of bunnies that loved to raid the garden, and birds trilling and whistling their song to the gradually setting sun.

Nobody was waiting for Samira. He had gotten out.

There wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen. As usual on these rare occasions, her slippers were right by the door since he wouldn’t be there to tend to her. She shed her scrubs in the basket next to them and began towards the master bedroom clad in a sports bra and panties, pausing at the lip of the hallway and waiting two full minutes with one long glance either way as if he’d materialize out of thin air. When nothing happened she took a deep breath, paused and remembered for herself what the expanding and shrinking of her own lungs was like, and proceeded to the master bath.

Outside the shower on a specially made post hung her favorite tee shirt to sleep in, a folded pair of shorts, and a bath robe she didn’t dare discover the price of. The juxtaposition of the robe to her usual sleep outfit- he would always give her a life of luxury, but never at the cost of changing what she already liked- was laughable.

A wind chime sounded in the breeze and the curtains on every kitchen window billowed in the light wind. Samira enjoyed the silence over a plate of last night’s leftovers and television, then dumped her dish into the dishwasher and retired to her bedroom by 10pm. She left the windows open for the sake of the cross-breeze, but locked the doors. He’d find his way in.

After a long day at the hospital and the forty-five minute drive each way, no sight was as glorious as the perfectly folded and fluffed master bed. She collapsed into it stomach down and savored the marshmallow squish of the comforter, and Samira was on the verge of falling asleep in a mere 10 minutes. She blinked, turning onto her side instead of her stomach in her dreamlike state. A smile spread across her lips at the sight of a large man silhouetted by moonlight, standing as still as stone.

It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see his face: Samira knew exactly who it was staring down at her, and reached out a hand.

“I’m dirty,” He whispered, voice gruff. His shirt was littered with patches of inklike black; she’d learned to love just how beautiful blood looked in darkness.

Samira shushed him and waved her hand, beckoning him in. He stepped forward once, twice, three times until his knees were at the edge of the bed. Neither of them spoke. In the moon’s bright light, she glowed. She always glowed, he thought.

The man sank to his knees; in return, Samira pulled herself up and sat in front of him, covering her mouth as she yawned. She whispered, “Where’d you go today?”, and brought her hand up to run through his hair. He flinched away.

“I’m dirty.”

It was clear that he wasn’t budging. With a sigh, Samira reached over and pulled the chain of the nightstand’s lamp.

The lamp illuminated the room and Andrew retracted from her as if hit. Cowering as if hit and pushing himself away to avoid any contact with her, he fixed his eyes on the floor beneath her feet. “She’s dead.”

“Dead?” Samira’s calm expression fell. “Dead? Andrew, who- are you talking about the fawn?”

“He hit her! I was walkin’ around the pond and I heard it. He was getting ready to drive off when I got out to the road, just dragged her off like she,” Andrew’s voice cut off as he grew too choked up to speak. Their property had come to host its share of wildlife families, and Samira had no qualms admitting over the last month that her favorite was a fawn. She adored the videos on the security cameras of her toddling behind her parents, legs longer than she knew what to do with, joining the rest of the wildlife and partaking in the garden that was, at this point, more for them than Andrew or Samira.

There was silence again as Samira debated how to respond. Of course, she was upset about the fawn, but that’s just how things worked around here. It saddened her, though not to the point of tears quite like Andrew was at.

“He killed your favorite animal,” Andrew was wrecked, looking up to meet her eyes, his frezkled cheeks growing red and splotchy past the blood in which they were covered. “He didn’t even apologize to you!”

Andrew watched Samira stay quiet, watching her eyes scan up and down his kneeling figure. She was always so thoughtful, so concerned. He often lamented that he’d never know what it was like to be as smart as her because if he did, maybe he could be better for her. Every day he spent with Samira, he figured more and more that it must be a lonely endeavor, being the most intelligent person on Earth. She never said a wrong word, or did a wrong thing, or mean thing, and she spent every day of her life saving other people’s lives even when they were rude to her and then came home to the shell of a man that he’d been born as.

He wished she wasn’t so lonely up there, and was disgusted with himself for being so far on the opposite end of the spectrum that he could never provide her any comfort.

“He didn’t apologize to me?”

“Well, I- I made him, but originally,” Andrew stopped, running a hand over his face. At the sight of the blood further smearing, she licked her lips. “I have the video. I took a video. I made him say sorry to you, obviously, because- because it’s not right, it’s not right that he killed,” His voice broke. He tried again, though she was trying to shush him now, “He killed her, and didn’t even say sorry to you-”

“Andrew,” His jaw snapped shut when her voice raised suddenly, sharply. It was a rare occasion to ever hear her like this. “Would you come here?!”

Andrew set the phone down from where he’d been fishing it out of his pocket. He swallowed the lump in his throat and obeyed her command, shuffling back in front of where she sat and gazing up at her with wide, teary eyes.

“I don’t like seeing you so upset, Andrew. You know that,” he cursed himself for the frown on her face. Upon reflection, he decided he should’ve bled the man to death; should’ve taken a vegetable peeler to his skin and hung him upside down and peeled layer after layer after layer. Slitting his throat had been far too kind. Now he was covered in blood and infecting Samira’s house, and Samira was frowning, and he was upset and Samira hated when he was upset and, damnit, didn’t the man know? Didn’t he know this was Samira Mohan? Didn’t he know she saved lives, and made kids laugh, and always donated at checkouts when they asked about rounding up for charity and actually added an extra dollar or five, and scolded Andrew when he tried putting a fence around his garden because the animals deserved it more?

“Andrew,” He reeled himself back in, and his bottom lip trembled. Humanity had done a disservice in its existence. Each human was rotten to the core and entirely undeserving of Samira’s world.

“C’mere,” Samira finally succeeded in guiding her fingers through his hair. His head threatened to lower in shame as he felt the blood transfer onto her skin, but she tugged enough to keep his eyes on hers. She continued to lead him towards her, then upwards, and back, all very slowly and gently until he finally took her in his arms and took over.

Andrew laid Samira down right in the middle of the bed. She forced his bloodied shirt off and set it by her hip, inches away from his knee. A streak of doglike devotion flared through him when he took in how much blood had transferred onto her from all this: even when she removed her shirt, blood was smeared on her waist from where he’d held her, and her hands and wrist were painted from her handling of their shirts. Even so, it was nothing compared to the man above her.

“You’re not dirty,” Samira spoke, finally. “You’re just… devoted. Besides, it’s been a while. It’s good for you to get out, remember?”

Andrew nodded.

“I told you it was good for you. And I’m a doctor, Andrew- You trust me, right?”

“I trust you,” He echoed without hesitation, the very idea of anything else purely preposterous. Andrew’s voice was more of a whispered croak as he went on. “The bed’s gonna get dirty. Blood’s hard to get out.”

“You can take care of it while I’m at work tomorrow, can’t you? Get some new bedding, and maybe we can have a bonfire when I get back?” He nodded.

As all this was happening, a fire had been stoking itself inside of Samira. Ever since she’d pulled into the house and he’d been away, it had sparked. Now, with him on top of her, covered in the blood of a man that dared to disrupt any part of Samira’s life, it turned into a roaring blaze; how did this man not know anything besides defending Samira? Loving her? At times, the worship irritated her but here, when she was feeling like this and there were tears mixing with blood and dirt on his cheekbones and she had to remind him how to be human again instead of a guard dog, it served them both quite well.

Samira tugged him down towards her face. His eyes didn’t close, instead widening as he tried to shift away from her entirely and keep her unbloodied. With a significantly firmer yank she put him back on his path and connected their lips right as he whimpered; whether it was from the pain that came with her pulling on his curls, or the fact a good half of her face was now covered in blood, she didn’t care.

“Samira, I,” She huffed over his stammering, irritated, forcing him back into the kiss whenever he tried to pull away out of shame and actually biting his lip out of exasperation, “I don’t wanna get you dirty- shit, would’ya quit bitin?!”

His frustration was feigned (she could stab him with a white-hot poker and he’d beg her to do it again, if that was what she wanted) and disappeared altogether when she giggled against his muffled protest. At the same time he felt her hand fumbling at his waistband.

“Off,” She sighed. He obeyed. Boxers, too, after she snapped the waistband when they were left behind. Samira refused to let him stop kissing her (unless he took a break to nibble her neck, or lap at any skin left unbloodied) and moaned into his sobbing as soon as she could start tasting his tears.

“Down?” Samira said. She knew the answer, because it wasn’t a question; this man existed, in his own words, for her. To defend, protect, provide, die, love, entertain, please, her. All for her. Always for her. He took his time descending her torso, kissing her collarbones and sobbing into her bare chest between kisses. Andrew wanted to linger, could stay there forever, suckling and weeping into the breasts of creation, the breasts of the human for whom the entire universe had been crafted for- but she had ordered him down. Downwards he continued until pubic hair tickled his chin, not wasting a second before burying his nose into her and taking the first deep breath he’d been able to catch amidst his tears.

“God, Andrew!” She cried out. It was a welcome departure from what she’d spent most of the last several minutes telling him: “stop apologizing”, and, “you don’t need to thank me”. Her hands, hips, torso, breasts, face, were all sullied with dirty maroon.

If he wasn’t already in such a state, Andrew would have started bawling right around here. Her eyes screwed shut as she sighed and whined and called his name and “yeah”s and “there” and “Oh my God”s and varying profanities. Her legs clenched so hard around him that, even when he used his brutish strength to separate her thighs from their death grip around his head, neck, and face (not because he disliked it, God, he’d love to suffocate here by any means possible, but because she liked the game) and force her down into the bed with legs much further spread, she would still manage to squirm her way out of his grip and start the process over again. Sometimes, she even kicked her way back to mildly asphyxiating her boyfriend, banging against his chest and shoulders and, on one occasion, even catching his nose with enough force that it started bleeding.

God, she was magnificent.

Andrew wished he could stop crying. Catch a sight of her as he dove into her with tongue, and nose, and lips and breath and fingers, that was unobscured by his tears, by his own shortcomings. He could smell her body wash mixing with the scent of her sweat and cum and a faint hint of laundry detergent from her panties. Whenever she thrust particularly hard, up and against him, his whispered his thanks, to her and whatever had been divine enough to create her, if there was anything higher than her that was even capable of such a task.

“God, please, Andrew, please,” She sighed between moans that grew closer, and closer, and louder. Samira came with a loud call of his name, a mercy to her devotee. He drank her, nearly ate her alive, begging and whining when he thought he’d gotten every last drop and ignoring the twitches of her body and her halfhearted insistence to stop, to give her a break. He was imperfect, a concept he’d tried to explain to her but, in her perfection, she’d never be able to understand- he couldn’t stop when it came to Samira. Not when a man was begging for his life after killing her fawn, or when she said she wanted a garden and he spent three days tirelessly completing a project that should have taken weeks or months, or when she came with his face buried between her legs and she believed him strong enough and stupid enough not to scour for every droplet of her divinity. She’d been relegated to a life with Andrew, a lifetime of stooping unimaginably low; the least he could do was try to prove that he wanted to be worthy of that, even though it simply was not possible.

Andrew ripped himself off of Samira, begging for her forgiveness for his selfishness, for not stopping, for not doing as she’d asked even though he knew she hadn’t meant it. He clambered to the floor, bawling. Despite coming into the bedspread twice, humping like a deranged, disgusting animal in the lap of a Goddess, in the time it had taken her to finish he had now grown so tightly wound that he felt he might explode. He deserved it, crying into the carpet, the bedroom and comforter and Samira and his body covered in blood.

His hips stuttered involuntarily against the floor. Samira watched, exhausted, starving, utterly thrown by the level to which he worshipped her. She knew exactly why he was on the floor: it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. If he had the strength to leave the room, or even the house, and sleep out there? He would. But he was too weak, which she knew he’d only take as a further moral feeling because, simply put, she knew he felt that he didn’t deserve to sleep in the same space as her.

“Andrew,” Samira said, moving to the edge of the bed with her body still shaking. “Andrew, look at me.”

Samira used her foot to nudge at his back and hip (he thrusted again, poor guy, he couldn’t help it) until he had rolled to face her. He hid his bloody face in shame, nude and curled up at her feet.

It was all the confirmation Samira required: he needed to finish. There was no point wasting time in convincing him to get back on the bed, and that he deserved to touch her and look at her and be around her at all, so Samira took matters into her own hands and stood from the bed, stepped over him, and sunk to her knees until she straddled him.

“Look at me?” Samira repeated, even softer and sweeter than before. Beneath her, at every single point of physical contact, his body jerked and contracted, and not a bit of him calmed until a brief moment of peace when she caressed both sides of his face and whispered, “I love you, Andrew.”

“I love,” He couldn’t even say I love you without being interrupted by a whine. Pathetic. Weak. Undeserving. “I love you, Samira.”

“Yeah?” She asked, taking a featherlike hold of him and watching his face twist while she lined herself up.

“I love you, God, Samira, I’m sorry, please, wait, just- I love you, I’m not,” She didn’t wait for him to make an excuse as to why he didn’t deserve this, and sunk herself slowly down onto him. He yelled her name- primal, guttural, like it came from a place he couldn’t control- and begged her to stop not because he wanted it, God, he didn’t, but because he didn’t deserve this, she was too good for this, he was going to come to quickly and he ruined her and she was bloody and he’d fucked her up to the point she seemed to have been turned on at the sight of him covered in blood and rabid for a woman he could never do justice to.

She didn’t expect to be on him for more than two minutes. Thank God he loved her to the point of rarely lasting a normal amount of time (unless she really, really demanded it, of course) because her body really was aching, a mixture of a long work day and a boyfriend that had just eaten her out to the point of seeing stars. Andrew had no tears left in his body and when he spilled into her, he did so repeating her name as a grunt, a yell, a scold, a whisper, and then a plea. His hands moved swiftly from her hips to her own hands as they raked across his chest and his abs.

Samira quickly slipped her hands out from between his, wrapping his hand in both of hers and lifting them to her mouth, kissing his knuckles as they dripped from reopened wounds.

“You staying down here tonight?” Andrew nodded. Sniffled. Bit back a whine when she bent down, his come still leaking out of her since she had not gotten off of him yet, and kissed his browbone, nose, chin, mouth, and mouth again. Samira then pulled back, moved her hair out of her face, and removed herself from his lap to fall back onto the bed.

Andrew watched, awestruck, the entire time. It was a good thing, too, because that meant he actually caught the pillow she suddenly tossed down to him.

“Use it,” She told him through a tiny, beautiful yaw, as she settled on her side and faced him half asleep. Andrew inched his body closer to the bed, fulfilling her demand and shoving the pillow under his head.

With a tired ‘hmmph’, he noticed her hand twitched, as if her arm was trying to stretch out to him. Andrew wasn’t sure what it meant and racked his brain- was she hurt? Having a nightmare? Should she see someone? Had he injured her?

Pope could plan bank robberies, yet he’d fumbled a simple operation. He didn’t want the smart, pretty neighbor that he yearned to make life easier for, finding out he had woken up at 5:30am to place her mangled stray into the litterbox (he loathed having something as unhygienic as a litterbox inside his home, but hated the thought of her stray freezing to death even more) before getting aptly bundled up to go clear her windshield off. He’d set the other scraper brush at her door- it didn’t fit in her mailbox- along with the gloves before emptying the kitten’s bowl into a ziploc bag he stuffed into his pocket and heading to her car.

In true Pope manner, he was in the zone shovelling the sidewalks and clearing the car off. So much so, in fact, he missed the sound of her door opening and closing entirely.

“Hey!”

Pope froze and stood stock still from where he’d been brushing the very last spot: the driver’s side mirror. Despite the downy coat his blood ran cold to the bone at being caught, adrenaline pumping almost as much as it had that unfortunate day at the bank when Baz had driven off and sent him to prison. Don’t speak. Don’t move. Maybe run? No, maybe she’ll forget you were there-

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Her voice wasn’t angry, but it sure wasn’t chipper. Quite frankly, if this was the doctor woman (and he guessed it had to be) he was terrified of her. Slowly, he turned to face her from where she stood on the salted stoop in front of her door.

She was very pretty, he thought, and waiting for an answer. Seeing as how he didn’t have one, and it would’ve died on his lips anyways at the sound of her voice, directed at him, coming from the face he’d only seen from one story up- he cleared his throat and tried to conjure up even one good sentence to put her mind at ease.

“I, uh,” Pope licked his lips. When, aside from his words to the kitten last night, had he really spoken to another person? Had it been weeks? Two full months since his move? He went on: “I’m cleanin’ my car off.”

“That’s my car,” Samira looked up and down the street, and around the small lot attached to the apartment building, “And it’s the only red car that’s ever here.”

And he didn’t have anything to say to that because, true to her intellect, she was right. Pope didn’t say anything, just shuffled several steps away from her car. They stood, unmoving, locked in an unspoken stalemate. Then;

“I’m… not mad, and thank you, just… people are creepy, you know? I can’t afford a new car so if you did something to it please just tell me so I can Uber. And there’s nothing worth stealing in there, trust me. Just tell me if you’re gonna take my engine when I’m sleeping so I leave enough time to grab the bus?”

The eyebags under her eyes made sense, and not just because of the inhumane hours she worked. She sounded like a woman at the end of several ropes. Pope wanted to know every single person responsible for driving her to that point. Instead, he looked up from where he’d been staring at her tire. Never at her. Never even near her.

“I ain’t gonna steal from you. I… you’re a doctor, I dunno. Shouldn’t have to… and the sidewalks… and that scraper you had, gonna scrape your windshield.”

Salt crystals crackled under her shoes. He saw them come into his view, not far from the tire, but did not look up or to the side. Better to stare at the tire than see her reaction to him.

“So this was you?” The gloves waved into his line of sight and then back out of it. He didn’t move, nor did he reply. It seemed to give her all the information she required.

“Are you the new neighbor?” She tried instead. Pope shifted his weight to his other foot awkwardly and, having figured this deserved some response, gave one singular nod: up, and then down, almost imperceptible. But she noticed and a hand came into view wearing the gloves he’d purchased. “I’m Samira. Sorry it took me so long to-”

“You work a lot,” Pope blurted before she could finish the utterly unnecessary apology. He finally allowed himself to look almost up and, from the new angle, he could see her face at the top of his vision without risking any eye contact. “Don’t say sorry.”

“Yeah, I… I really do appreciate this, but please don’t feel like you-”

“You gotta warm up your car. I could do it if you slide your keys-” Pope stopped himself. Creepy. Creep. Stop being creepy. Stop being scary. You know how you are. “Your car shouldn’t make the noises it does. I can check it out when you’re back, but… let it warm up, y’know? So you don’t break down. Cold starts aren’t good.”

Her eyebrows raised. They were pretty. Their shape was pretty. Her eyes were so big and beautiful, and she had a dimple (which was weird because it meant she was at least kind of smiling) and a curl fell down from the edge of her coat’s hood. Samira was very pretty, and very nice, he thought, and he liked clearing off her windshield and would very much enjoy continuing to do so.

“I’m Samira,” She repeated and offered a hand out. Pope’s head tilted to the side.

“I know, you already said-” He mumbled, then blinked. Hard.

Stupid.

Weird.

“I’m P- Andrew. Andrew,” He stammered. Without warning he suddenly took a big step past her without shaking her hand, only stopping once she was behind him again to say: “I’m not going to do something bad to your car. I’m not like that. I just… wanted to help you. I…”

Pope debated saying the next part but, since everything else sounded exactly like what a creepy dude planning something sinister would say, he decided a grain of unfortunate truth was fair play. “I don’t have a lot to do. And you seem so busy, I just… just wanted to be neighborly.”

Pope disappeared inside before she could respond. He heard her car start and run for nine minutes before it pulled out of its parking spot.

“This kitten is a sweet little angel. Does she have a name?”

“No. Well, I- I mean, maybe,” Pope said. The vet poking and prodding at her with gloved hands waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, so she went on with the inspection. As she worked, he wondered what doctor neighbor Samira was like at work, wearing rubber gloves and scrubs and a mask and saving patients with needles and whatever the hell else doctors used. She was probably a good, smart doctor, if he guessed.

The vet was turning the writhing, shrieking cat on its back to observe its bubblegum-pink stomach when she spoke and broke Pope from his train of thought. “Well, Mr. James,” Pope cringed; that new name would take some getting used to, “Other than the obvious, she’s in about the best condition she could be.”

“The obvious? You can tell what happened to her?”

The vet’s eyes darkened with a brief flicker of sadness and she adjusted her mask. “You said this was a stray, right?”

Pope nodded.

“Well, it looks like she survived some pretty severe abuse as a newborn. Some surface level scars from a razor blade, intentional burn patches across the body,” Pope must have looked horrified. She added, “Unfortunately, with strays or newborn cats people don’t want… it’s not the first time I’ve seen it. She must have gotten put out quickly, and they probably left her to die, but lucky for her, she lived and found you. So, we’ll have to have her back in soon for a checkup and I’d like to prescribe some-”

Pope was only half listening. He was staring at the little kitten as it made itself as small as possible, shivering against the furthest wall of its carrier. Somebody tried to kill her and afterwards she had to accept food from other humans because she had no other choice.

What if she had ended up in any other alley? What if somebody stopped setting out food for her once they saw her body, mangled in scars, sliced off left ear, past malnourishment, patchy hair, and bald spots?

What if Samira had never been there?

His new fake documents said he was from Pennsylvania, there was a cheap apartment available, and there was no reason for anybody to suspect Pope Cody would end up in Pittsburgh. These three facts, combined, made it the perfect place to get away from his family once and for all.

The apartment itself was as shitty as the neighborhood it resided in- perfect to lay low in- with its leaking faucets and landlord special paintjob, providing him countless odd tasks to fulfill his overwhelming off time. Being in the apartment for too long without anything to do turned it into yet another imprisonment; Pope didn’t know who he was when he wasn’t tasked with something to do. So a broken lightbulb here, an in-unit dryer with a broken drum belt there? It was a small mercy amidst the hectic nature of his grand escape.

He missed his brothers. He missed surfing. He missed weather that wasn’t miserable or as everchanging as Pittsburgh’s. He missed Lena most of all. But, when he was free to do what he wanted, or not do something he didn’t want to? When he spent his first full day in a sparsely furnished apartment without a person in his ear treating him like an attack dog? The grief that came with the life he left behind melted into great relief. It was him and, sure, he was alone, but that was what he wanted and, most days, he felt it was certainly what he deserved. Alone, with more money than he knew what to do with, no threat to his life, and time to learn about himself. Time to live maybe, finally, in peace.

Peace was best found on the balcony. Of course, Pope enjoyed walks and runs through the parks as they crisped with late autumn’s arrival, or the serenity that came with a monotonous odd job around the apartment, or lifting weights and boxing. More than all that, though, he cherished the view the balcony gave him. It was the closest he got to reliving a shred of his before life. From the vantage point of the small, dilapidated balcony, he oversaw his domain in its entirety. He couldn’t help but memorize the cars that were there day after day, or start logging when one tenant might arrive versus another, or watch the process of the shops open and the nearby street parking fill up. He watched on more than one occasion as the landlord was handed rent in an envelope full of wrinkled bills of every denomination, making him thankful he wasn’t the only one to pay in that nature. He took note of every possible concern, anything of note; but, over the course of the month he had been living here, one balcony saga stuck out from the rest.

There was a stray cat. It was shockingly tiny, with patchy fur and, from his best guess at a distance, bald spots from being somehow mangled. It looked like it was a human’s doing. Pope felt bad for the cat, especially because of its apparent youth. Pope felt like any human that would hurt something so helpless deserved to be thrown into wet cement, alive, and left inside as it hardened. The little kitten was strong, too, if it was willing to come around a human street after whatever had been done to it.

The stray returned because there was also a woman. A doctor woman. A doctor woman who was always at work- made sense, with the whole doctor thing- and still made time, even after twenty four hours straight of working, to be the type of person who set small dishes of cat food in the alley outside their apartment building.

The doctor had big brown eyes and spoke a pretty language on the phone sometimes. She’d walk into the apartment with one hand holding the phone while her opposite arm carried a bag of premium kitten food indoors, still wearing scrubs because that was all she ever seemed to wear. On the days she was gone a full 24 hours that kitten would begin to linger in the alley, meowing around the 8 or 9pm point, until it would slink away with its head hung low. So, as his personal service to healthcare workers and not because it made him sad to think the kitten might not put on good weight despite the doctor’s best efforts, Pope ended up going to the grocery store and stalking the aisles until he arrived in front of a wall of brightly colored pet food. The next time the doctor wasn’t home by 8:30 he slipped outside and refilled it with the same kibble (the doctor had to know what was best for the kitten’s stomach, so he trusted her choice of food) and a slice of turkey breast from his fridge.

Then there was a week where she worked multiple double shifts. The hospital on her lanyard, the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, didn’t normally do 24 hour shifts for the emergency department according to the internet. So it had to be her covering extra shifts on top of her normal schedule, which he could only hope wasn’t the result of financial stress, since asking their landlord if he could secretly pay two month’s rent for her might put eyes on Pope that he didn’t want. Whatever the case, it left her unavailable to go grocery shopping, and it took her two weeks to go through the last bag and it had been three weeks since she’d brought one home. After several hours spent peeling the landlord’s flaking paint off of his electrical outlets he went back to the store, got a bag, and dropped it at her doorstep for when she returned.

Pope made sure to be inside at 7:30am when her car pulled into the lot, but he heard from below him the sound of her dropping the bag inside her apartment. Fifteen minutes later he heard the unmistakable creaking and squeaking of her shower turning on- an easy fix he’d handled his third day- and Pope took it as his cue to stop listening. He slipped outside and headed to the gym to work off the thrill in his chest.

Winter arrived early that year. Pope had been dreading it, considering that he was a California boy through and through- not one particle of the Codys was meant to be subjected to the snow. The days were growing drearier and the weather was taunting the city, approaching the point of snowfall on several occasions and then backing off just to leave layers of icy frost on windows and windshields. The first time sure enough, he woke up just before 6am in early November to a blanket of pure white covering Pittsburgh. He silently watched the weightlessness of the snowflakes as they gradually fell and covered the city in a blanket of pure white, but this wonder was rudely interrupted at 6:30am by an awful, grating sound coming from the parking lot.

Pope set down the jar of pomade he was about to finish running through his hair and stalked across the apartment to his window to see a horrible sight: the doctor woman, without gloves, struggling to scrape off her windows with a broken windshield brush. On top of that? There was no way her engine was warmed up and the car must’ve been even colder than outside, because he didn’t hear the car run for more than three minutes total before she drove off.

Pope Cody found all of these facts unacceptable. So, he went to the store and purchased two windshield scrapers with a brush on the opposite side, sidewalk salt, a snow shovel, insulated gloves, an animal carrier, and a cat collar with a bow. With the list acquired he did what he did best, and got to work until the sidewalk was clear. The snow had continued to relentlessly pile on as the day progressed so he went back out at 6:50pm to clear it again and his efforts paid off when the woman arrived to a reserved parking spot and walkway so clear of snow and freshly salted, she had half a mind to be suspicious. Pope watched, crouched and behind the safety of his bedroom window, as she slowly looked around and took in the fact that her sketchy apartment complex was the only place as far as the eye could see that was perfectly shovelled and salted. She shrugged after a few seconds, hugged her puffer coat closer to herself, and disappeared in the apartment below him. Pope even watched her traipse right back out to refill the cat’s bowl.

Pope finally pulled the curtain shut. He ate microwavable chicken and broccoli, showered, and smoothed his bed before pulling the comforter back so the corner became perfectly triangular. Finally, he climbed in, turned his lamp off, then on, then off again, and turned over to face the meowing cat carrier. Sticking a finger and rubbing the fun-sized, mewling animal, he said: “I’ll empty it in the morning, so she knows you ate. Then we gotta go get your shots at 9:30.”

Children’s screams were, just for tonight, a familiar and even welcome ambience. Instead of causing Samira’s heart to race and her medical-mind self to kick into gear, the shrieks fit perfectly into the surrounding chaos: a pig with one perfect curl for a tail oinking as its preteen handler tried to usher it out of a mud pit and into its pen; families splitting plates of fried dough coated in cinnamon and syrup; jankety rides hurtling by at too-high speeds; parents divvying out ride tickets; a teenage boy trying (and failing) to win a teddy bear for the other half of his first date.

“If I had better eyesight,” Jack remarked as the boy missed the sixth straight dart throw, “I’d win you that.”

Her eyes rolled far enough back to see the sickened participants of the swing ride at its peak. “Always the gentleman. Is that why you brought me here? You want to woo me-”

“I always want to woo you.”

“With teddy bears and cotton candy?”

“Woah, hey, the cotton candy’s for me,” He playfully hugged the monster sized cotton candy to his torso and away from her grasp, easing up enough for her to tear away a portion swirled with pink and blue. “That’s the reason we came to the carnivals every year, because you sure as hell couldn’t pay me to ride any of this shit. Come to the first carnival of the season, share a lemonade and an extra large bag of cotton candy, and look at the cows.”

“I should’ve guessed you were the type of manly man who was terrified of rollercoasters and carnival rides.”

“Hey!” When Jack whirled to face her, Samira’s face was already creasing with hardly contained laughter at his defensiveness. “Rollercoasters and carnival rides are totally different, and coasterphobia is real-”

“Coasterphobia?! You know the term?!”

“I’m a doctor! And by the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a prosthetic, so being scared of carnival rides-”

“Yeah, you’re right. Ferris wheels are famous for that sort of thing.”

“There is nobody on the face of this Earth that could get me onto that,” He jutted his empty hand to point at the ferris wheel they had, earlier, debated riding, with Samira deeming it the safest, most normal ride at the carnival. Evidently her boyfriend- who had concealed his phobia until tonight- disagreed. While they made their way to the central food court of the fairgrounds, he added, “I had a cousin who was a carny for three summers and he was the dumbest person I’ve ever met. Also the highest.”

“Oh, I was going to ask why you hung out with him if he was so dumb, but now I know.”

Jack’s defensiveness didn’t override the instinctive smirk at the memory of his high school days. “It was the eighties!”

“God,” She laughed, “How old are you?”

“Old enough for a beer. My arms are full- how about you get us drinks, and I’ll grab us a seat?”

Samira cast a look down his right leg where, underneath his clothing, his prosthetic was no doubt irritating him as it mixed with the sweat and heat of the night. Meeting his eyes again she nodded, accepted the wallet Jack wormed out of his back pocket, and took her place in line. As much as she adored Jack, or anyone else in this life, Samira craved safety in solitude.

Since Jack had come into her life, her attitude towards solitude had changed entirely. It had gone from a constant ache, caused by its unwillingness and her powerlessness to it, to something she could now voluntarily lean into. No longer did she spend weeks without saying another word to a human being outside of work; now, with Jack, she had come to view being by herself as a gift. Now, she got to pick and choose when to keep herself as her sole company, and treasure moments like this; the difference between alone and lonely had become a thing of beauty at the hands of Jack Abbot.

As the night was winding down, the beer truck had, evidently, been running dry. What started as a plan to get two beers had been thwarted; when she found the picnic table he was occupying she was holding one glass.

“They were out of basically everything,” She sighed, “So I hope you enjoy… this.”

Understandably, Jack’s brow lifted at her unsure tone. What was there to be unsure of? Beer was beer. In the time provided by his hesitation she took her seat and lifted the cup to his lips. It looked like beer, it smelled like beer; so why had she trailed off in that mysterious way? Why-

He gulped down a sip and nearly coughed it back up. “The hell is that?!” Jack spluttered, grinning to match Samira.

“Fried cotton candy Oreo and funnel cake beer.”

Jack blinked.

“I didn’t hear you say that.”

“Cotton candy oreos,” She explained, slower, “Fried, with funnel cake. All in one beer. Does it taste amazing?”

“I have never tasted anything sweeter in my entire life- well,” Samira scoffed as his eyes raked down to her lap. Immature. “And, there is absolutely no alcohol in that. Whatever that is, it’s not beer.”

“Well, I don’t want any, so drink up.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. That’s not fair. You- it’s basically juice, Mohan, it’s only fair you split it with me, c’mon-”

“Jack-”

“There you go,” He only set the glass down after she’d drank it. Expectedly, her expression cringed, twisting up with a hissing breath.

“I don’t like beer. That is not beer, but I still don’t like it.”

“Attagirl. But tell you what, I’m getting my money’s worth.”

Samira nodded, though he couldn’t see when he was mid-chug. “Economical. I like that about you,” She hummed, watching like a hawk as he licked a drop of the sickly sweet beer off his lips and handed her back the monstrosity of a beverage. “I feel like it should be pink, you know? If it tastes this crazy.”

“Yeah, that would fix it. Even though it tastes awful, is overly expensive, and has no alcohol in it.”

“For all this sugar, you’d at least expect a buzz.”

“I love bad fair food, but a shitty beer that doesn’t even get you drunk is where I cross the line.”

Twenty minutes later, Samira and Jack were discovering the joys of navigating a hectic carnival parking lot at closing time while being unexpectedly drunk.

“This guy’s a creep,” Jack said, “Get the next driver.”

“Every driver on Uber looks like a creep. Isn’t that what you’re there for?” She kept the slur out of her voice. Mostly. “Wait, wait, what?! I forgot he was doing this, this is perfect- here, what about-”

“Creep!” Samira gave Jack a look that could kill.

“That’s Dr. Whitaker, Jack. From the day shift.”

“He’s blonde and he drives a pickup truck. Next, or, we’ll just walk home-”

“Oh my god. Fine, what about-”

“Ma’am, do you need help? Is this guy bothering you?” They both turned on a dime to face the stranger rushing to Samira’s defense. She was half tempted to take up the offer and get rid of Jack, who tended to get extra clingy when tipsy. Once they turned around Samira quickly shed his arm from around her waist, taking three large steps towards the familiar figure of Parker Ellis.

“Ellis?! What are you doing here, you freaked me out!” She beamed, watching as Jack similarly playfully scolded her. Ellis gestured towards the carnival exit as it overflowed with sugarsick children and their parents, fending off migraines from the rides they had been forced to go on.

“I was supposed to pick up my nephew. He’s going to a friend’s, though,” Ellis said. She noticed Samira’s phone and the ride app displayed onscreen. “Need a ride?”

“This is why you’re my favorite,” Jack told her as they reached the parked sedan. While helping Samira down into her seat he added, “Don’t tell Shen.”

“I’m telling Gloria!” A familiar voice sang from the back seat. Jack ducked into the car and slapped Shen, sitting in the passenger’s seat, on the shoulder. Amidst the excitement the lemonade Samira had been placing into a cupholder jostled to the point of spilling several droplets onto her calf. When Jack withdrew to settle in his seat, he noticed her dabbing her jacket cuff on her leg. One inquisitive look and Samira gesturing to the lemonade caused a look of understanding to dawn on him.

“Shen! Come here. Santos is here, let’s each go to an exit and find her,” Ellis peeked back, “You two, stay in the car. I’lk turn the air conditioning on. Do not,” She eyed Jack, “Mess my car up, or do any gross stuff.”

“Nothing to worry about, Ellis. We’re just really good friends,” Jack murmured between himself and his girlfriend, ignoring Parker’s immediate eye roll (tonight, especially, he seemed to have a particular talent for eliciting those) and the closing of the car door as Shen left to do Ellis’ bidding. Left alone, Jack’s mind drifted to doing what Jack Abbot had always done best; causing trouble on the basis of a woman out of his league.

Samira glanced over to Jack at the feeling of his hand wrapping round her calf and lifting it up onto his lap over what little empty space existed between them. “Lot of it get on you?”

“No,” Her leg buzzed around the grasp of his fingers drifting down to her ankle and holding on to it, “Just the last few drops.”

With a low hum, Jack raked his eyes over the exposed skin of her thigh, down to her knee, then over the calf. After giving her ankle a few taps and a feather light tightening of his grip he lifted, slowly, waiting for any sort of protest. Samira gave none and, on the contrary, straightened her leg out to make it easier, asking, “If you lick my leg, I think I’ll get sick.”

“Think?”

She shrugged, a tipsy smile on display. “Maybe I’ll find it hot,” She said.

Any exploration of that possibility was interrupted by fingers tapping the window and a muffled, “Parker, they are!” or, “My eyes! My eyes!” or, “Abbot, you’ve corrupted her!” from Shen and Santos. Jack, without letting go of Samira’s ankle, rolled his window down with a shit-eating grin and chastised them. As they continued to cry out to Parker (and, coming into view alongside her, Garcia) of the horrors they were witnessing, Jack argued back. With the way-too-strong beer still empowering his more mischievous ways, Jack gave up all hope of controlling the situation and lifted her calf to his open mouth to playfully bite.

After a shocked yelp at the sudden action, Samira’s laughter multiplied tenfold, mixing with the cacophony of reactions from all but Garcia.

“Okay, as far as the seat situation is going, those two are getting their own seats. No more freaky shit in my car- don’t make me need to buy a blacklight,” Ellis opened all the doors on the passenger side and they all began to figure out the complexities of who would sit where, how. It ended with Jack, Samira, and Garcia in the backseat with Trinity on her lap. SHen resumed his spot in the passenger seat and, after Santos ducked to evade any law enforcement seeing their less than legal seating arrangement, they were off on the optimal route to drop everyone off where they needed to be.

If figuring out the seating arrangement and introducing Garcia and Santos into the mix had been chaotic, the ride itself defied description. Garcia was gossiping with Abbot about the rumored feud between Park the Shark and Walsh, Shen and Mohan were discussing how fucked the day shift was compared to the night shift and how silly people with claustrophobia were (a pinch in her side let her know Abbot heard even if he didn’t break conversation or eye contact with Garcia), and Santos updated Ellis on the latest state of Pittsburgh’s gay bars. Ten minutes after they’d escaped the traffic leaving the fairgrounds, Abbot heard Santos mention her favorite karaoke spot in the city.’

“I even took Mel there last summer, after,” She paused, glancing at the woman currently serving as her seat, her arms wrapped around Santos for stability, “After that awful shift on the fourth of July.”

“I won a karaoke competition in undergrad,” Abbot piped up. All at once, the conversation in the car died down until all that could be heard was the music Ellis had quietly turned on. Mohan was the first to laugh, but it was Ellis that planted the first seed of an idea.

“What song?”

No response.

“Abbot,” Shen turned to face him, smiling wide enough for him and Ellis both. “What song?”

“Well… there were three rounds.”

Santos’ mouth dropped, along with everyone else’s, and she murmured, “Oh my God,” as Garcia began to fight back laughter of her own.

“Round one was And I Will Always Love You; round two, I Need a Hero; and for the first place finale, ” He sighed, though nobody in the car knew how the two of those could be topped based on the shocked gasps that followed, “Like a Prayer. The… the Madonna song,” Jack trailed off over the immediate howls and shrieks of laughter. Other than Samira, not many living people got to see a bashful Jack Abbot; but sure enough, as they all tried and failed to catch their breath between raucous laughter, he turned red and faced out the window to clear his throat.

“I can’t believe Doctor- Doctor Jack Abbot, of the PTMC, once won a karaoke competition by singing Like a Prayer.”

“I was raised Christian. Besides, I didn’t win because of my singing,” Everyone hushed, turning to him once more. As it was a red light, even Ellis craned her neck around to witness what he was about to reluctantly admit. “I took my shirt off.”

“Oh my God,” Samira covered her mouth in horror as the car went ten times crazier than before.

“The judges were a bunch of sorority girls, and I was ripped in college,” He defended himself over their rowdiness.

“But you were also ginger,” Shen pointed out, “Tit for tat.”

“He’s still ripped,” Samira said.

Jack kissed her cheek. “Yeah, what she said.”

“Oh God. You being ginger explains so, so much,” Garcia said.

“I figured you came out of the womb with gray hair,” Santos added, ignoring the playful glare he shot her way.

Shen held a hand out to garner focus. “There’s a karaoke place right by my apartment, which is her first stop. Just saying.”

Maybe it was the spirit of shitty, overly sweet “beer” with much more alcohol in it than any normal alcoholic beverage had, or the fact that Santos guaranteed Mel would show up if asked. All anyone knew was fifteen minutes later, the karaoke bar beneath John Shen’s apartment was full of doctors who finally had a night off.

True to her word, Santos loudly announced the arrival of Mel right before dragging Abbot onstage for a tipsy reenactment of his “I Need a Hero” performance. Santos did most of the performing and- what would become a common theme as the night progressed- they all ended up onstage before the song ended. A solo from Shen; Something Stupid for Mohan and Abbot; a duet of a song Jack had never heard of from Garcia and Santos; in response the nearly empty bar occasionally clapped, or groaned at the song choice, but they were rowdy enough to compensate for their lackluster audience. The drinks were flowing- even Mel sipped at someone else’s amaretto sour here and there- and right when they agreed to call it a night, concluding they were all far too old to be drinking and karaoke-ing past midnight, Ellis held a hand up.

“Wait, wait. It’s only fair we end this night one way. Jack, finish your beer.”

Jack warily followed Ellis’ instruction. Right when he set the bottle down was when the first chord played of a familiar guitar riff.

“No. Absolutely n-”

Samira and Mel both cut him off, with the others all quickly joining in for the opening lyrics to the Madonna song that had haunted him since college. He reluctantly joined, though nobody made any move to get up from where they’d been gathering their belongings around a large booth. All seven of them sang an emphatic, off-key, drunkenly lousy rendition of Like a Prayer, and no shirts were removed, marking the first (and only) logical decision made all night.

Shen retired to his apartment with the offer of a couch to crash on which Ellis was quick to accept. Mel was sober enough to drive home, dropping Santos and Garcia off along the way. Sitting on a bench in front of the bar, it wasn’t until he saw their car drive off safely that Jack reached for his phone to book a ride home.

“Any of these drivers meet your standards, or are they too creepy?” Samira leaned into his side with a yawn.

“When I’m this beat, there are no standards. Looks like… Hannah will be meeting us at that corner in four minutes. Driving a lime green PT cruiser with a vanity plate,” He cocked his head, “Naturally.”

Pushing herself off the bench to stand in front of it, she offered a languid hand out to Jack and began to leisurely saunter to the pickup corner.

“I can’t believe we just did any of that,” Samira said. Jack used his free hand to take her bag from her free hand; luckily they didn’t have to carry the monster sized cotton candy, since the group had been picking at it over the last two hours. “I guess I forget how fun stuff like that can be. Normally, it doesn’t sound that fun at all.”

“Everything in moderation. I’m a bit too old to party like that, but once in a while, you find the people that make it worth it,” They came to a stop under the only street lamp that hadn’t flickered in the entire time they were outside. Samira rested her back against the post and kicked a leg up for leverage, a warm smile on her face as their eyes met. Each curl on his head glowed in the silhouette of the light overhead; a beautiful, heavenly glow surrounding him. For Jack it was even more glorious; when he angled his head just right she was cast in the golden hue that he always viewed her in, even if it was 2am under the harsh hospital fluorescents. She looked like an angel which, Jack thought, was how she looked all the time anyways.