 
### PARALLEL INFINITIES

Honnah Patnode

with illustrations by Natalie Spence

Published by JLB Creatives Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 Honnah Patnode

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for uploading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Please visit us at: http://www.jlbcreatives.com

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

About the Author

About the Illustrator
Prologue

On the top of a vast hill that stretched higher than a skyscraper but was just a bit too soft and gentle on the horizon to be a mountain, a girl sat, holding all the wisdom and foresight and tragic understanding of the universe in her eyes. As she sat and watched the sun rise, offering a gentle smile at all the little songbirds swooping past the vibrant colors that were lighting up the sky, the world turned around her, and she did not seem to care. There were bigger things, more important things, more significant things to think about than worrying about the world passing her by.

Her eyes fell on the accursed river that wound like a snake in the valley below, and they welled with tears. The sadness was a reverent tribute to all the sleepless nights and decisions as loaded as guns that had led her to that gorgeous, beautiful, hateful place for the very first time.

It was a story that she half-wished she could forget, but it was also the sort of daydream that would never fade from her memory until she had rested six feet under the surface of the earth for a hundred years or more. It was a story that was initially sweet but left a bitter aftertaste, and, like wine, was suited for nights where the world seemed to bathe in eloquence and could handle all the bittersweet fruit of its labors. It was a story that lingered on her lips like a could-have-been kiss. It was a story worth remembering.
Chapter One

Rosetta stared straight ahead as she marched to work, eyes ablaze with determination and vivacity. Her curly, caramel-colored hair fell in front of her face, but she was too lost in her thoughts to push it back. Walking to work was such an unpleasant experience--the prying eyes that littered the streets of Albany were her worst nightmare. She feared that they might see her cashmere scarf and think of her as pompous, or that they might see her dimpled smile and think of her as childish and incapable, or that they might see behind the mask she wore and think of her as weak. Everyone was always looking to see right through everyone else, as if skin were made of glass and the insides of every passing civilian were meant to be put on display.

The cool chill of the early March morning nipped at Rosetta's skin as she strode forward. Weak was the last word she wanted people to think of when they looked at her. Weak was a word for lost children and brittle-boned elders that could no longer stand, those who were allowed to be weak without being patronized for it. Rosetta was no lost child, and she was entirely unafraid to stand on her own. The world--or rather, more often, society--was not often kind to the vulnerable. That much she was certain of. And she could not afford more of the world's unkindness.

Buildings towered above her, rising story after story into the sky, held together by bricks and cement and memories. Dust in the making, though too many such structures were the epitome of permanence, standing at attention in the skyline for decades. Lifetimes ago the sticky, solid substance was poured between those bricks, fastening them all together like sequins in the fabric of the world. Rosetta briefly wondered what would cause those buildings to crumble. Maybe a storm, maybe a nostalgia-destroying, tragic incident of renovation, maybe a demolition crew. No, she mused. Time will do it. Age. More than likely, the buildings would crumble under the inescapable weight of time itself. They would resist at first, slowly becoming more ignored and more forgotten, until they stood no longer. Such was the tragedy of things that were real.

The clouds cried above her. Their tears landed softly on her umbrella and formed puddles on the ground around her. The whole world seemed sleepy today. The sun was too tired to shine brightly. The birds were too tired to sing. Even the cars on the street seemed to slog by, drifting lazily within their respective lanes and curling together like cats when they parked, all clustered and silent. Rosetta both loved and hated days like this, days lost somewhere between the storms and the sun, when the sea and the sky seemed to switch places and time ticked on in rhythm with a waltz. Days ensnared between depression and jubilance. She felt that it illustrated life itself, because life was not a constant stormy mess in the way that her beloved fantasy novels liked to portray, nor was it an unending heaven of sunshine and bliss. All too often life was just somewhere in the middle. Boring. Forgettable. And though Rosetta hated it, hated the inescapable, suffocating normalcy that consumed every facet of every socially acceptable life, it was the unglamorous truth of existence.

A tiny salon/beauty store came into view, wedged unceremoniously between a fragrant candy shop and a quaint bookstore. Rosetta felt the slightest flicker of pride flare up in her chest, somewhere between her lungs and her ribs. It made her breath catch in her throat. Her satisfaction did not spark up because the salon was thrilling to look at—the reality was quite contradictory to such a thought. From the exterior, it looked perhaps like even less than it really was on the inside. Bland brick walls, a thin wooden door that always managed to let in a draft, and a neon sign that read 'We're Open' did not exactly make it look more appealing than the beauty emporium four blocks away. It was the name hanging above the door. The title of the little place, Rosetta's Beauty Parlor. She had founded the place almost exactly a year ago at the young, uncertain age of twenty years. Rosetta's sister had been desperate for a job, begging anyone in a position to hire her until she was kicked out, and it broke Rosetta's heart. Besides, Rosetta herself was never happy working for a knockoff fast food restaurant, making minimum wage and scraping up abandoned coins from beneath the tables just to pay for her college tuition. Of course, such a largely unknown establishment did not allow her to glean a hefty sum of money, but it felt so much more worthwhile when eighteen-year-old Rachel moved out of their childhood home and into her own apartment.

Stepping inside the little shop was almost like stepping into a familiar, favorite childhood hideout for Rosetta. She knew the little place so well. Strip mall establishments that came cheap were in desperate need of improvements—namely, in the salon's case, cleaning. She had dusted every nook and cranny, memorized every crack in the floor so that she could put rugs over them all, repainted the walls to bring the drab gray room into a whole new spectrum of vigor and liveliness. Rosetta knew the place just as well as lovers know the feeling of their palms pressed together.

"Oh, good, you're here," Rachel chirped from her perch behind the counter in a voice which mimicked the pleasantness of wind chimes. While both girls' skin tone was caught somewhere between the porcelain Irish tone of their mother and the dark coal color of their father, Rachel had inherited all of their mother's beauty. Her petite frame, her cheerful eyes, the freckles dotting her nose, her radiant smile, and her hair, dark, straight, and without a single wisp out of place, all made her appear to be almost like a mirror image of the woman that raised them both. The only facet of perfection that Rosetta shared with her sister was a pair of doe eyes framed by soft lashes. "I just restocked the lipstick shelves. Mrs. Alibi has an appointment for today."

"Hair?"

"Of course," Rachel said, smoothing the skirt of her pale pink sundress (an admittedly odd choice of attire for such a bland day, but lovely just the same). "Your specialty. Though it might be good if you looked like you could control your own," she ducked her head with a sly smile.

Rosetta laughed, tossing her bushy curls behind her shoulders. "Very funny."

"So, how's school?" Rachel asked, tilting her head inquisitively, as if such a topic could really pique her interest. Rosetta knew it could not, but the gesture itself was sweet enough to compensate for partial sincerity. "Boring as ever, Miss I'll-be-an-engineer-in-thirty-years?"

"It won't take quite that long," Rosetta said, sweeping her eyes over the goods displayed on shelves: Makeup, shampoos, bottles of nail polish in a hundred different shades, hair dyes, and all manner of lovely little things. "But it's good. I think I could really do this. Then, I could provide for..." Instinct forced her to bite her tongue. The day was dreary, but Rachel seemed more cheerful than usual, and Rosetta was careful not to chip that gem of happiness. For whatever reason, acknowledging the fact that Rosetta could and would provide for her family was something that did not sit well in Rachel's stomach. "Anyway."

"Yeah," Rachel murmured, managing a smile. "Daddy says he's proud of you. Says he can't believe he raised an engineer."

Rosetta straightened her shoulders and set her jaw. Did she look like she needed encouraging today? Was her resolve of cool-headedness cracking? Shoving her anxieties down before they could finish clawing up her throat, she smiled back. "Dad said all that?" Her tone was almost sympathetic, but not intentionally. It was just impossible to ignore that Rachel was fibbing. Their father never said things like that. He was far too quiet. Rosetta theorized that that was the case because his thoughts were far too loud these days. "He must've been having a good day."

"He was," Rachel nodded. "Yeah, he was."

"Rachel," Rosetta said, carefully bridging the gap between herself and the petite chickadee of a girl singing sweet falsities from behind the counter. "How's he doing? Really?"

Rachel's eyes grew very sad. Pain creased her forehead. "Better, I think. At least a little. But with the anniversary being next week and all..." She let out a shaky breath. "But he really said—well, he didn't say all that. But he said he was proud. Honestly, he did!"

Rosetta felt her heart wrench at her sister's crestfallen expression. "I know. I know." She scrambled uncoordinatedly around the back of the counter, rushing toward Rachel to pull her in for a hug. The smaller woman felt almost like a child as she leaned against Rosetta's nearly six-foot frame. Rosetta's fingers found their way into Rachel's hair, gently stroking it like she had so often when they were both small children with sun-kissed faces and unblemished memories. Even then Rachel had been like a little bird, always twittering on about how lovely the flowers were. How lovely they would look in her hair. How lovely they always looked when tucked into their mother's auburn bun.

"He misses her," Rachel sniffled when they broke apart.

"We all do, Sweetheart," Rosetta said. But we don't give up. We don't watch our loved ones burn to ashes while their world collapses. Rosetta did not hate her father. She did not blame him, really. She could not. It would hurt so much worse to hate him. Still, to see him vacant, silent, and cold all the time was infuriating for reasons that Rosetta could not place.

"He does the most, though," Rachel was so very nearly Rosetta's opposite that it was appalling; her tender heart spoke out much more than Rosetta's ever did. Rosetta clung to facts and figures. Numbers were her comfort. The only words she spoke were from the calculated reserves of social conduct in her mind. "He must."

"Yeah, he must," Rosetta repeated.

The bell on the door jingled merrily, signaling their first customer of the day. Rosetta steeled herself for it all: The small talk with customers, the feigned smiles that she knew must look real, the pleasant nature she dragged up from somewhere within herself to muddle through the world of the already-successful. It was strange to be a hairdresser when she herself could not spare the money to afford one, just as she was certain it was strange for Rachel to work with makeup when her own face was always bare of the stuff, save on holidays. They were both struggling to stay afloat, grasping the pennies of the rich to keep from drowning in the turmoil of poverty they had experienced.

Working whenever she was not at school was little more than a constant reminder of that dark time for Rosetta. The day dragged on, feeling just as slow as the weeks of uncertainty and fear had back in her last few years of high school.

Rosetta was proud of the parlor. She was proud of herself for founding it. She was proud of Rachel for keeping the business going mellifluously, day in and day out, week after week. But she was not proud of the work itself. It was an improvement to what unpleasant work lurked in the past, certainly, but Rosetta knew it could vanish in an instant if the rich and the far-from-frugal moved away, took their business elsewhere, or, heaven forbid, passed away. If one rent payment was late: if they were robbed just one time, or if a tornado blew all of her imagined stability to smithereens, it could all be over, could simply end. The idea scared Rosetta to death. The word 'end' chilled her blood, because it could sneak up at any time and prevent a story's happy ending or the marriage of two people who once loved each other. Or even create one empty seat at an empty girl's graduation.

Thus, she smiled. She walked with her head held high. She functioned like any good little machine, because what was the alternative? Two words I know too well, Rosetta thought. The end.

*****

Rosetta liked her little apartment. She sipped her nighttime mug of coffee, snugly curled up on the worn cushions of the old, beaten-down sofa that had lovingly been placed against the far wall of her living room. She liked it a lot, even if it was just a patchwork medley of the new, the old, and the ancient. She was willing to indulge in a few new things when she had moved in--sensible things. For instance, a sparkling white new refrigerator to wedge between the bland wall and the scummy brown counter that had come with the four-room flat. It was certainly an improvement on the eternally-grumbling, old, crusty machine that had previously "cooled" her leftovers—broadly speaking. However, most of her furniture was old or undocumented and dateless. To her, such things were bizarrely timeless. Her couch was had been a decoration on the side of the road. The rugs that rested artistically across the hardwood floors, the prettiest of which swirled with colors and patterns in soft blues and grays beside Rosetta's bed, all came from second-hand shops.

And then there were the ancient things. They were not really ancient, at least not in the literal sense. Ancient, to Rosetta, felt more philosophical than literal, because what was ancient changed all the time. After all, Pompeii was a modern city once, before it became a burial ground of dust and ash and charred bones. A modern city, teeming with life, before it flared up beneath a sky of brimstone and was snuffed out as quickly as the head of a match. Rosetta saw Pompeii in the photographs that lined her walls.

Shoving the thoughts away as quickly as she would have batted away a mosquito, Rosetta allowed her eyes to fall on the grandest structure in the room: A modern bookcase for her textbooks and, admittedly, all of her other books, too—the exquisite, chimerical, tantalizing stories that seemed to bleed from the pages into reality. She imagined what it must be like to write such a story, to have such euphoria churning in one's blood and such fiery, ghoulish demons clawing beneath one's fingertips. She wondered if the authors that could make heinous beasts and unlikely heroes come to life on paper could also dream of their imaginings that were so feverish for bloodlust, could step into the vivid light of a new world quivering with magic at its core, could caress the weathered trunk of the tree that stood for centuries in the midst of the most terrible storms, could see and do and live all of the things for which Rosetta was ravenous.

Life was not as adventurous as some would have liked Rosetta to believe. Her mother, the woman with the fire in her hair and enthusiasm ingrained into her voice, always told such wonderful stories. Perhaps Rosetta should have known that they were too good to be true, but they had been woven their way into her mind just as easily as her hair had been pulled into pigtails. Fiction and fact had blurred so easily when she was a child. Reality and fantasy, interlocked and interwoven, had been lost in a complicated dance of metaphors, imagery, and forgotten dreams. Her mother had shown her the cruel drug of impossibilities brought to life, and Rosetta had never been able to let go entirely.

At least I have adventures sometimes, Rosetta thought dimly. She sipped her coffee; it was brutally heavy with vanilla creamer, but that was exactly how she liked it. She knew that most would think a caffeinated drink just before bed was absurd, but it was the only time she could stand the brewed concoction, and for whatever reason, it helped her clear her head. My own little adventures. Sometimes.

Sometimes. Only sometimes. When darkness saturated the horizon and the whole town went to sleep, then sometimes, if she felt self-indulgent—a rare event in itself—she would allow herself an adventure. Whether it was real or just a figment of her imagination, it was appalling how little Rosetta cared. Sometimes—when the wind blew in the right direction and her heart was stirring in her chest like a tigress within her cage, snarling at reality and all its cruelties, tired of being trapped by responsibility and the vile confines of reality as most knew it. Sometimes—that blessed sometimes was synonymous with tonight. Taking another small sip of her coffee, Rosetta smiled. Tonight.

In one swift motion she downed the last of the drink and stood up, pulled her plush violet robe tightly around her, and strolled leisurely to the kitchen. Through the splotched, age-stricken window behind the sink she could see the last touches of dusk trickling down beneath the skyline like traces of a shimmering oil-on-water mixture seeping down a storm drain. She paused for a moment, allowing herself to be enthralled by the suffocation of the sunlight, before those last tiny inklings of light faded away and the clouds grew darker above the sparkling lights of the city. They swirled and turned the sky into a murky sea struggling against the wind, writhing and twisting and pulling what once was a day into a whirlpool of midnight.

Rosetta hummed herself a lullaby as she turned from the ominous-looking drapery that had cloaked the sky, letting the exceedingly bright yellow light from the bulb fixed to the ceiling wash over her face and arms. The world looked so dark when dreary days came to a close, when the scent of the dampened ground wafted away and the sound of raindrops grew muffled like the voices of faraway memories. It was as if her little corner of creation had been purged of all its excitement, left dull and gray and cold. She knew that feeling well.

She brushed her teeth and washed her face, wiping away the last residual smudges of foundation clinging to her pores. She had once wondered if this was a routine or a ritual, but thereafter decided it did not particularly matter. It seemed that life was all the same: routine, responsibility, repeat. Slather on makeup, scrub it off, repeat. Feel happy, feel drained, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

"Like a broken record," Rosetta seethed as she walked hurriedly to her room. As soon as she passed the living room, her phone rang, and she froze. The little touchscreen-equipped device had been abandoned in her haste to end the night, leave reality for a few precious moments, let go...

But responsibility beckoned her back, crooking its bony finger and drawing her in, whispering a susurrus of the crippling possibilities if she ever truly let herself believe that she could escape it. She almost let the call go to voicemail. Almost. But she was too well-trained, too inclined to obey her instincts. It could be her sister, crying over whatever had sent her over the edge. (Rosetta did not blame her. Rachel was too young and too naive to be as burdened as she so often was, and if the slightest bit of extra weight could sink a ship in turbulent conditions, its effects on a teenage heart were immeasurable.) It could be a classmate asking for assistance on the mountains of homework that anchored down every book-bag that came within a one-mile radius of their professor, and, if Rosetta was perfectly honest with herself, she would not be able to deny them the help they requested.

She caught herself biting her nails, and quickly yanked her hand away from her mouth. It was a bad nervous habit that she had intended to break years ago, but somehow had just never found the time, even though it made the cuticles ragged and marred the delicate colors of her nail polish when she bothered to wear it.

As she approached the device, which was ringing incessantly, demanding her to answer, she saw that it was her father calling. This was a rare and momentous occasion. Rosetta's father used his landline so rarely that it was hard for her to recall the number most of the time. What if he's hurt? What if Rachel's hurt? What if he's gotten himself into an accident? I know who will be paying that hospital bill, Rosetta fretted. Years ago, the thought might have been salty, but now, it was just standard procedure.

"Daddy?" Rosetta said in a hushed voice once she picked up the phone and pressed it against her cheek. The cool screen felt almost comforting against her skin. It felt strangely solid in the midst of the always-dissolving world around her. Trying to hold onto things, she found, was like trying to fasten a wave to the seashore.

"Is something wrong?" her father asked. "Rosetta, you sound worried."

She squared her shoulders and set her jaw. "I'm fine, thank you," she answered. "Why are you calling?"

"No, no, s'okay, everything's okay." Rosetta had always thought that he was like charcoal. His skin was dark and rich, his voice was gravelly, rising and falling like the light of glowing embers, and once, so very long ago, he had burned like the sun with the fire of life. He was more like a heap of ashes now, a dull whisper of the light that once was, on the verge of being swept away by the rain. Once again, Rosetta's eyes locked onto the rainclouds now marching to a city farther east. Once again, the heap of ashes had remained intact. Once again, the measly glue she acted as to hold a family that had been ground to dust together held strong. Yet another day, and they all survived. "You doing good in school?"

"I'm doing well, yes," she answered shortly.

"Good," he said. "I'm proud," he continued, and, as an afterthought, added, "of you."

"Me too," Rosetta felt a small butterfly of happiness flutter in her chest. "Thank you." Rachel asked you to call, didn't she? her thoughts inquired feebly. I didn't mean to worry her. I'm sorry. "Dad," she began, "are you still looking for a job?" Two months ago, Rosetta had been furious to discover that her father had ceased his search for work and Rachel had volunteered to pay his mortgage. It had been the first time in years that she had truly felt rage, and she had yelled at Rachel in a burst of fiery, volcanic, repulsive anger. Rosetta regretted it, and approached the issue now only with the most cautious attitude.

"Yes, Rosetta." His voice was even wearier than usual. "You know, I didn't ask your sister..."

Rosetta's lip curled with annoyance, but she bit her tongue. "I know." Her father never had to ask for anything. All he had to do was stop, and he really did sometimes. Rosetta could not be sure whether it was intentional or not, but, in the past, the moment his eyes went unfocused his lips pressed into a thin line and stayed silent, his bones became as still as a corpse's, and Rachel and Rosetta grew frantic. Terrified. Willing to do anything to bring him back from the sea of sorrow he seemed to retreat to within his mind.

"Okay."

"Okay." The conversation felt scripted and forced, and perhaps it was. Perhaps their whole lives had been like that for years. Perhaps they were both actors just playing their parts in this little episode that fate had chosen for them. Rosetta wondered what she looked like to him, the man that had tuned out and left her to patch up all the wounds left in the walls of the house, the scars carved into the pictures tucked away in scrapbooks, the bruises brutally punched into the hearts of those who had to keep going while he sat idle. Did she look strong? Or was the truth of the matter—that she had been a terrified child with no choice but to try her best to fix the world for her sister—as plain to see as she feared it was?

She did not feel like the words 'strong' and 'heroic' were appropriate. Such words were not for her, not during that time of her life. The only feeling she could identify in regards to that time was desperation. Horror-induced survival instincts, like those of stranded shipwreck victims frantically swinging their arms and kicking their legs to keep above water, battling the waves and the wind and the utter exhaustion just to take another breath. Even now, at the tail end of the trauma with the open sea behind her as she collapsed on the shore of victory, she could remember in frightening detail what it felt like to have lungs full of water and a throat hoarse from screaming.

"Are you going to visit her?" Rosetta's father asked gruffly. "Wednesday..." The world trailed into the silence that was always waiting behind that question.

Rosetta's eyes became glassy and motionless, like polished stones. "Yes."

The silence that fell between them was as heavy and thick as a concrete wall. It felt cold and sempiternal, squeezing the life and warmth and eloquence of conversation with its cold, silvery fingers. The sad sigh climbing its way up her throat felt like tongues of fire leaping up from her belly, scorching her throat and turning all her words to dust.

"Good, I...I'm glad," her father said. "When?"

"Sorry, Daddy, but I think I'll go alone," Rosetta steeled herself for some sort of barbed-wire backlash spewing from his lips, but such a chiding never came. Her mother had always been so different when Rosetta had spent time with her alone. She was even gentler than usual, speaking with a tender voice and looking at the world with soft, untroubled eyes. Rosetta liked seeing her that way, in a dreamy, muted version of the world where cruelty was a bit less poignant. It did not particularly matter anymore, but a stubborn corner of her heart seemed to think that if she went by herself, it would make cruelty less poignant once again. It was a lie, but a beautiful one—the sort of thing anyone would love to believe.

"Of course," her father grunted.

"Good."

"Yes." A heavy sigh poured through the phone's speaker, chipping with white noise. Rosetta knew the sound as well as she knew the patterns of the lines etched into her palms. It was the sound of exhaustion, the sound of being finished, the sound of being drained within an instant with no fight left inside. "All right. Goodnight."

"Goodnight." Click. The line went dead. The conversation left a scalding sensation in the back of her throat. Slowly and methodically, she plugged the cellphone into its charger and left it behind as she walked purposefully toward her bedroom. Pixels and batteries and connections forged to satellites in space and back had little significance to Rosetta. Her heart was set on things forged as far away from reality as they could be.

Quietly, as if to ensure she did not disturb the sleepy shadows billowing like smoke beneath the furniture and between the cracks in the floor, Rosetta closed the door behind her. The little room was smothered in a dark, thick, grayish hue, like an old black-and-white movie. The silky sheets seemed to writhe and twist on the bed, opening their untidied folds for her as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She knew that many people were afraid of darkness, but she had never been afraid of something so trivial. Darkness, light—both were kind in some ways and cruel in others. The only difference Rosetta could spot was that the terrors of the night were fictional, at least most of the time. Should a monster appear in the day...

Rosetta shivered. Reality was an unfeeling and untamed beast.

Shaking off the chill that was causing bumps to rise over her skin in pinpricks, Rosetta took a step toward the bed. One step toward dreams. One step toward nightmares. One step toward forgetting the two could be distinguished from one another. She took another step. Two steps toward midnight. Two steps toward noon. Two steps toward being able to see both within the same minute, and simply by wishing. Two steps toward freedom. An exhilarated smile broke out on Rosetta's face. Freedom.

Refusing to waste another second, she leapt into bed, yanking the covers over her lanky frame and letting them settle over her skin like a layer of dust would settle over a forgotten city. She closed her eyes. Everything became very still. The world went silent. Even her heartbeat seemed to hush. The singing of the stars filled Rosetta's head, and reality slipped out of her like sand between fingers. Her body went slack. And then, in a grand, fluid gesture, she stood up, leaving that cracked physical form like a doll upon the bed, and Rosetta flew.
Chapter Two

The first time had been an accident. Months ago on a bleak, dreary night, Rosetta had collapsed onto the bed with silent sobs heaving within her chest, trapped behind the thick skin she had adapted for herself. The world had been so dark, spattered with poisonous stains of failure. Her grades had plummeted to a sorry, abysmal low. Her father had receded to being unresponsive at best. Her life had gone dark with sadness. Her mind had gone blank with numbness. The Novocain of exhaustion had been drifting through her blood.

She had grown stiff, statue-like in demeanor as she pressed her spine into the saggy mattress and closed her eyes, trying futilely to shut everything out. She did not want to move unless she could leap, fly, soar away from the misery of a life that was simultaneously monotonous and out of control. Untamed, unrequited desire for something she could not even identify was flaming at her bones, tearing up the marrows like wicks. Smoke had poured into her head and singed the backs of her eyelids, leaving her vision blurred and her soul in tatters.

A ravenous hunger for sleep had pricked at her like an injection, slowing her breathing and making her eyelashes feel as heavy as prison bars. Upon realizing that her homework was not completed, Rosetta had clenched her fists and surged out of bed, hurrying with astonishingly silent steps to the backpack that contained the torturous assignment, only to find that her hands...

Rosetta had shaken her head, unable to believe what she was seeing. Once again her fingers had fumbled for the zipper of her bag, and once again right through what should have been tangible material. Fear had jolted into her veins, crackling through her joints like volts of electricity as she reeled back. Whirling around, she had been unspeakably perplexed to see a strange, translucent, silvery cord, no more than a few centimeters in diameter, stretching from inside her room and directly into her midsection. Emitting a choked shriek, she had jerked back, waving her hands through the foreign thing wildly as she staggered away from it. She had discovered very quickly that she could not bat the silver string away; any time her hands passed through it, it simply dissolved and reformed again without any difficulty. Relatedly, she could not get away from it; the odd, ethereal, intangible cord had followed her wherever she went and had not stretched when she distanced herself farther from its starting point--rather, it lengthened with ease. It had transcended everything she knew to be true about reality. It had no texture, no scent, no clue that it existed other than its visibility. It had scared her but also intrigued her.

After a few seconds of squinting in confusion at the otherworldly cord, Rosetta had been shaken by a chilling thought. Where, her mind had whispered fearfully, does it lead? Almost blindly, Rosetta had stumbled along the path that the silvery rope seemed to lay out. It swept through the hallway, tracing the exact route she had taken to get to the bag, and swooped around the door into the quiet, solitary room from which she had come. Once her frenzied steps brought her into that normally-pleasant sanctuary of sleep and cold mornings spent under warm blankets, she had been hit with a wave of terror so massive and sharp that it had felt like a dagger tearing into her chest, carving brutally through flesh to scrape against her quaking bones.

There, laying lifeless on the bed, was her body.

Rosetta had felt her blood go cold. Everything felt wrong. The world seemed to spin. Everything was shaking. No. No, she was shaking. Fear. Fear. Fear.

A loud snap, like the crack of a whip, had resonated between her ears, and her vision had grown whitewashed and distorted until she slowly returned to her senses, finding herself back within her body. She had curled up her hands just to be sure, scraping her nails against the soft, taut skin of her palms, to confirm that she was real.

Gradually terror turned to curiosity, as it often does in clever minds. Rosetta had found herself becoming fascinated, if not obsessed, with the inexplicable happenstance. Had it simply been a dream? A fluke, a fantasy, an odd falsity? Certainly that is what most would attribute it to, and Rosetta knew that. But she dared to wonder otherwise. What if it had been real? What if it had been true? And what was it exactly?

Thereafter, fueled by pure intrigue, Rosetta had tried it again. The stillness was familiar to her, and she found that the intense urge to move followed suit if she could keep her mind conscious long enough; and thus, her adventures were born.

Now, as Rosetta rose up into the sky, letting the spirit of her existence float aimlessly through the air for a few moments, the dimension of souls was as calm and peaceful to her as her own living room. It was not technically called a dimension of souls, at least, not as far as Rosetta knew. That was just what she opted to call it since no physical being could seem to view it or feel it. She had tried once to hug a crying child who had been left alone on the street, but the chubby-cheeked boy had looked right through her, unaware of her pity. Even her view of other travelers—at least, which was what she presumed they were—drifting through the astral plane was distorted and murky. They appeared like phantoms, swirling mists of various colors, blues and greens and reds, all writhing in dark, black clouds in somewhat humanoid shapes. Sometimes it seemed they were looking at her. At first, it was disconcerting, but eventually, she grew accustomed to it.

Traveling this way was a strange separation of body and soul, but, equally strangely, that was not an unwelcomed feeling. It was freeing, in a way. Perhaps even purifying. Bodies chipped and cracked, becoming broken and bruised. But a soul? A soul was an eternity, flying far beyond death's icy fingers and dabbling in mortality for no more than a scintilla of time. A soul could not chip like fine china, nor could it bruise like fragile, petty skin.

"Where should I go today?" she asked the pigeons that perched on the edge of a building as her feet touched down. Though things like walls and roofs offered little resistance when she tried to pass through them, it made Rosetta feel queasy, so she generally contained herself to obeying the boundaries they etched into the world. The birds paid her no more attention than she expected, opting to coo contentedly at the dark, starry sky, preening their iridescent feathers under the moonbeams falling down onto her small corner of the world. She had not travelled far this time—not yet. She was almost ritualistic in her practice, never failing to spend a few minutes watching over the city in which she had grown up, the city in which she had made a name for herself, the city in which she had lost herself.

I like it this way, Rosetta decided. None of the noise, none of the fake interest, none of the memories daylight seems to illuminate. The town itself seemed to snore as the faint sounds of occasional cars whooshed by along the streets, only to fade out again as quickly as they made themselves heard. The crickets chirped in rhythm, crescendoing as they tuned themselves to the wind's whispery song. Lights in apartment buildings flickered out one by one, as if someone were blowing them out in a randomized succession like candles. The city went to sleep, the eyes of the weary fell shut as another day drowned beneath the horizon, and the songs of the stars came to pour the beauty and tragedy of night into the intuitive artists' minds. Rosetta herself felt moved by the dolce notes that she, a person with intelligence marked only by facts and figures, never paintbrushes or pencils, could not even fully hear. It was a beautiful, secret, unabashedly intimate time, when all the false constructs of the day fell away—feigned smiles intending to win damaged hearts, forced laughter, and all—leaving nothing but the quiet symphony of conjoined heartache and hope.

"I could go anywhere," she continued. "Anywhere in this whole world. You want to know how I do it?" The pigeons gave no response, but Rosetta answered anyway, enthralled by the possibilities of her unlimited capabilities. "I do it by hoping that I can." She sat down on the edge of the building, running her intangible fingers over the concrete that she could not feel. Her hair cascaded in thick waves over her shoulders like rich maple syrup, shadowy and glossy in the pale glow emanating from the streetlights below. "Isn't that beautiful? As a kid, I was always wishing on stars, wishing for silly little things. I once wished for my sister to turn into a toad." Rosetta chuckled fondly. "She stole one of my necklaces, that's why. One I got from...oh, never mind."

A small bat whizzed above her head, ducking and weaving through the air. Its jagged wings cut into the sky like dark stained glass. It squeaked shrilly, as if to laugh along with Rosetta. The noise reminded her of Rachel's laugh, mouse-like and reserved, as if the short burst of happiness could be drawn out longer if she bottled some of it in her heart and refused to let it out.

"But it means I can go anywhere," she continued, her voice laced with enchantment. "Anywhere on a whim. It's wonderful."

It had not always been wonderful, needless to say. Traveling over large distances had been something she had learned over time. At first she had been timid of the ability. Levitating a few inches off of the ground (which was, in itself, arbitrary to her, but she had preferred to avoid thinking about that fact for the first dozen trips or so) had been almost too much to handle; it sent her blood spinning in a flurry of adrenaline through her veins and her lungs gasping for oxygen as her chest rose and fell with an overwhelming, skittish sort of awe. She had quickly and unquestioningly fallen in love with the feeling, pursuing it like some pursued cigarettes or stolen kisses that tasted of lipstick and wine or nostalgia, the most addictive drug of all. She found that it was the same feeling she could pinpoint within herself when she read of elven peoples and ghastly beasts guarding ancient caverns. It was the sense of adventure, the sense of discovery, the sense of soul-striking freedom that she craved. She read of confident heroes and imagined being one herself, seeing mountains and rivers and little undiscovered, unknown corners of the world, watching life rise up and fall down as the earth heaved sigh after sigh.

Still, moving through the world like a ghost, half-carried by the wind and subconscious inhibitions, possessed its drawbacks. It felt strikingly like looking at the world through the blurry mirror of memory, as if she were peering into a place that she did not exactly fit into. Perhaps the dissonance was the world trying to shield her eyes from the places that her dreaded "real life" would not allow her to see. Rosetta supposed it was a bit like cheating, in more ways than one, but, in complete honesty, it did not matter much to her. It was wonderful.

Rosetta closed her eyes and slipped into the warm, silent, dark space that seemed to grant infinite pathways to infinite places. She relished the bliss of knowing that she could not get lost. The silver cord, which had turned out to be far more of a blessing than a curse, always led her home, even on the days she may have preferred not to return. There was always something to bring her back; that much was undeniable. Sometimes it was Rachel's smile. Sometimes it was a friend's proposition to meet for breakfast the next morning. Sometimes it was exhaustion. Always it was too real, too basic, for Rosetta's liking.

She had visited Paris. She had visited Madrid. She had seen many examples of human urbanization and busyness, all lined up like museum exhibits for her to look at with the eyes of an outsider, a foreigner. Today, she thought, somewhere quieter. Somewhere peaceful. Cherry blossoms. Blue sky. Green grass. She could see the image of a beautiful, secluded place forming in her mind. Satisfied, she lunged for it, and the grainy mental image blasted into all the liveliness of its true identity.

Rosetta felt like she had been swept into a postcard photograph. The world was dyed a pretty pastel pink; it dripped from the tree branches like wet paint and pooled onto the earthy ground, pouring over the rivulet-roots writhing beneath the soft skin of the earth. The petals of the blossoms reminded Rosetta of fairy wings: gentle, tender, soft, and engraved with the sweet vows of nature itself. They rustled in the wind, brushing past her feet and catching on the lean tree trunks rising like fountains of floral fancifulness. The sky gleamed through the latticework of beauty in baby-blue patches, and sunlight filtered down in thin beams. The air smelled of a sweetness more innocent and pleasant than any perfume. It was the sort of place that just felt inherently quiescent, where the light breeze would sweep away any lingering sorrow and the soft flower petals falling to the ground would wipe away any tears trapped within a broken spirit. Purity, Rosetta thought. This is a place of purity.

She liked it; that much was decided in a heartbeat. Her soul felt at home in the little grove of cherry blossoms. She found herself falling—no, floating—down, drifting downward until her metaphysical back touched the ground. She was relaxing on a bed of fallen flowers, bathing in their aroma and breathing in their aura. Peace filled her to the brim until her head was overflowing with pleasantry so pronounced that she could linger on the borderline of remembrance and forgetfulness, teetering over the edge and sincerely debating whether it would be worth holding onto what was technically real when dreams were so much lovelier.

Rosetta remained motionless for as long as she could stand to sit still. Eventually, the peacefulness would pale to boredom, but for as long as she could, she relished the nature-borne silence. Even the birds seemed hushed around this place, as if it were sacred. As if it were secret. As if it were perfect. She saw a few wandering souls sweep by, waxing into existence nearby and waning, phasing in and out like the moon did over the course of many nights. None of them stayed longer than a few seconds--just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of them before they dissipated. She wondered who they were and if they were wondering who she was, but she did not bother wondering for very long. Her cares were chaff, blown from her mind as easily as puffs of smoke when her eyes returned to the saccharine blossoms stretching to form a canopy above her, a complex woven work of nature and sky with dark, coarse, raw bark holding it all together.

A low sound drifted over the narrow pathway that seemed to flow through the pastel forest rather than cut through it, and softly brushed over her ears. Foreign, beautiful words flew daintily on the breaths of the wind, and the deep, rich voice that sang them resounded in Rosetta's head like a tolling bell.

"Mia carissima, gemma più preziosa, come dolce sei, come fiera."

Rosetta felt herself rising upward, somehow beyond her conscious control. Her soul clung to the music, sticking to it like honey in its comb, and desperately yearning to find it, to be close to it, to join in with it. The voice dipped and rose, scaling the peaks of high notes and scooping deeply into the valleys of low ones. It blended with the wind, and it seemed to be bursting with all the intense, flaming heat of the sun.

"Sei una candela nel buio della nostra incertezza, un saluto in un mondo di addii."

The song, slow and sweet like a waltz performed in candlelight and bathed in good memories, wormed its way into Rosetta's veins, and her heartbeat seemed to match its tempo. She suspected that the music was meant to mimic a pulse, at least in some way. The impact of certain syllables and delicate rush of others betrayed the secrets that the foreign language meant to keep. She felt herself being pulled to the sound, drawn to it like a butterfly to a flower's sweet, nectarous aroma.

"Ci incontreremo al chiaro di luna, e vi bacio, il mio Fiore. Da mezzanotte fino al mattino, siamo insieme, siamo innamorati, siamo reali."

The pathway in the midst of the trees bent and gave way to a stony shore which led to a glassy lake. The pastel-pink trees reflected in the water as if it were a perfect mirror, and the sun glossed over the shimmering surface giving it a golden, almost metallic appearance. And there, standing beside the lake with a patient sort of stature and shining eyes turned skyward, was a man. He was burly and broad-shouldered, and muscles rippled under the tan skin of his arms. He was clad in ragged jeans and an emerald-colored shirt with short sleeves that hung just over his shoulders; it seemed to be just a bit too small for him. His hair swept down over his ears in rich, chestnut-hued waves that complemented the glimmering brown shade of his irises. His eyes were almond-shaped and wide with wonder, gazing at the world with a sort of permanent awe and exuberance. His jawline was sharp, so defined, as if edges of glass had carved it out, and his cheekbones carved more angles into his features. Sunlight streamed onto his smiling face as he sang once again. It was his voice that could send the whole world into hushed reverence, or so it seemed.

"Siamo insieme, siamo innamorati, siamo..."

Rosetta had not meant to interrupt, but hearing his voice and standing so near to him sent chills down her spine. He possessed the voice of an angel. His body was an orchestra; it flowed with the movement of his song, rising up as the notes crescendoed and somehow shrinking as they faded back into a whispery pianissimo. She drew in a gasp, and the man's head turned toward her, looking very nearly alarmed.

"Mi hai spaventato! Quando sei arrivato?" He was not singing anymore—rather, he was asking, or perhaps demanding. His cheeks darkened slightly, and his lips regressed to a thin line as he pressed one of his hands to the back of his neck.

Rosetta reeled back as if she had been pushed away. His eyes looked straight into hers, and whatever words he was saying were meant to communicate with her. "H-How can you?" Rosetta stammered, feeling equal parts horror and ecstasy, and a shock so intense she did not even finish the question. Out of nowhere, a loud, rapping noise—the sharp, quick sound of knuckles on wood—cut through her head like a dagger. The silver cord dragging complacently behind her gave a swift tug. It embodied the call of reality, the beckoning of what she should consider real, what she should consider important. Rosetta dug her heels into the ground as best she could. I can't be dragged back, not now, her mind insisted. He can see me. He can see me!

A look of realization was dawning slowly on his face like a sunrise on a misty morning. "Pensi davvero mi vedi?" His eyes were even wider than before, and they looked over her time after time, searching for answers to a question that she did not understand. "Mi capisci?"

The knocking sound rattled sharply within her skull again, faster and more insistent this time. The silver cord tugged at her, insistent to stitch soul and body together once more. Rosetta shook her head. Nothing made sense. No one could see her when she traveled like this, not ever. Not even those who joined her in an ethereal state of being could see her as more than a shadow, a footprint of her true self, and no creature in a physical form was capable of peeking through the veil set between the skeletons and the souls. Who was this man? What was he? And why on earth had she felt so drawn to him when his voice had wrapped itself around her lungs and stolen her breath away?

"How is this possible?" The inquiry came out a whisper, and the unfamiliar man squinted at her with a mix of confusion, fascination, and curiosity swirling in his eyes. He should not be able to see her. She should not be able to interact with him. She wanted to believe that something was wrong, but it did not feel wrong. In a strange way, there was a certain gladness she felt at the thought of a soul that she could see.

The persistent knock tore through her mind again, loud enough to be a scream as it tumbled around inside her skull like boulders crashing down a mountainside. Rosetta tried to cling to the fabric of the fantasy, tried to snatch a piece of a world she could not touch and hold onto it until all waking moments left her to the blissful nothing in peace forever, but it was like trying to keep a dream in one's head after being forced to abandon it for the drudgery of morning. The waking world did not permit such things.

The last thing Rosetta saw was the man stepping toward her, extending his hand with an incredible lack of hesitation. He was saying something, but she could not hear; the words were muffled, beyond her capacity to comprehend anymore. Then the familiar snapping sound filled the blank state into which she plunged as the trance broke, and Rosetta found herself trapped within her body once more.

Her senses returned to her slowly, gently, like light waves rolling steadily onto the shore. She could feel the soft sheets enveloping her. She could smell the tropical air freshener that was hidden away on the corner of her birchwood dresser. She could see the cozy, pleasant darkness of the room when she finally worked up the strength to lift her heavy eyelids.

The obnoxious sound pulsed thrice from her front door. Her limbs twitched, itching to curl up and pretend that she had not heard, but she could not actually bring herself to be so dismissive. A headache had begun to forge itself within her skull, and she rubbed unhappily at her temples in a futile attempt to alleviate it. Casting an annoyed glare in the general direction of the noise, she stood and groggily trudged to the door.

Yanking it open, Rosetta was not particularly surprised to see Lily standing on the doormat, eyes wide with expectancy and hands positioned at her hips, a posture that frequented her small form. "Sorry, did I wake you?"

Lily resembled the fragrant white flower she was named for much in the way a fish resembled a chihuahua. She had pale skin that could be likened to the complexion of a porcelain doll, scarlet lips that were perpetually pursed in general distaste of most people around her, hair dyed black with fiery red streaks in the bangs, and though she did not measure up to much more than five feet tall, every cell in her body was charged with the vigor channeled in the kick of a shotgun.

"No. You know I make a habit of being up at..." Rosetta paused, unsure of the time. She did not have to puzzle over it for long, because Lily leapt for the chance to speak as soon as Rosetta granted it.

"Ha-ha. You're funny," she spat, but there was no venom in her words. Rosetta detected a trace of defeat in her voice, however. With a softened expression, Rosetta stepped back and invited the explosion of a girl into her home. She did her best to shove the incredible journey she had just taken and the pressing questions swirling through her mind aside, just as she knew Lily would do for her.

"I try," Rosetta said absentmindedly. "Can I get you anything?"

Lily scoffed. "A decent man. I've yet to find one." She kicked her shoes off beside the door, and the scratchy, patterned nylons crawling up her legs and beneath her short black skirt were soon to follow, making a crumpled heap beside the trim that lined the wall. She yanked her dark hair out of its elegant bun and allowed it to fall in graceful waves over her shoulders. Lily possessed a strange talent for looking lovely when she was angry.

"I can manage a cup of cocoa," Rosetta offered gently.

"Nah." Lily's tone was dismissive, but her eyes gave away a faint glimmer of appreciation. She strutted determinedly to the living room and flounced onto the couch with a huff of indignation.

Rosetta plopped down beside her, doing her best to rub the exhaustion from her eyes. "What happened?"

"My luck happened," Lily spewed. A flash of lightning seemed to zig-zag over her face for an instant, illuminating its anger, power, and fearlessness. Rosetta respected Lily as much as she loved the precious creature; she was so tough when it was necessary, but so tender when she was allowed. Rosetta tended to see more of the latter in private, when the fireworks of fury ceased for a moment.

"Is this about Darren?" Rosetta gently placed a hand on Lily's arm. She had only met the buff, somewhat dull-eyed man once or twice, but he had taken a place as the latest in a long line of hopeful people intending to court what was essentially lava in a pristine case of snow-white skin. Usually Lily did not take suitors extremely seriously, but Rosetta treaded lightly. It seemed that Lily genuinely liked Darren, even if his close-shaven head appeared to be filled with more air than brain.

Lily sighed and ran a hand through her hair, shutting her eyes. "Yeah."

"Oh..." Rosetta's heart clenched with sympathy. "What did he do?"

"Well, we went on a date tonight. I thought it'd be nice, you know, to celebrate our three-month anniversary, right? But it wasn't. He kept telling me I should drop out of college if I ever wanted to get married, and I was like, 'I don't even want to get married, why on earth would I do that?' and he told me..." Lily let out a sound that fell somewhere between a growl and a groan of exasperation. "You won't believe this—he told me no guy wants to marry a girl that's smarter than he is."

Rosetta bit back the urge to drown all premonitions of a calm evening chat in colorful expressions of horrified anger. "What'd you do?"

"I flipped out! Obviously!" Her cheeks turned red, and a small smile graced her lips. "You should've seen the look on his face."

"Awestruck?" The fascination in the strange mystery-man's face from her adventure took root in her mind for a second, and Rosetta tried to disperse it and focus.

"Terrified," Lily giggled. Rosetta laughed, too. Lily's spark always managed to lift her spirits.

There was a brief beat of silence before Lily's voice took off once more. "But that's not even the worst part! So I go to the bathroom because I need to clear my head, right? And I obviously don't want to give him the luxury of seeing me cry," she added.

"Right," Rosetta affirmed.

"When I came back out, there was some other girl hanging on his arm, and he was totally flirting with her until he noticed I was there!" Lily's voice had jumped up an entire octave, and her face was flushed with disgust.

"No way!" The conversation felt strange, almost as if it were meant for high schoolers and not for an engineering student doing her best to support not just herself, but also those whom she loved. However, that was one of the reasons Rosetta adored Lily; when around her, Rosetta felt free, young, and happy. They could talk about anything—everything—and Rosetta found herself clinging to every word, yearning to be as excited about life as Lily seemed to be naturally.

"I know, right?"

"That's awful!" Rosetta exclaimed, mortification written all over her face. "Did you walk out?"

Lily glanced away and pulled her legs up onto the couch, hugging them against her chest. "Not...exactly." Rosetta raised an eyebrow, and Lily ducked her head shyly. Ah, there she is, Rosetta mused thoughtfully. Beyond the thick-skinned exterior of Lily's dark clothes and winged eyeliner and sleek black nails was a rather delicate being that was only revealed in quiet moments like these, where the moon was high, the earth was asleep, and only the shadows could see her secret, sweet beauty. Rosetta was a miraculous exception. For whatever reason, Lily trusted her with each angle of her personality, including the ones she was, arguably wrongly, ashamed of. "I grinned at her and told her to have fun, because he is totally single. Then, I strutted out."

Rosetta's eyes widened and her head jerked over to face her friend so quickly that she could feel the sore sting of minor whiplash curl around her neck. "Lily!" she gasped. Her mouth hung agape in shock, but amusement bubbled up from her stomach like carbonation in a fizzy drink.

"I couldn't help it, I was mad!" Lily insisted, digging her sleek black nails into her palms. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because," Rosetta threw an arm around her and hugged her tightly, "I think it was brilliant."

She felt a small huff of a laugh against her shoulder, where Lily's head was resting.

"Really?"

"Really! Only you, Lily, I swear..." Rosetta was not sure if chiding or applauding was more in order, but she decided on the latter, "...he had it coming. I can't believe he'd just disrespect you like that!"

"I know," Lily agreed. Her voice receded from anger to hopelessness, and her throat seemed to be drawn tightly. Her words seemed to be forced up past pent-up anguish.

Rosetta's hand came to rest on Lily's back, right between her pronounced shoulder blades, and rubbed back and forth soothingly. "Yeah, he's a jerk," Lilly admitted. "I should've known. It's just..." Silence seemed to suffocate the words she wanted to say.

Rosetta knew the feeling—imprisoned by the quiet, peaceful nature of normalcy, bound to what she was supposed to feel, supposed to say, supposed to want. But if anyone should sprint past such petty lines of society and discard the molds of what hurt and betrayal and uncertainty should look like, it was Lily Herifeather. "Just what, Lil?" Rosetta prompted gently.

"I...I thought he really respected me, Rosie." Hearing the childhood nickname struck a soft spot in Rosetta's heart. "He acted like he understood, and then, nope! Sorry! He's just like every other dude-bro I've ever had the misfortune of dating." Her face flashed with anger once more, but it dissipated almost instantly, like a thunderstorm fading only to be replaced by hours upon hours of melancholy rain. "I'm not even mad that he's gone. I certainly won't be taking him back in this millennium. I just felt so humiliated in that moment, as if I'd ever actually believe the sort of crap he was spewing."

Another silence fell upon the room, and it seemed more eerie than the previous ones. Rosetta could tell there were more words fighting to escape Lily's mouth as easily as she could identify a book that had been written too hurriedly or a building that was engineered to fall. Her expression gave it away. It matched those of children slowly pressing their lips shut after having their excitement dismissed by a parent, or cracked souls standing over the sickbeds of loved ones, holding their hands and desperately wanting to say everything and nothing at once. Pensive. Broken. Wounded. Rosetta felt a strange lack of empathy in the midst of all the sympathy that seemed to overtake each nerve in her body. She had an odd relationship with romantic love; sometimes she desired it, sometimes she was fairly certain she could never dedicate such vulnerability to another human being, to hand over her heart with a smile and say, "I trust you not to hurt it."

Lily, as far as Rosetta could tell, had faith in the "someday" principle of love. She had her heart fixated on the faceless, nameless darling waiting patiently in the future for her to find, or perhaps for her to catch. She always said she was not scared to give chase. Until she could see that person, touch that person, and be sure it really was that person, she held no faith in any simpleton's relationship. "Anyone can find love. That's easy," Lily would always say with a haughty toss of her head, and insert a playful jab about how even an uptight-but-altogether-wonderful woman could do it if she wanted. But always, without fail, she would continue, "The tricky part is keeping it. And the scary part is keeping the right love."

Rosetta had not been able to settle on what "the right love" could be. Lily seemed to think there was a solid answer, but if that were so, how could so many people have their hearts set on the exact same thing when their lives varied wildly? Perhaps, for some, the right love dripped hot and thick and slow, viscous like maple syrup and surreally sweet, drenching tongues in sweet nothings and minds in sensuous dreams of a life filled to the brim with perpetual ambedo. Perhaps, for others, the right love burned bright, scorching and leaping and consuming wildly, fearsome like fire and jealous like the sirens of the sea, brimming with kisses and tears, bravery and bruised knuckles—memories engraved in minds, never to be forgotten, and burns emblazoned on skin, doomed never to heal. Perhaps, for still others, the right love whispered, barely there and nearly drowned in the gray of monotony, seen only when brushing hair back gently in zephyrs of breath, butterfly kisses on cheekbones, and making life just a little better in a small, strange, lovely way. Perhaps, for some, the right love was no romantic, poetic love at all. Perhaps, for some, the right love was too powerful, too beautiful, too precious to ensnare in meager words.

"I should've known. To be frank, though, I was going to dump him after dinner anyway. I just didn't expect it to go down so...explosively." Lily shrugged, swiping away the tiniest droplets of water threatening to escape her eyes and smudging her eyeliner just slightly beneath her eyes. She looks so tired, Rosetta mused with more than a little concern.

"Okay, I'll bite," Rosetta nudged her on the arm. "What'd the idiot do?"

Lily managed a half-smirk and raised an artfully-sculpted brow. "He told me I shouldn't get steak."

Rosetta reeled back a bit, bewildered. "Come again?"

"I know! Weird, right? But his reasoning was just awful. He said that, with a figure like mine, why would I waste it by stuffing myself with 'that junk'," she put air quotes around the two words, "when I could get a salad instead."

Rosetta rolled her eyes. The notion was almost comical. "And let me guess. He ordered a steak?"

Lily flung herself back onto the cushions of the couch and let her head loll to the side, groaning in response. "You got it."

"Boy, does he sound like a winner."

Lily laughed (and snorted intermittently), relieving some of Rosetta's worries. It was how she really laughed, though she usually forcibly replaced it with adorable giggles because she was not too fond of the sound. "Oh, yeah. He was a charmer." A loud rock-and-roll tune blasted from Lily's pocket, and she yanked it out, only to decline whoever was trying to call. "That was him," she explained, turning the phone completely off and setting it aside. "Whatever. I don't have anything to say to him right now," she sniffed, appearing half-disgusted at the thought of attempting conversation with the man.

"Do you want to stay here tonight?" Rosetta offered, giving Lily a quick hug and standing up in preparation for hunting down an extra blanket or two.

"Aww, Rosie," Lily cooed, "that's so sweet! But, alas, I'd better not. He'll show up at my door tomorrow for the stuff he left around my house, again. Always forgetting things." She clicked her tongue disapprovingly and grinned slyly. "I want to make sure it's ready for him. And by ready, I mean infused with itching powder."

"Lily!"

"What? It's harmless!" she insisted. "...ish."

"Right," Rosetta said, sarcasm saturating the words. "You are one...unique...person, Lily."

Lily flashed a winning smile and flounced up, heading for the door with determination. "I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks for getting up, or, whatever. Love you, Rosie!"

"I love me, too, thanks," Rosetta joked.

Lily gasped in an exaggeratedly dramatic manner. "Whoa! Was that a scalding burn or a hilarious joke? I must be rubbing off on you!" She slipped on her shoes and retrieved her nylons.

"Have a safe trip home," Rosetta said. All at once her eyelids were heavy with premonitions of sleep threatening to close and drag her far, far away from the waking world.

"Will do!" Lily promised. She exited and locked the door behind her, but just before Rosetta could make it into her room for the rest that tantalized her every sense, Lily was knocking once again.

"You aren't taking him back," Rosetta groaned when she reopened the door.

"Obviously. This isn't about him," Lily replied. "It's you. This week..."

A zing of pain ripped through Rosetta's chest, yanking grogginess from her and replacing it with the strange mechanical numbness she had come to think of as an emotional default. "I know."

"What day is it, again?"

"Wednesday."

"And you're going?" Rosetta nodded in confirmation. "Want me to come?"

Rosetta's eyes hit the floor. "No, thank you," she dismissed. "I think I can do it myself this time." She had tried before, and failed. She remembered it so clearly—the scalding tears, the bleeding memories, the silent sobs, the soft, moist earth beneath her knees as she had sunk to the ground. Not again. Not this time, she told herself for what might have been the hundredth time. "I want to."

Lily's features were twisted in what Rosetta could only assume to be the marks of shared sorrow—the kind only the dearest and closest friends could seem to feel. "Okay," she whispered. "Call me if you need anything."

"Of course."

And thus, Rosetta was once again left alone in a hollow house full of hollow dreams with a heart that ached and was so very, very empty.
Chapter Three

Numb.

That was all Rosetta could feel, all that she was certain of, all that she knew that she was. Her bones seemed cold, almost frozen, and hard to move as she trudged onward, alone, under a dull silver sky. The wind cut through her clothes and even though her skin, chilling her blood, her heart, her breath. Her top teeth dug into the soft flesh of her lower lip, yearning to feel something, some sort of pain that she could explain, some sort of indication that she was still alive.

The whole earth seemed dim, as though sketched faintly by a steady hand with no color and no fine detail. Shapes blurred into a marred mosaic, curtained by the sheen of tears that wouldn't leave her eyes. She was surrounded by fuzzy, undefined fractals of space, a nullified void of what was real and unchanging, what she could not escape no matter how far she flew or how deeply she buried herself into the star-struck astral world.

How fitting, she mused absently, that an aura like this keeps watch over the dead.

Below her feet, encased in wooden boxes, were decaying bones, brittle and bare and frozen in time. Above her head, hanging low and melancholy in the sky, was a gray layer of clouds, betraying the light of the sun and shielding the ground from light—the very lifeblood of the universe. In her hands, which were clenched so tightly the knuckles had gone pale long ago, a bouquet of flowers stood at attention, blossoms turned skyward as if they were searching for something in the heavens. And all around, for as far as the eye could see, were stones that had dates, names, and short memoirs carved into them like tattoos of remembrance—stones that marked the final resting places of lives that once were, but now were no more.

Rosetta had cloaked herself in black. That was the only color that held even the faintest glimmer of appeal in the midst of her shameful brokenness. A thick shawl draped heavily over her shoulders, pulling her down, enhancing the urge to curl up on the ground and hold herself together, as though her stitching was coming undone and she was about to rip apart like a rag doll, until the world went away. Goosebumps raised on her arms as she eyed the countless gravestones that littered the ground, unnaturally stoic reminders of the corpses strewn about life's endless battlefield. But, though her body was clothed in dark fabric that armored her from the harsh light of reality, her face was bare. Today she had not touched any of the half-empty containers of makeup that were always scattered haphazardly across her dresser; she figured that was for the best, since she could feel the tears building behind her eyes, the pain rising up her throat, and the memories ravaging through her mind with neither remorse nor reprieve.

Now the pain had vanished, at least for a moment, and Rosetta felt nothing. Her mind was muddled, as if it had been laced with morphine, and her movements were slow. Her feet moved at an unexciting trudge instead of her usual gait that was full of purpose, intention, and brusque determination. Her shoulders were hunched, her eyes were unfocused, and she was slowly approaching the place she hated most in the world.

"Rosie, what are you doing?" Mom's eyes were half-shut and her voice was thick with sleepiness, but the tiniest sliver of a smile was tugging at her lips. "It's too early—surely this can wait 'til later!"

"Christmas can't wait, Mama!" Rosie said, tugging at her thin, pale wrist once more. "Plus, I've got something to give you, so will you ple-e-ease get up?"

"Rosie," she was sitting up now, and trying to tame the mess of bright red hair that appeared to have had an unfortunate encounter with a blender of some kind. "You didn't have to make me anything. You know you are the best gift God's ever given me!" There was a pause, and Mom pressed a hand to her swollen, ever-growing stomach. "Well...you're tied for first place," she amended with a smile.

"I know," Rosie shuffled shyly on her tiny legs and twirled a lock of hair around one of her fingers before it sprung out of her grasp and back into place. "But I wanted to."

Mom's eyes were soft and kind, and she patted a spot beside her on the queen-sized mattress.

Rosie wasted no time in clambering atop the large bed and revealing the card she had made two weeks ago. It may have been a small trifle, but to Rosie, it was the largest gift she could muster. She had folded it herself, and had written all the words (though Daddy had shown her how to first).

"All right, let's see what the little Christmas angel's made up for me," Mom said. Her eager nature was renewed as grogginess abandoned her and holiday excitement returned after remaining dormant for so long. "'Dear Mom,'" she began to read, "'I love you more than anything in the whole wide world. Maybe even the universe. Merry Christmas!' And what lovely pictures! I see you, me, and your dad...it's just perfect!"

Rosie's chest swelled with pride, and she pointed to the rainbow that was sloppily drawn above her family's heads. "It's in Ireland! You always said the rainbows there are the best! And I know you miss it sometimes..." She ducked her head and smiled sheepishly.

"Oh, m'dear," Mom trilled, "I do, but I'd miss you so much more if I were there again. I'm glad you drew us all together," she pressed a gentle kiss to Rosie's forehead and pulled her close, hugging her so tightly that their cheeks were pressed together. "Maybe we'll go there for vacation one day and make your drawing come true. Thank you, sweetheart. You've made this the best Christmas ever!"

Rosetta pressed a hand to her cheek, feeling the warmth of that moment so long ago sweep over her senses. Her grip on the flowers tightened. They had never vacationed in Ireland. They had never had the chance.

"Mom? Mom?" Rosetta's voice was tight and hushed. Her eyes were swollen from the direness of the previous day, and her diary was stained with the ink she had poured onto the page in the form of anger, uncertain words, the blood of her wounded soul etched between the lines of the paper. When the hollowed cheeks did not move to pull a strained smile, and the feeble chest did not seem to be rising, Rosetta panicked. "Mama!" She rushed over to the bed, and her eyes searched Mom's motionless, eerily calm features desperately for signs of life. An indescribable relief coursed through every part of her when Mom's eyelashes fluttered.

"What's wrong?" she asked hoarsely, reaching up with a feeble hand to curl it weakly around Rosetta's. The fingers were frail and bony, but her grip was strong. "Are you hurt? Is your sister?" Her deep green eyes were clouded with worry, and her forehead was creased, perhaps with the burden of years she would never live. Rosetta felt her heartstrings tighten painfully.

"No," Rosetta murmured, tears threatening to flow down her cheeks without her consent. She blinked them back. "No, everything's okay."

There was a heavy silence as they did nothing save stare at each other. It was Mom who first dared to break it. "Are you okay?" She inquired tenderly. She moved to sit up, but Rosetta placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, imploring her to rest. "I know things are hard."

Rosetta felt like she was full of stones. It was so hard to move, so hard to see past the wall of pain, so hard to hear through the white noise that erupted in all the quiet moments. She was not even in double-digits yet. She was not ready for the horrible truth of where life never fails to lead its victims. "You're going to get better, Mama," she choked out, though it sounded more like a question than a declaration.

The wonderful, weak woman's eyes shone with tears that Rosetta knew Mom would not shed in front of her. "I love it when you call me that," she evaded, a tone of remembrance lacing the words. "Reminds me of when you were just a tiny little thing. It does my heart good," she smiled. Rosetta did not answer. Something heavy and dense was lodged in her throat, and she could not swallow it, nor could she force words past it. "Oh, love," Mom murmured, raising her hand up to brush Rosetta's cheekbone, "I'm sorry. I'm trying to be stronger, I really am. What are the doctors saying out there? Are they frightening you?" A fierce strike of lightning flashed in her eyes, a faint, faded glimmer of the fire that once flowed in Mom's veins—fire that had long-since cooled to ash and settled into lifeless heaps under her skin.

Rosetta gulped down her tears and cleared her throat. "They're saying that you're doing better than they thought." Except, they were not. They were saying that she had mere hours left. "That you're going to be fine." That she would be gone before dusk. "That you'll be back up and caring for us in no time." That she needed to be cared for and told how much she was loved. "I'm not scared, Mama." She was petrified.

"Good."

It was so nice to see genuine relief flood over her mother's features that Rosetta's secret agony subsided for a moment.

"My dear, there's nothing to be scared of. Stop looking so worried, child. Sunrise is coming."

Rosetta wanted to scream and cry and cease to exist in that moment. Mom had said those words countless times, whether it was to banish the monsters in the closet or to accompany a goodnight hug or to placate a damaged heart. Yes, sunrise was coming, and Rachel had agreed to wake up early just to see it, but the reason for that was so much uglier than what the pastel sky deserved. They would watch the colors bleed across the sky to commemorate their mother, who would not see it ever again.

"Yeah, Mama. Sunrise is coming." Rosetta closed her eyes and planted a kiss on the dry, pale skin of her mother's forehead. It burned hot and feverish against her lips. "I love you."

The tears would not stop. They fell from Rosetta's eyes like rain. Had it really been more than a decade since she had spoken those words and heard those last few replies from her mother's dolce voice? The memories were so vivid, a broken yesterday lost in a sea of wasted time.

Every single one of Rosetta's classmates was scribbling away at colored construction paper without a care in the world. "I don't even like my mom that much," scoffed the prim, perfectly cultured, and altogether bratty girl to Rosetta's right, "so I'd better get something good out of making this for her. Maybe she'll take me out for ice cream or something!"

A gentle hand on her shoulder drew Rosetta's attention. Anger was burning bright in Lily's deep green eyes, but she seemed to be containing it for Rosetta's sake. Any friend of hers would know that the last thing Rosetta aimed to seek out was confrontation. "Are you okay?"

A choked sound of pain swept past her lips before the words she meant to say came out. "I..."

"It's okay to be not okay," Lily offered meekly. The blonde hair that she was so anxious to dye a vast array of different colors landed elegantly behind her shoulders when she brushed it back.

Rosetta did not respond. She just kept dragging the gray marker left and right over the white sheet of paper that she had thrust upon the desk in a barely-contained, grief-stricken rage. When her teacher asked what she was drawing, she opted not to respond. No one else could understand, nor could she herself hope to explain, that gray was all she felt, all she was, all she knew anymore. The dark, graphite-hued shadows hanging beneath Rachel's cheekbones, covering her hollow cheeks, a visible sign of the hunger Rosetta could not stop—gray. The color of the clouds that had blocked the sunrise the morning after life turned to existence—gray. The dull forgotten dreams slipping aimlessly to the back of Rosetta's consciousness, never to return, had faded from such vibrant colors into meaningless gray. Rosetta was trudging through a gray life with gray sunrises and a gray, paper-cutout family. On Mother's Day the world would fade to the hue of Mom's tombstone, because Rosetta knew she would find herself kneeling beside it, crying upon it, for hours—gray tears on a gray slab of rock with its gray, pointless words.

Oh, she hated the gray. But it was so much kinder than seeing the sunrise again.

Rosetta's heart stopped when the fateful stone came into view. It looked so ordinary, barely distinguishable from all the rest. She bowed her head, fighting to hold back the pent-up screams she had never released. Her cheeks were stained with tear tracks, and her eyes were red and swollen. Her pace slowed as she muddled through the wind, which had flourished from a gentle, soothing breeze to a dull roar. Or maybe it was just the screams of the silence here. Rosetta could not be sure. She was a mere ten steps from the tombstone. The thorns of the roses in her bouquet had torn through the flesh of her fingers several minutes ago, and she could feel the sting of pain. She did not care. If something as lovely as a mother was capable of ripping out Rosetta's heart and stabbing it over and over with the dagger of loss, what reason could she have to reflect on a flower's thirst for blood?

She took three steps in quick succession. Then three more. She could feel a storm roiling up inside her like an unbroken stallion, balking at the notion of inching any closer to the place that continued to haunt her nightmares as recently as the previous night.

She took another step.

She took another step.

She collapsed; her knees buckled, and her shins fell flat against the earth. Her arms curled around her torso, as if they could shield her from a monstrous pain that was buried deep within her. The agony she left to gather dust on a shelf for months at a time broke free, shrieking and howling like a blizzard in her veins, lungs, and throat. She found it impossible to breathe as memories impaled her, one after another, straight through the center of her heart each time. One of her hands clutched the sharp edge at the top of the tombstone, and the other clung to the ghostly phantom sensation caressing her cheek, just as Mom had so many years ago. Her head spun, dizzied by the tongues of fire that were licking at her ribs, scorching underneath her skin, tearing ruthlessly over her innards, leaving everything sore and quivering with the fear that they might blaze up once more. The smoke of a burning past slithered up her throat, choking her, stealing her breath and stilling her lungs. She gasped and convulsed as wave after wave of painful remembrance washed over her, leaving her simultaneously desperate to breathe and desperate to drown.

"I miss you...Mama...I wish you'd say something..." Her fingertips traced the smooth surface of the stone, lightly following the letters spelling out her name, her age, the day she died, and that she was dearly loved. "Please, please say something."

A bitter silence followed. There was no response. Rosetta glanced up at the sky.

"I don't think sunrise ever came, Mama."

Slowly, she floated into the gray again. Her gritted teeth and clenched jaw relaxed as she became numb once more. Numb. All she felt was numb.
Chapter Four

Rosetta was uncannily skilled when it came to settling into routine. The annual visit to her mother's grave came, ravaged the sense of stability she had grown accustomed to, and went, just as it always did. She carried on, just as she always did. She went to school the next morning, took the studious notes she was practically known for in the student body—anyone who missed a day of class came to her for notes on the lesson, even though her penmanship was often as untamable as her hair—and did not miss a beat when Rachel called, sniffling and warbling with a tearful voice about how it never seemed to get easier, especially for their father. Like the respectable woman she was, she held her head up and strode onward.

"You should have seen him," Rachel had croaked, just like she did every year. "He was so quiet. He just stared straight ahead. Like he was looking at a ghost or something. Maybe he was..."

"Do you want to take another day off from the shop tomorrow? We can probably afford it..." Rosetta had already been reaching for her little notebook full of jumbled notes regarding finances and affiliated information. Rachel had stopped that idea before Rosetta had even managed to flip open the cover.

"No," she had dismissed. "You're going to school tomorrow. The least I can do is go to work. Besides, between you and me, I think I'll go crazy if I don't do something. Do you know what I mean? Like, pedicure appointments and ordering lip gloss in order of both cuteness and color seems like the pettiest thing in the world right now, but I need to do it." A tangible silence had fallen over the conversation for several seconds. "And it feels like something Mom would do, doesn't it? She was so pretty, Rosetta..."

Rosetta understood, without a doubt. Work, busyness—sometimes they were the only means by which sanity was possible. Personally, she found peace in the beautifully complex mathematical problems with which she was perpetually faced as an engineering major. Most students complained that the variables and formulas and confusion were a numerical translation of what a headache felt like. But for Rosetta, it was a blissful reprieve. Numbers were so much easier to read than people and always made sense in the end. Words and speech and smiles could be deceiving. But numbers—they would never lie.

Still, all personal responsibility and trauma aside, whenever Rosetta curled up under her warm comforter and rested her head on her soft pillow, relishing the feeling of sleep slithering through the shadows and into her mind, she found that her thoughts wandered to the stranger she had seen during her last bout of astral travel. No equation could balance the disproportionate magnitude of her feelings toward the man, who seemed to be more of a daydream than a person. No formula could work out why his voice had left a faint pentimento in all the ambiance of life—the sound of running water, the dull roar of conversation in the corridors at school, even the gentle whisper of the fan that stood at attention atop her dresser. He was nothing to her, was he not? Or, rather, as Rosetta was quickly coming to realize, he would have meant no more to her than a stranger passing through the street, if it had not been a half-dream that had brought her to him. There was some inherent intimacy that came with having seen him as a soul. Not only that, but there was something intoxicating about the fascinating, enigmatic mystery he was surrounded by: how could he appear so tangible, so real, when all the other people who had passed her by in the astral plane were nothing but blurred representations of themselves? And why did he appear that way to her, of all people?

Having more questions than answers was as infuriating to Rosetta as it was perplexing, and that was what drove her to decide to look for him again. It was a decision made both in haste and with careful, meticulous thought, though such a possibility seemed like a strange sort of enigma. She consented, at least to some degree, that the decision was made for her simply because of the fact that she possessed what her mother often called, "a curious soul", but, simultaneously, every time she allowed her mind to immerse itself completely and totally in its wonders and uncertainties at the inexplicable event, even her most precociously wary thought processes brought her to the same conclusion: she wanted answers. No, she needed them, much in the way perfectionists yearned for flawless patterns and bookish people craved endings to their lives as poetic as the conclusions in the fiction they adored.

As she meandered toward the bed, she found herself lingering in the doorway, like a stain of purple lipstick caught on a white shirt, hesitation willing her to worry at her lower lip. Already, the matte, pinkish skin was worn, chapping, and serving as a tangible sign of the long-winded deciding-then-doubting-said-decision process she had been subjected to over the past two nights. Am I sure about this? Nervousness was buzzing inside her. Well, there's one thing I am sure of, she thought determinedly, conjuring images of the half-written paper in her backpack and the nail polish shelves at her shop that were currently bare in her mind. I don't have time to waste.

Repeating that thought in her mind over and over as if it were some sort of sacred chant, Rosetta ventured into the bedroom, taking cautious steps toward her bed. The walls were saturated with shadows, but she did not bother to turn on a lamp. Who needed light when their fondest dreams were realized only in front of an inky nighttime backdrop? Slowly, ever-so-methodically so as not to disturb the utter peace she felt at the moment, she crawled into bed. Such contentment was rare in the midst of her constant drive to do more, to improve, to stretch herself even thinner, but it was as elegant as the last flake of faux snow settling to the bottom of a snow globe. Needless to say, she cherished the luxury of it.

She collapsed against the mattress, letting her head fall back with a soft thud against the pillow. The weariness in her body dragged her down into the embrace of slumber, as heavy as rocks chained to the ankles of a swimmer in deep water. As her eyes closed and she let her mind slowly detach itself from her body, she wondered how she could find the singing stranger who had planted a seed of infatuation in her mind. Journeying to different places was easy in the astral plane—a thought or mental image would suffice as transport to just about anywhere. (Even the moon, she had discovered, was not off-limits.) It mimicked the abilities of a book; so long as Rosetta could conjure herself a believable perception, she could lose herself in a world that seemed to be ethereal, timeless, and just out of reach in the most addictive way. A person, however, was nothing like a place. To imagine reaching out to another living soul in the most literal sense seemed complex and improbable. Books, Rosetta had concluded long ago, often did not do their characters the same justice that they did their settings. Sometimes the people born of paper and ink seemed to be just that—paper, flat and shapeless, muddling through a story almost unwillingly, interacting with their circumstances in monotoous predictability. In reality people were wild like hurricanes, intricate like the patterns of waves and sea foam on the ocean, and unpredictable like stallions with their backs to the wind. What could Rosetta depend on to remain unchanged with the mysterious, captivating stranger? And how could she recall every detail of his face when she had only gazed upon it for a few meager seconds? She could not fabricate for herself a paper-flat version of a man she had met in an astral dimension.

As her soul clipped the final threads joining physical and mental states of being, she stood, leaving her body behind, and determinedly set her jaw. The thing that had led her to him before would have to be her best chance of finding him once more. She would think of his song. She would follow his voice.

Rosetta found that recalling the exact words he had sung was all but useless. The syllables meant next to nothing to her, and she could not latch onto them when they were so slick with confusion. It was when she focused on the sound of the voice that she felt herself fading, falling, floating to somewhere new. It felt almost as though the voice was calling for her again, just as she was reaching for it. Fueled by a zing of excitement, she focused, letting the dips, curves, and peaks of the man's serenade permeate her mind. She could almost see the patterns of the musical notes on the backs of her eyelids, her hands reached out to steady herself on the stable and yet ever-changing melody that was not even truly there, and her ears were so full of the beauty and the wonder that had poured from his mouth that she pondered, in a dull, muddled thought, whether her own voice was singing, too. If it were, she could not have hoped to hear it over the deafening roar of memory. One can never truly hear his or her own thoughts if the past overpowers and drowns them out; Rosetta figured that was why silence was the most poignant symptom of irreversible damage.

All at once, the familiar walls around her vanished, and she was surrounded by a plethora of things that she had never seen. In her copper eyes was the reflection of a sky with the first raw, scarlet traces of dawn bleeding onto it, evening-stained clouds painted with veins that were brimming with the promise of a new day, intoning vows of light and life and love. Stretching up to greet the morning light were vast, towering hills climbing up to embrace the waking sky and to hold back the raging brightness of the sun for just a moment longer. Where Rosetta stood, nestled in the heart of the hills that seemed to rise up in the distance on all sides, happened to be a paved bridge that overshadowed a peaceful, steady river that snaked through its hushed path over the ground with little more than a sigh to announce its presence, perhaps so as not to disturb the silent little town slowly coming to its senses in the east. The river was not even so selfish as to claim a sandy shore; trees and brush erupted from the soil mere inches from its banks and stretched on in countless numbers toward the horizon to form a vast forest colored green with a deep blue reflection in the water under the dimness of a night's final fleeting moments. The connectedness and equanimity of the place was astounding, and it left Rosetta wondering how conflict could exist when loveliness still reigned so supreme in places like this.

"You came." The unexpected murmur from her right caused her to jump. She turned and was, once again, looking directly into the face of the man she had been searching for, still clad in ratty jeans, but now also wrapped in a brown leather jacket. There he was, standing mere feet from her, and still nothing but a wandering soul; that much was given away by his slightly-translucent appearance. Her eyes locked onto his cognac-colored ones, which were framed by the russet tone of his skin. "I was beginning to think that I would never see you again." His voice was heavily accented, but he was most certainly speaking in an English dialect. His words were appallingly easygoing, though Rosetta was not sure what other tone she expected from him. The dramatic, grandeur-filled words of a fairy-tale prince? The dark, grumbling tone of a mysterious figure residing in the shadows? She had admittedly forgotten that, though astral projection seemed like a dream, he could easily be a very normal, perhaps even uninteresting, person. The idea was certainly probable. Still, Rosetta found herself scoffing at the thought. He was an enigma, a question with no answer. He was like the nameless melodies that play in a person's head sometimes—the tunes that come from nowhere, never make it onto paper or into song, but remain a quiet hum in daydreams for a while.

"You speak English?" It was arguably the dullest question she could have asked, but she did not come to grips with that fact until after the inquiry had tumbled past her lips.

"Sì," he answered, "but my native tongue is Italian. My mother was an English woman." His speaking voice was incredibly different from his musical tone, but no less pleasing to the ears. It was gentle, yet not lacking in assurance and stability. "Where have you been these past few days? I went searching, but you were nowhere, bella viaggiatore."

Part of Rosetta instinctively willed to tell him that she could not speak Italian, but the flirtatious and genuinely awed nature of the words he chose to say in his mother tongue drew a blush to her cheeks and an uncharacteristic shyness to her personality. She forced back the nervous urge to bite her nails, folding them in front of her to keep the habit at bay. "Sorry. It's been a rough week, and I wasn't sure I should look for you again."

"Oh, I see." His eyes softened, flooding with sympathy. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Rosetta's walls snapped shut like the binding of a thick, leather-bound book, and all tender shyness was gone in a flash as her expression hardened and her eyes narrowed. "No. But thank you for the offer." He had moved to step marginally closer to her but apparently caught on to the wariness clouding what had been curiosity mere seconds ago. He backed off, and Rosetta relaxed slightly. "So, what's your name?"

"I am Luka," he answered. "Luka Allegri." And you are...?"

"Rosetta Spin."

"Rosetta," Luka repeated. His face brightened, resembling the rays of sunlight that were beginning to peek out from behind the tall hills that cradled them. "That is a beautiful name. The name of a flower, yes? It suits you."

"Oh, you're thinking of 'Rose'," she replied, trying as hard as she could to be dismissive. The very second intrigue morphed to affection, alarm bells rang loudly in her head, but she could not stop herself from feeling just a bit flattered. She never thought of herself in poetic, lovely ways. Who perceived oneself that way, really? Besides which, she did not have the time to worry about whether she was beautiful or not. There were more important qualities to worry about, like being strong, being brave, and not crying in front of Rachel when she was not sure how they would make the shop's next rent payment. And there are certainly more important things to do than be wooed by this stranger. Rosetta wanted the thought to be harsh, but it came out halfhearted. Luka had unwittingly struck a soft spot in her resolve; subtle kindness made her feel weak because it made her feel like someone else would watch out for her, and that trust was something that she now knew was a woefully flawed fantasy. "I'm no flower."

"We can agree to disagree," he compromised. The corners of his lips turned upward. He had a nice smile; Rosetta could not help but notice how it started slowly and grew into a lovely depiction of happiness, a gentle crescendo of joy tugging at his features, and was just slightly crooked. "You must understand; I am convinced that you are very special. I have never met a dream-walker that could see me before. You are a dream-walker, yes?"

Biting her lip in the midst of a sudden wave of uncertainty, she turned from him and back toward the beautiful view that the hills and the river running in their valleys provided. "I am," she mumbled, "and I'm not--well, all right, maybe I'm special in some ways, but not in any that you're insinuating," she granted chastely. "I don't know why I can see you. I don't even know how I found you, really. I just heard your voice, and..."

"Oh...mio voce?" In an instant, Luka's posture shifted from confident to reserved. His shoulders hunched inward and his head ducked down slightly, and his bangs fell over his eyes like a theater curtain sweeping the stage into its secretive embrace. "I thought maybe you had not heard me singing."

"I didn't mean to intrude," Rosetta curled her arms over her torso in hopes that maybe it would help her hide how entrancing she found him and his voice alike. The bashfulness he was poorly concealing now was almost painfully endearing, though it brought about an odd dissonance with his somewhat intimidating form. "Besides, it was a lovely song. Did you write it for someone?"

"Perhaps," Luka said cryptically, but changed the subject before Rosetta could ask what he meant. "What do you think of Vogogna?"

"Is that where we are?" Rosetta asked, turning her eyes from the rising sun to the nearby town that was slowly starting to wake up. Lights were turning on, the distant hum of car engines were gradually increasing in frequency, and she was certain she had heard the cacophonous crow of a rooster the very second the sun had broken through the eclipse of the horizon. Luka nodded. "It's beautiful. Do you live here?"

"I do," he confirmed. "It is no cherry blossom grove, but it is a lovely little place."

In spite of herself, Rosetta smiled at the mention of the cherry blossoms. She wanted to visit that little nook of the world at least once more before the blooming season was over. "Where's your home?"

A few heavy seconds of silence ensued. Luka's expression twisted into one that was much more hesitant than before. He pressed a hand to the back of his neck when he responded. "Well, you see, I like to think of myself as living everywhere around here," he rambled. "All of my fondest memories are here, even my very earliest—I once lived on the bank of this river, and later I moved in with relatives in town, and now, well, I am here. I think the whole of Vogogna is my home, really." He made a swift second of eye contact with Rosetta before glancing away.

Questions prodded at the back of her mind, but she decided not to pry, at least for now. Luka almost certainly would not appreciate an interrogation from a strange American girl, whether he thought of her as a flower or not. Rosetta found herself drawing a blank in regards to what to say next. Her mind was drowning in lovely sights as she watched the dawn kiss the sky and bring it to life, and all she really wanted to do was stay forever, so long as they could discuss stars and monsters, love and tragedy, some things deep and some things petty. She could not do that, though, not with this stranger, not with anyone she knew. Those topics were so vulnerable, so heartfelt, so personal, and she could not convince words so intimate to make the leap of faith from her mind to her lips. And she certainly should not, could not, would not try to with a stranger from what was practically another world to her.

"I am glad," Luka pierced the silence in a gentle tone, "that you decided to come. Fate brought us together, you know. I was fearful that I might never understand why."

"Fate?" Rosetta had not meant to sound so jaded and disgusted, but her preconceptions about fate betrayed her. She had long-since given up on such a silly superstition, because if there was such a thing, it was probably set on subjecting her to cruel and unusual punishment for the rest of her days, just as it had done in the past. For whatever reason, writing it off as a childish falsity helped alleviate the worry that her world might be pitched into awful darkness once again. "No offense, but it was probably just dumb luck," though, if she was entirely honest, she did not believe that; the manner in which his voice had beckoned her was too inexplicable to be chance.

To his credit, though Luka seemed to believe that little lie, he did not reel back or look unraveled. "I suppose we will see," he said coolly. "I cannot help but think that meeting someone like you is a gift that happens once in a lifetime."

"Someone like me?" she repeated, ready to snap back into her body with an indignant fury if he made any sort of comment regarding her appearance. She had no use for shallow statements that pretended not to see the cracks and chips carved out by hardship in her skin.

"Sì," he confirmed. "How rare must it be to meet someone in a dream that is a mystery? It is said that you cannot see a new face in your sleep—all the citizens of your soul's adventures have passed you by on some occasion. But not us. I had never seen you before I saw you in a dream, and the same goes for you. We are newborn stars to one another, shining in the fabric that our souls are woven into, are we not?"

Rosetta stared at him, appalled, intrigued, and considerably disturbed at how moving the words were. They were just words, just sounds, just letters strung together, but they meant so much. She knew that language was just a fleeting illusion wherein people tried to express their inner complexity in simplistic consonants and vowels. But somehow he had reached beyond the smokescreen, broken the illusion, and done it. There was his soul, molded into words, as crystal-clear as the visible form standing beside her.

"I...suppose we are." The words did not do justice to what she was feeling, but how could they? What she felt could be described only in concepts. The awe of a toddler realizing that the sun is stationary even though it surges through the sky each day, the entrancement of a little girl falling in love with a book for the first time, the incredible notion of sonder and acute awareness of the infinite timelines snaking through the fabric of reality every day and building themselves a world, a galaxy, a universe like no other—only things such as those could pin down a description of the intense emotions jolting through her to the beat of her pulse. "I should go," she mumbled halfheartedly. She could not fall in love with those words. She could not fall in love with a stranger, even if he were not so strange anymore--even if she knew his name, had seen his hometown, and had watched the sun rise with him. The sunrise could not be special again. "I've got school tomorrow; I need my rest." When her determined eyes met his instantly-apologetic ones, Rosetta felt a twinge of guilt.

"Oh, I am very sorry. I did not mean to frighten you away. I have too much time on my hands to weave words together, I think, and still, they come out wrong," he forced an awkward laugh. "Can we meet again, Fiore? I still know so little about you, and I should hope that you might grant me the honor of learning more."

Rosetta paused, gazing at the silver cord that stretched between her and her physical form. She could snap back to her body at any given moment. She could have jolted away the very second that Luka had charmed her with his words and his voice and his gentle nature. Why didn't I? she mused, looking him up and down in equal parts distrust and desire to trust. Who did he think he was, to speak to her with saccharine, flouncy words and draw her into his gaze, which was the color of honey mixed with sunlight, with subtle gestures of affection? And why did she not mind all that much, when she really thought about it? Why was she so tempted to agree to meet him once more, when in a few meager minutes he had drawn too close for comfort to the walls around her heart?

On the other hand, why was she so sure that logic should compel her to refuse? Where did logic stand on this matter, really? Was her hesitance truly backed up by a genuine danger of being hurt, or was it an ugly concoction of the past come to life in her impulses? Surely Luka could not break her heart. After all, he was practically just a daydream, a figment, a friendly phantom from another land. He could not even touch her, so surely he could not ever break her.

"Okay," Rosetta agreed. "Where do you want to meet, and when?"

"Are you sure? I would hate to further upset you," Luka said. His hand twitched, almost as though it was his instinct to give her a reassuring touch on the arm or shoulder. Such contact was impossible in the astral plane. It was a place of observance, not interaction. Rosetta was halfway glad and halfway disappointed. The dissonance sat uncomfortably in her stomach.

"I'm sure," she answered soberly, despite the fact that she was not.

"Thank you," he dipped his head cordially. "I will do my best not to disappoint you."

"Where are we meeting?" Rosetta inquired once again.

Luka smiled, and a cheerful gleam blossomed in his eyes. "You found me once, sì? I believe you can do it again, don't you?"

Following a moment of hesitation, Rosetta nodded. It did not sound like an impossible task.

"Excellent. Then our meeting place will be a surprise! Meet me at this very time tomorrow, under your moon and under the first breaths of my sun. Does that sound good to you?"

Rosetta's eyes were fixed on the ground, and she was overwhelmed by the sensations of being both lost and found as she answered, "It does."

*****

The following morning, Rosetta woke with what felt like heavy weights chained to her eyelids. She had lost track of how many hours she had spent tossing and turning, making her bedsheets into a mess, as tangled and confused as her thoughts. It took an obscene amount of effort just to reach her hand out blindly and slam it down over the alarm clock's snooze button. Her heart felt as tired as her body when she flickered between the land of her dreams, all soft filters and unspoken beauty, and the real world, harsh and ugly. Where the land of souls fit in, she might never know. It was somewhere in the in-between, somewhere in the cracks of a fracturing dam, somewhere between swimming and drowning, and somewhere that was quickly blurring what Rosetta considered real and false.

When the alarm sounded again, Rosetta dragged herself upright and let her feet slam gracelessly onto the cool wooden floor as she rubbed the grogginess from her eyes. Her head ached, and her neck was sore—she must have slept on it wrong. She sighed as she tried to banish the memories of her dreams from her thoughts; they were so full of a cognac hue and Italian accents that they were almost too vivid to stomach.

Robotically and methodically, she fell into her morning routine. Get up, drink some water, get dressed, sling a bag over the shoulder, and be prepared to face the world when it is time to step out the door. As Rosetta pulled a maroon beanie over the half-tamed explosion of hair on her head, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and stared for a moment. She did not look any different after meeting Luka properly, but exteriors could be deceiving. She felt changed, like a house that had been recently sold and rearranged to shelter new lives, in a way that she was not sure she could get used to. The days of schoolgirl crushes were long since past, but Rosetta was not sure how else to describe the infatuated thoughts slowly overtaking her mind. After a moment or two more, she realized there was, perhaps, one minor change in her appearance—her eyes were just the slightest bit brighter with innocence. She almost cringed at the thought, remembering how it felt to have such shining, untainted innocence obliterated. That, she reminded herself, is never happening again. Innocence, she had learned long ago, was not just for little children. It was for anyone who wanted optimism, who searched for sunny skies instead of accepting that rain would always be coming sometime in the future, and who wanted to conquer the world with peace. Precious delusions, truly. But the unfortunate people with red welts on their faces from reality's stinging wake-up call were forced to adopt more idealism, more pessimism, more realism. Innocence and optimism may have driven innovation, but the low-lying realists were the ones walking through the trenches and making it possible, all the while peddling skepticism to one another. One force could not exist without the other, to be sure; it was just impossible not to wish that one was above the clouds again after they spat one out and cast them to the rock-solid ground below.

Rosetta slung her backpack over her arm and headed for the door, hoping that the brisk walk to her university in the morning air would help wake her up, or at least help her clear her head. To an extent, it did, passing all the familiar buildings and areas of the city bristling with nostalgia. Like the playground she had toddled off to with Rachel in tow nearly every night when they were finally old enough to trek through small portions of the world on their own, it gave her a sense of peace that was hard to come by as of late. Tragically, whenever she passed a possible iteration of her future, something cold and unforgiving gripped at her throat and forced her to tear her eyes away. She watched couples snuggled together on wooden benches with trepidation, uncertain about whether or not she would ever solidify herself a future with someone she could find happiness forever. When she saw a golden-haired teenager tuck a daisy behind the ear of the girl at his side and press a gentle kiss to each of her olive-toned cheeks in turn, a tiny spark of hope flickered in her chest. Conversely, she felt outright fear when she was pushed out of the way by sour, bitter-looking, middle-aged people that careened through the streets at breakneck speed with perpetual frustration and anger written over their faces. That was a future version of herself that Rosetta would never accept, because she knew it was a version of herself that she could never love, no matter how necessary or inevitable all the pent-up rage might have been.

"Whoa, you look like somebody stole your puppy!" Rosetta's head whirled toward the direction of the familiar voice, immediately seeing Lily pulled up to the curb beside her in the shiny red car that had cost her a near-fortune—she had literally been relying on a casual date a day to get a solid meal in, and had managed it for as long as she had needed to. Well, Rosetta had fed her once or twice, but that was a tradition of theirs, regardless of what the monetary situation was. "Can I interest you in a stylish ride to the glamorous place that is our prison?"

"College is not a prison," Rosetta argued lightheartedly. She was relieved to see Lily's familiar, sharp, bright, heavily made-up face. The emerald eyes peering out at her from behind thick, dark lashes and eyeliner that had been applied with a generous hand felt like a safe haven from the complicated storm that had brewed in her head overnight. Rain was building up behind Rosetta's eyelids, and she was beginning to worry that it might start to slip out. "We have to pay to get in, and most of the inmates would love a solitary little room if it meant they could take a nap."

"You're not wrong, I guess," Lily grinned, "but that makes it all the worse. Get in, Beanie."

"Beanie?" Rosetta parroted incredulously as she rounded the front of the vehicle and slid into the leather passenger's seat. The door slammed shut behind her with a satisfying thud.

"I thought it was cool! Isn't it cool to use nicknames when you're calling out to a friend from behind the wheel? I saw it in a movie once; it looked cool," she defended. Upon the sight of Rosetta's doubtful expression, she sighed in what appeared to be defeat. "Fine. Not cool. Now," she chirped, seeming eager to change the subject, "what is the matter with Rosie?"

The nickname sounded harsh to her ears now—too innocent, too pure for the thick-skinned survivor she had morphed into, and too much like who she wanted to be somewhere deep within her soul. When she had made the jump from naïveté to realism, she was not sure, but it was a leap she wished she could take back. Still, like the footprints leading up to a snow angel, it was impossible to perfectly replace them without a clean slate, and they were a constant reminder that life made its puppets take steps toward things they thought would be beautiful, only to find that the steps used to march toward loveliness marred the beauty all along.

"I'm fine. You?" Rosetta tried to brush it off.

Lily scoffed as she stepped on the gas pedal. The sleek car hummed to life and streaked onto the road. "That is grade-A crap, Rosetta," she said with a roll of her eyes. Then her expression softened. "Is it your mom? Is everything okay?"

Rosetta curled her arms around herself protectively and slouched into her seat, wanting to be as small as possible. "No, it's not that," she said. "I'm fine. It was hard, but it's hard every year, you know what I mean?" A twinge of guilt tugged at her heartstrings, and she added, "I shouldn't be complaining. It's so much harder for Rachel. She spends so much time with Dad, and she took him there just like every other year. I think it destroys her, seeing him so far away. She doesn't know how to care about someone without pouring herself completely into their existence."

"Few people do," Lily said wisely. "Either way, someone else's pain doesn't negate yours, Rosie."

Rosetta shifted awkwardly at that. It was not a mentality she had been able to grasp yet. Her heart seemed bound and determined to outright deny her own problems if someone else was worse-off.

"You'll never be happy if you live thinking that you can't deal with your own life before everyone else's is sorted. None of us ever really gets sorted. We're all just pretty messes," she sounded thoughtful as she spoke, "and, in my case, gorgeous messes with extra sequins."

"And, in my case..."

"Don't even say you're not pretty," Lily cut her off. "But sequins aren't your thing, are they? You're more of a stardust girl, aren't you?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Rosetta managed a genuine smile that felt like the first one in ages. It was refreshing, like a scalding-hot shower after a bone-chilling day in midwinter. She turned her face toward the window and stared at the dewdrops that had collected on the glass, presumably in the early, misty, bleak morning. It struck her that this morning was the second time she had experienced the particular dawn of that particular day. It had been bright and shining in Vogogna, brimming with all the colors of autumn and all the vibrancy of fireworks exploding across the sky. Over Albany it had been almost tearful in nature, decorating blades of grass with little gems of water and mimicking the subtle gracefulness of a bird swooping through the air, piercing the veil of silence with its sweet song. There was something strangely liberating and lovely about both iterations of the same day, and something strangely right about having seen them both.

"Trust me, I know," Lily jested. She turned onto the street of their university and headed for the parking lot. "Seriously, what's the deal? I'm not letting you out of my car until you tell me, so unless you want to miss the class that you're paying so much for..."

Rosetta threw her hands up into the air in defeat. "Ugh, all right, fine," she groaned. "Why do I let you give me rides? It always ends up in some sort of interrogation!"

Lily laughed, and her head fell back against the seat as she did so. "Because you love me. Now, spill! You seriously look like somebody stole Christmas! Or, even worse, the candy canes!" Rosetta gnawed indecisively on the nail of her left thumb, and Lily pushed the hand away from her lips with a good-natured groan of disapproval. Rosetta mumbled a thank you out of gratitude; Lily had been trying to help her break that habit for weeks now.

"Okay, well, here's the 'deal'," Rosetta said, though coughed might have been a little more accurate a term for the noises she made. The words were rough and stuck uncomfortably to the back of her throat and the roof of her mouth, somehow balking at the concept of being spoken. "It's, well...I can't believe I'm about to say this, but it's about a guy, Lily." She waited for some sort of gaping expression or teasing remark, but none came. Perhaps Lily could sense how distressed the situation was really making her. All her usual playful banter and confident snark were gone, leaving nothing but a quiet listener to sit before her. "Look, you know how I told you about that weird out-of-body experience I had a while ago?"

"Vaguely," Lily nodded. "That really freaked you out, didn't it? What does that have to do with anything?" she gestured impatiently for Rosetta to continue.

"I'm getting there," Rosetta said chidingly. "It did freak me out at first, yes. But then I got curious. You know how I am, Lily. If I get curious about something, I have to learn about it, and I learn by experience, and..." Realizing that Lily was far from amused with her rambling chatter, Rosetta collapsed against the cool leather seat beneath her and rubbed at her temples. "Sorry. What I'm trying to say is that I did it again."

"You what?"

"It wasn't a nightmare, Lily," Rosetta plunged into an explanation before all the confusion on the tip of Lily's tongue could spill out in the form of jumbled speech. "I researched it, and it's called astral projection. It means that your soul is literally apart from your body for a little while, and you can go see things. You can see the world, Lily."

Lily was so silent for a moment that it was almost painful. "Your soul separating from your body?" she repeated incredulously. "Rosie, I don't mean to be a downer, but that sounds kind of impossible. I mean, you, of all people, should know that all that paranormal stuff is a bunch of explainable scientific phenomena. You must be dreaming."

Rosetta rolled her eyes. "I didn't tell you so you could act like my..." The word 'mother' almost slipped out before Rosetta caught herself and rebalanced the cool, personable nature of her tongue. "...professor. I was sure that it had to be a dream at first, too. But there are so many accounts of it, I thought there might be some truth behind it, so I followed these steps I found online to induce it. It worked."

Lily looked like she wanted to continue arguing over whether the experience was true soul travel or simply a series of bright, shining dreams, but Rosetta was far from in the mood for skepticism, and Lily seemed to pick up on that.

"Nobody can see me when I'm traveling like that, Lil. Other souls usually look like a weird mist, and people in their bodies look normal. None of them can interact with me, as far as I can tell. Until..." she trailed off, remembering the pink of the cherry blossoms, the pink in her cheeks, and the pink reflecting in the water, forming a moving mosaic around Luka's reflection in the hue within which infatuation is hidden. "I met someone. Luka, that's his name."

"Luke?"

"No, it's Luka. It's Italian, I think," Rosetta said. "I saw him once, but then I had to come back to my body." Rosetta decided to omit the fact that it was technically Lily's fault that their initial introduction had been thwarted by her incessant knocking. The last thing Rosetta wanted was for her best friend to suspect that she was fabricating an elaborate story of dreams and uncertainty just to guilt-trip her for waking Rosetta up at such an inconvenient hour, because that notion could not have been farther from the truth. "Last night, I looked for him again, and I found him. We talked for a little while. He was really nice, he gave me space, and he asked to meet me again."

It appeared that, presumably for the sake of the conversation, Lily had suspended her disbelief at the notion of souls leaving bodies for a midnight roam over the spiritual surface of the world. "Okay, well, what'd you say?"

"That's just it." Rosetta was starting to bite her nails again. "I agreed! Why did I do that, Lily? I don't want a relationship! I barely know him, and I don't think I want to like him, but it's not that easy. You should hear him. He's like a living, breathing poem, or metaphor, or something pretentious like that. He's different from anyone I've ever met." She groaned. "Now, I can't decide what to do! Do I go meet this guy? Or do I just ignore him and pretend it never happened? I keep thinking about him, and I think this is what a crush feels like."

"Fascination? A desire to be close to him? You find yourself questioning whether you'd really choose chocolate over a dude because of him?" Rosetta nodded at every question. Lily pursed her lips, looking half-amused and half-concerned. "Oh, yeah, Honey, that sounds like a crush to me."

Rosetta frowned. "That's what I was afraid of. I can't be in a relationship, Lily!"

"Okay, well, skipping over all the parts where this sounds totally crazy and impossible, and how I literally would not believe anyone telling me all this if it weren't you," Lily said, "why not?"

Rosetta faltered, trying to put all the reasons buried deep behind her fears into words. "Well, for one thing, I hardly have the time, especially when it comes to when I'm supposed to be sleeping. What if my grades drop?" she questioned.

"If you're already dedicating time to this astral projection thing, it sounds like it won't cost much time from your schedule," Lily pointed out.

"Well, that's great, except there are plenty of other reasons why I shouldn't put myself at risk of a relationship. I'm too responsible; I'd be like a second mom if I dated someone who would leave in a heartbeat, anyway. Not to mention that I have so much baggage! I mean, how do you tell someone that you kept your family off the streets and you went hungry so they could eat after your Mom died and your Dad fell into some sort of consuming mental void?"

"You told me," Lily said, "even if it did take a while. It's just a matter of trust." Rosetta opened her mouth to argue, but nothing sensible came to mind. "Look, can we just call this what it is? You're scared of getting your heart broken again, especially since it could get broken in an entirely new and scary way. This isn't about responsibility or baggage, it's about you wanting to keep yourself totally safe forever."

"Well, so what if I do?" Rosetta snapped, more harshly than she had intended to. "It's not a bad thing to want to be—"

"I didn't say there was anything wrong with it," Lily interrupted, looking sorely displeased that Rosetta had spoken to her so unkindly.

"Sorry. I know you're trying to help, and I'm sorry," she apologized.

"It's chill," Lily forgave without a second thought. "The point is, it's not good if all that safety comes at the expense of every risk you ever have the chance to take. Forget the specific case of Luka, and put it into perspective. You're telling me that you don't ever want a relationship because it might break apart one day. Do you really think that's sustainable, in the long run? I mean, are you okay with being single your whole life?" The question was not cold or offensive, but genuine.

"I don't know. Maybe?" Rosetta shrugged. Hesitance was shredding her insides and leaving her anxious and worried. "But that opens up a whole new cesspool of problems!"

"Ew. Cesspool. Gross word." Lily said.

Rosetta rolled her eyes.

"Sorry, I'm listening."

"The thing is...assuming I dare to even think about a relationship, a point that I am nowhere near yet, for the record...what if I don't pick the right person?" When Lily did not speak, Rosetta presumed it was because she was waiting uncharacteristically patiently for an explanation. Rosetta could not deny that Lily's inexplicable tenderness with her was something that she appreciated immensely. There were few people Lily seemed to have any intention of sheltering and caring for, but Rosetta was one of them, and it usually felt like she was near the peak of Lily's priorities. It had taken her a few years, but she had slowly grown accustomed to feeling grateful for that instead of feeling guilty. "I mean, what if I pick someone when they seem right—maybe even perfect—and find out later that I made the wrong choice? What if I put years of my life into this and get bitterness out of it? What if it's all fake and I'm suddenly alone one day?"

Lily's eyes were full of compassion and understanding. "I get it," she consoled gently. "You're scared. It's natural to be scared." She paused, and patted Rosetta's hand comfortingly. "You've been through a lot, Rosie, and I think maybe you're just running from anything that might drag you back to the way you were after your mom...you know. And maybe, subconsciously, you're afraid of turning into your dad one day and letting loss take you over. But don't you remember that you're stronger than whatever grief might come your way?"

Rosetta remembered being forced to her knees in the graveyard by the spirits of the past as they grappled for her throat and squeezed tears from her eyes. She remembered having the resolve and control to keep her head up whenever someone else could see. She remembered being sad, being broken, being lost. She did not remember being strong.

"I'm sensing doubt," Lily said. "You are, Rosie. You are the strongest woman I know! Whatever you want to do, I'll support you, okay?" Rosetta nodded, feeling tears of gratitude building up behind her eyes. "If it were me, I guess I'd go meet this Luka dude. You don't have to be in love with him, you know. You can just be friends at first, or forever, if you'd feel safer that way. If he's the right kind of guy, he'll respect that."

Rosetta swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. She felt marginally better about the whole thing, a feat that only a best friend could manage. Lily had a gift for spinning chaos into golden advice, making the mess of Rosetta's life seem organized—even methodical—on rare occasion. Maybe trust could come in steps. Maybe love could be controlled. Maybe she could reign in the madness, the grandeur, the silky, quiescent affection of her dreams and her adventure and let it all feel just a bit more sensible.

Was that what she wanted? Of course it was. Or maybe not. Maybe she wanted something nonsensical and glorious, something fiery and explosive, something that blazed with the flames of fantasy, and something that tore through her like a shooting star through the canvas of the sky. Maybe that was what she wanted, no matter how much it would hurt. Where was she to draw the line between bruising with repression and bleeding with expression?

"Now, want to tell me some more about this astral what's-it-called on the way in? I'm still skeptical," Lily shrugged, "but maybe I can be convinced."

Funny, Rosetta thought, that the one thing in my life that was crazy a day ago now feels like the only thing I understand. Dreams could make people feel strange things, and reality could make them do unthinkable ones. Upon that realization, Rosetta became more than a bit fearful of what the middle ground was capable of.
Chapter Five

"Did you get any of that? Because I'm beyond confused," Lily grumbled with her arms crossed in front of her as they walked down the sidewalk to her sleek scarlet car. Another day of classes, stress, and frustration was behind them, and what would most certainly be a long night of homework waited ahead, consuming all premonitions of any sort of relaxation.

"Some of it, at least," Rosetta replied tiredly. Her head was spinning with their last course's new unit, and she was certain that she would explode at the next mention of velocity. "We can compare notes tomorrow at lunch."

"Deal," Lily agreed with a frown, "if I can even decipher mine. I was writing so fast, it mostly looks like scribbles," she admitted sheepishly.

"Oh, Ms. Spin! Ms. Spin?" Rosetta almost did not realize she was being called. She was so rarely called "Ms." that the title only jolted with recognition in her brain after significant delay. She turned to see Kylie Westenbrooke teetering over in her general direction. Kylie was nice enough, albeit slightly strange; she was too timid to call anyone by their first names, so she referred to them all like one would refer to people of importance and stature. She stood at a meager height that could not have measured up to much more than four feet, but she had a streak of clumsiness in her pleasantly-plump frame that rivaled a Jenga tower's. She was always swaying one way or another and often slipped to the ground seemingly without cause. Her eyes were silver, the same color as a cloud harboring a storm within itself, and peered behind glasses with thick frames. As Kylie approached Rosetta and Lily, Rosetta would have had to have been blind to miss the enormous wire cage that she was clutching, which squeaked and groaned with every step the redhead took. It had two bowls in the plastic bottom and a few stick-like accessories fastened to the walls, almost like perches. "Sorry to bother you. I didn't mean to bother you. Well, I mean, technically, I did intend to interrupt your conversation, but I didn't mean to be a burden. Do you know what I mean?"

Rosetta blinked and hoped that her utter shock and lack of comprehension did not show on her face. "Yeah, I think so," she said dryly.

"Cool! Great. Awesome," Kylie babbled, her speech matching the pace of a galloping stallion. "Look, you've got to take her, okay? My landlord is going to kill me if I don't get rid of her by today, so I really appreciate it. You're a great friend, thank you!" She shoved the massive cage into Rosetta's arms, making a point to talk over every entirely reasonable protest that Rosetta was trying to say. "She's getting better. It's just her wing. It's not broken, just needs time to heal. Then you can get rid of her! Well, release her, that is. Please don't throw her away. Okay, see you!" With that, she turned and very nearly sprinted away, leaving Rosetta and Lily in the dust, mouths agape and facial expressions nothing short of baffled.

"Um?" was the most Lily seemed to be able to articulate.

"Kylie, wait! What are you talking about?" Rosetta tried to run after the tiny girl, but quickly found that doing so was impossible on two counts: the fact that she was wearing shoes with wedged heels, and the fact that there was now a ramshackle, somewhat-rusty cage in her arms. "Where did she go? Do you know where she lives? And why in the world would she want me to look after a cage?" Rosetta turned to Lily, feeling rather indignant about the whole thing.

"Actually," Lily grimaced, "I think it's the thing in the cage you should be more worried about."

Rosetta gasped when she glanced down and caught a flash of movement. A bundle of bright yellow feathers fluttered weakly at the bottom of the cage between the two bowls (one of which, incidentally, was empty, and the other was filled nearly to the brim with seeds like those one would find in a bird feeder), apparently unable to move much more. "Oh my. A bird?" she screeched in disbelief. "Kylie just gave me a bird?" Two beady black eyes appeared as the tiny creature lifted its head and gave a sickly cheep of confirmation. "This is...I can't...why in the world would she decide to give me, of all people, a bird?"

"You're more approachable than most people. Well, most of the time," Lily offered helpfully. Rosetta shot her an unimpressed look. "Not helping?"

"It was a rhetorical question," Rosetta deadpanned. "Anyway, what am I supposed to do now? I could just leave it here, I guess...I mean, it's not really my responsibility..." she trailed off, knowing full-well that she could not really carry out such an act. "But that wouldn't be very safe, would it? And it still gets so chilly at night..." She turned her eyes to Lily imploringly. "You can't take it, can you?"

"Sorry, Beanie, no can do," her friend said apologetically. "My apartment complex had some serious security crackdowns the other day. They kicked out a whole bunch of people for sneaking in animals. I'm not usually one for following rules, but, like Kylie said, nobody wants to be out on the streets. Park benches and old food from dumpsters aren't exactly the best thing for my complexion." She was joking, but Rosetta understood. Money was so tight for most students that ending up without shelter was a genuine worry for a lot of people.

"Well, my apartment has rules about pets, too!" Rosetta said, opting not to complain that the nickname "Beanie" had stuck for some reason, even though she had discarded the hat and stuffed it into her bag shortly after they had arrived at school. "Well, it just advises against dogs and cats...but still! It's such an inconvenience, and..." The bright bird, which seemed to carry sunshine in its wingspan, trilled unhappily, as if it could tell that it might be left alone. Rosetta cringed, feeling guilt tug at her heartstrings. "All right. I guess I'll try to sneak it into my place. If I get fined, I'm charging Kylie," she grumbled tersely.

"Good plan," Lily nodded. Rosetta noticed her glancing from the rusty wire bars of the cage to her car, taking only a few seconds to deduce the meaning behind the subtle cringe in her expression. "Do you, um, want a ride home?" Rosetta thought Lily tried to smile when she offered, but the enthusiasm was unconvincing.

Rosetta rolled her eyes. "Relax, I'm not going to toss some ratty old cage in the back of your car," she said. Lily breathed an audible sigh of relief. "I truly do appreciate the great sacrifice it was for you to offer, though," she teased.

"Oh, I'm glad you see the horrendously great sacrifices I'm willing to make for this relationship," Lily dramatically pressed the back of her hand against her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, as if she were being overtaken by emotion. The sight was far beyond comical; it was as if Lily had become a mix of some Shakespearian character and a cartoon. After a few seconds more of ridiculous pandering and parading around Rosetta, she returned to her normal posture and giggled good-naturedly. "Really, though, are you sure? I mean, I'm cool with it as long as you help clean up whatever mess Featherbrain decides to make."

"That's okay," Rosetta declined. "I could use some time on my own. Walking helps me clear my head." Her thoughts seemed to twist upon the mere notion of meeting Luka tonight, bending into some twisted, mangled impression of coherency, torn straight down the middle between going and not going, daring and cowering, living for reality and living for a dream, and which one truly entailed living for herself, for that matter. "Thanks, though."

"No problem," Lily smiled. "Hey, give me a call if you need anything tonight, okay? If you end up ditching your dream dude—oh, shut up, I mean literally, the guy in your dreams or whatever it is," she explained when Rosetta's lips flew open to disagree, "I'm down for a movie marathon."

Rosetta smiled back and gave a slight nod of agreement. "I'll keep it in mind," she promised.

"Awesome! I'd better get going, or I'll be late for work. Take good care of Lil' McTweety down there!" She waved goodbye cheerfully, first to Rosetta, and then to Rosetta's new resident chirper. The bird tweeted in response. Rosetta could not help but wonder what it must be like, to be so magical that it is possible to morph tragedy into hope, to give advice that can calm the most restless of hearts, and somehow to charm birds into bidding adieu.

"I'm not calling it that," Rosetta sassed. "See you, Lily."

"Later!" She tucked her vibrant black-and-red bangs behind an ear and headed for her car.

Soon, Rosetta was standing by herself on the sidewalk that framed the intimidating college campus she trudged through nearly every day--well, by herself with the exception of the small bird cowering in the corner of its disproportionately-sized container. "What do you think, little bird?" she asked, mostly just to keep the silence from feeling eerie.

It was always strange to go from school to home, because the whole world felt like it shifted into another state of being, another mood, perhaps. The transition, though, was less than pleasant. All too often, peace and quiet was too quiet, at least for a while. Rosetta set her legs into motion and began the journey home.

"Should I meet him? Lily seems to think I should, since I could always just...you know...not fall in love with him," she said. Her voice took on a strange, Lily-like quality when she barked out the phrase. "I'm just not sure it's that simple. I mean, the time I spend in the astral plane used to feel so free. I didn't have to go anywhere in particular, and I didn't have to worry about anything. That's what set it apart from real life, you know?" Of course, the bird did not know anything of the sort, but it had clamped its beak shut in an apparent effort, at least to try and listen, so Rosetta continued. As she walked, she chose as many quiet streets as she could, mostly because she did not want people to see her talking to herself. "I thought I could keep my dreams...bottled up, I guess. All on a shelf in my head. But now it feels like they're spilling out, and I can't tell what's sensible anymore. I want to do the right thing, make the best choice, statistically speaking, and I used to think that that choice was simple."

The slight zephyr of wind seemed almost confused, so she elaborated. "I thought the right choice was always the safe one, emotionally, monetarily, you name it. I think..." The bird flapped its weak wings restlessly. "I think I made a mistake. I thought I could love my dreams—and my astral projections—with my whole heart and still tolerate reality in the way I did when I was half-alive. I'm not so sure statistics will always pave the path to happiness for me anymore."

It was the unglamorous truth: dreams could rarely be loved as well as not pursued. Perhaps that was the source of the dissatisfaction on the faces of the middle-aged messes going through the motions of structured life that they had come to loathe; giving up on all fantasy is the quickest remedy to accepting an average reality. And, perhaps even more tragically, they chose to give up when they had just reached the cusp of realizing their aspirations, directly after gaining the knowledge that such dreams simply are not possible without facts and figures and realism. The fangs of the real world were always poised and ready to strike, eager to inject venom into any dream-turned-reality and taint it with difficulty, strife, and even boredom in some cases. But a dream was no less a dream just because it had been realized. The only time a dream ceased to be a dream was when some poor soul gave up on it under the threat of failure's whip. Dreams were frightening. Dreams were uncertain. Dreams were as far from easy to pursue as one edge of the universe was from the other. But dreams were precious.

"I think," Rosetta said, setting her jaw and straightening her shoulders. "I'm going to see Luka."

*****

Sneaking a gargantuan bird cage into an apartment complex that was in tatters in more areas than it was stable proved to be much easier than Rosetta had anticipated. Since there was no one seated at the front desk, all she had had to do was walk in and avoid allowing her weary arms to drop the heavy load and alert whoever might have been working in the back room with broken monitors that were supposed to be for security camera surveillance.

Once Rosetta made it to her room on the third floor, she fumbled for the key and shoved it eagerly into the lock. She practically fell into her entryway when the door opened, and the cage squeaked in annoyance when she lowered it to the ground. Sighing with relief, she peeled off the soft, fuzzy sweater that had been hanging over her shoulders and let it hang on one of the hooks on the door. Her backpack followed suit, landing with a clunk. The whole house seemed to be saturated in gray, and Rosetta took immense pleasure in lighting it up, flicking the switches on the wall and letting the lightbulbs affixed to the ceiling pour faux sunshine into the living room. She let her fingers brush against the colorful bindings of the stories lodged in her bookcase as she set the cage on top of it. She had been hoping to reread a few of her favorite chapters for the umpteenth time, to become entranced with a fantasy world of enchanted arrows, forbidden caves, and clear-cut lines between good and evil, but upon glancing at the time, she knew it was most likely too late tonight.

She pondered her options for a moment. She had a few hours to slog through before her meeting with Luka—hours that felt just as much like a prison wall as they did a shield. She could always ignore the responsibilities that were sitting like boulders in her backpack, and then she would most certainly have time to lose herself in the colorful worlds of monsters and heroes that always seemed so much more tantalizing than anything her life had to offer.

A thought struck her and, for a few seconds, she forgot how to breathe. What if stories are just like dreams? she wondered, a raw streak of fascination gripping her. She had lost herself in thoughts of realized dreams through the entire walk home, and her mind was swimming in musings that felt a bit like magic disguised as prose. What if heroes were real, but in being so, did not appear to be heroes because they failed to meet the precedents that fiction imposed? What if they came to save, but only did so in small ways instead of on vast battlefields, drenched in the blood of their enemies? What if, instead, they merely braved the rain that consumed the lives of the sad, the lost, and the lonely, just to lead the poor souls to a place where they could feel the warmth of the sun kiss their cheeks again?

Rosetta's mind wandered to memories of Rachel's hand tightly clutching hers as Rosetta led her from the darkness and brokenness of their home to somewhere beautiful. It was always a different place—the park, the top floor of some building in the heart of the city, a secluded path in the forest. Rachel had always looked so thankful in those precious moments, and there had been so much light in her eyes. Rosetta fleetingly allowed herself to consider that she might have been a hero, if only to the one person who truly needed her to be.

An impatient trill from the birdcage ripped Rosetta's mind from such tinsel-woven thoughts. She was no hero. A survivor, perhaps. But a hero? Doing what little she could as a child to keep herself and her family afloat had been more a necessity than a grandiose gesture of heroism. "What do you want, birdie?" she asked sweetly, slipping her slender fingers between the bars of the cage to soothingly stroke the finch's head. The little bird certainly brightened up the room; that much, Rosetta could not deny. She wondered how the poor thing had gotten injured and hoped with all her night that it was not the work of some sadistic person with an urge to destroy beautiful things to advance some sort of sick power complex. People who were willing to mar innocence in order to fuel their unnecessary ego ranked very low in her mind when it came to respect.

The bird pulled itself to its feet with some difficulty and hopped over to the empty bowl, giving it a dissatisfied peck. "Thirsty?" Rosetta asked. She slid the door of the cage open and pulled the bone-dry bowl from inside, taking care to keep the bird well out of the way for fear that she might try to hitch a ride to the outside. Rosetta was growing quite fond of the tiny thing, but she was hardly in a mood to clean bird droppings from one of her favorite rugs. She filled the bowl and returned it, smiling as the bird pulled itself up to the edge and dipped its beak into the water.

"There you go," she crooned. "I guess I should get something to eat, too, huh?" she admitted. She headed for the kitchen and whipped up a bowl of soup that she ate with the always-lovely complement of homework to make her head whirl with confusion. She puzzled over the problems and equations long after the bowl was empty and soon lost track of time. The next time she reminded herself to look at the clock, she realized that only twenty minutes stood between her and Luka, and they were quickly exiting the nebulous stuff that constituted as the present in a single-file fashion. Rosetta took a deep breath and stood up, pushing her hair behind her ears.

"It's time."

*****

Finding Luka was much easier this time than it previously had been. She could concentrate her mind on the cadence of his voice, the lyrical rhythm of his words, even the outline of his form silhouetted by her limited perception and inability to do anything but see and hear him. It was like tracing the outline of a shadow on the wall in order to see it forever, even when the sun goes down and the lights go off permanently.

When the darkness faded and she could see again, Rosetta realized that she had been transported to a winter wonderland. If it had been tangible to her, she might have groaned about how springtime had just barely managed to rid her of snow, but to see it without having to worry about it soaking her clothes or giving her frostbite gave it a new, unprecedented, romantically magical quality. Snowflakes drifted lazily down through the air; they would have come to rest in her hair and eyelashes if she had really been standing there. It was strange to stand in the snow and leave no footprints, to hear the whistle of winter wind but fail to feel the familiar chill that it typically accommodated. A blanket of snow hugged the trees and the earth, weighing down the thick evergreen branches that surrounded her on all sides. The soft, golden hue of sunset glimmered through what little patches of the horizon she could make out through the web of tree branches and snow.

Directly ahead of her, just a few meters from where she was standing, a gazebo that was the same rich, cedar shade as the tree trunks around her, rose up from the ground. Icicles hung precariously from its roof, twinkling like resplendent Christmas lights. It was the only sign of human involvement to be seen, but it was not invasive like city skylines and highways that sliced through the country side. It was much gentler, as if it had been made with the earth in mind, as if by some strange magic, it had been there forever, and no one could say whether it was built onto the land or if the land grew around it.

And, of course, there was Luka. He stood at the center of the gazebo with a smile on his lips and excitement in his eyes. Rosetta was appropriately reminded of a child on Christmas morning, full of vigor and belief and sugary dreams. "Ciao, Fiore, I am so glad you came," he greeted her with a wave of his hand. She tentatively waved back, trying to keep the intense euphoria the place instigated within her contained. "You have a lovely smile," he complimented as she slowly approached him. "Do you like the place I chose for us?"

"Thanks," she brushed it off like she would have swept snowflakes from a winter coat, but, just like snowflakes, the remnants of flattery clung to the fabric of her emotions. "I do, actually. It's lovely, Luka," As she stood before him, his eyes locked onto hers, drawing her in. She allowed herself to get lost in the shining, gem-like irises until she remembered Lily's advice. Just don't fall in love with him, she quoted. You don't have to. You don't want to. Right?

Rosetta decided, after a moment of contemplation, that it would be best not to think about her response to that question too deeply at that particular moment. Her heart was trapped between reason and rhythm, sense and star stuff. It was oscillating between keeping what she had totally safe and yearning to stretch out a hand and grapple for something brighter, something shinier, something entirely fanciful and luxurious.

"There is no need to thank an honest messenger," Luka bowed dramatically, "but I am grateful for your appreciation." He looked elated when Rosetta laughed. "Ah, has my wit won you over? That is wonderful news!"

"Don't get any ideas," Rosetta said, crossing her arms over her chest and angling herself slightly away from him. In the midst of her jaded posture, she did not make an effort to come across as exponentially uninviting. She decided to let a smile linger on her lips for a few seconds longer. "This isn't a date or anything, you know. I just thought...we might make good friends," she finished. In her opinion, her indifference was convincing.

"You are correct on both counts, Fiore," Luka avowed. "This is not technically a dream. This place is just as real as the rooms in which our bodies lie—just as silent, just as undisturbed, just as memorialized to the souls that live and visit here in the flesh. It is a great mystery how we can stand on the cusp of livelihood and eternal slumber and yet speak. A mystery, certainly, but it is no dream. And I will be the first to agree that we would make a lovely pair of..." His words slowed, like a ritardando at the end of a musical composition, before he at last finished with, "friends. If such labels are necessary."

Rosetta raised a brow. "What do you mean?" she asked, filled with intrigue.

"Labels impose such unnecessary limits upon everything," he elaborated, and proceeded to gesture to the wintry paradise that hugged their gazebo tightly on all sides. "Is this land fake, or is it real? Perhaps both? I suppose it is real, but if the scenery is what we consider real, then what of us? Are we the illusione?"

Rosetta opened her mouth, prepared to rebuke the silliness of the notion that she might be less real than the space around her instead of the other way around, but closed it when she realized that what he was saying made a point that stole the wind from her chest and left her wondering why she had not considered it before.

"Friends? Lovers? Why trouble ourselves with such petty titles?" he questioned, circling around her and letting his philosophies sink into her mind. "I much prefer the term 'together'."

"But, without labels, where is order?" Rosetta countered. She had taken a few semesters of philosophy; Luka was not the only one who could debate the efficacy of societal normalcies. "People are always trying to figure themselves out, and labels are helpful." Rosetta herself was guilty of running around in search of adjectives to stuff into her pockets and save for when people asked about her. Sensible. Capable. Determined. Driven. But what if those words aren't what I am, she wondered, and they're just what I choose to be? There was a massive crevasse between innate intelligence and good grades that sprouted from all-nighters and energy drinks, to be sure. What if she was just grasping at labels that she thought should suit her? What if Luka was right, and it was all meaningless? Or, alternatively, did it give more meaning to the person she was to discard such specific ideals?

"I would argue that it is impossible to figure oneself out entirely," Luka rebutted. "We run around, always changing, always fickle, and claim that we can keep squeezing ourselves into the same little categories year after year. Labels are just our way of coping with a world that, in actuality, has none. They are a construct to save us the discomfort—or perhaps the beauty, but you must judge that for yourself—of letting everyone be exactly who they are."

Rosetta nodded thoughtfully. "That's a good point," she allowed.

Luka smiled. "Grazie," he thanked. "Yours was well-stated, too."

"Thanks."

"Now," Luka declared, walking to the waist-high wooden fence at the edge of the gazebo and gesturing for her to follow, presumably so that they could watch the last traces of brightness slip away in rivulets through the trees and let a nighttime slumber take over the icy forest, "as much as I would enjoy debating the flaws of our society and human nature with you, there are more important things to discuss."

A childlike smile graced her lips when Rosetta caught a flash of movement: a pure white rabbit was darting across the landscape at breakneck speed and paused for a moment to lock eyes with the pair of them. Its irises glittered like black marbles against the soft, pale backdrop. "Like what?" Rosetta whispered, hoping to leave the animal undisturbed. Sadly, even the soft noise startled the rabbit, and it quickly hopped out of sight.

"Come voi, Fiore!" he exclaimed. Rosetta gave him an exasperated glance; surely he had not forgotten that she did not understand more than the slightest bit of Italian. And he chuckled. "Like you," he repeated in her own language.

"Me?" Rosetta scoffed.

"Sì," he confirmed. "Like I told you when we last met, it is my intention to get to know you, if you'll allow me. And please, do not pass along the question by telling me that you are no one special. I reject the notion that someone who both looks like a dream and travels through the space between dreams and consciousness can be anything but exceptional." Somehow, Luka always managed to wrap his compliments in glittering words and present them like diamond rings, or some other pretty, luxuriously expensive thing. "So, would you tell me something about yourself?"

"You just expressed your resentment for labels," Rosetta pointed out. "How am I supposed to—"

"Indeed, Fiore, do not use labels," he agreed, interrupting her. "Tell me of the real you. What you do, where you go, what life means to you."

"The real me," Rosetta repeated. Luka looked over at her and nodded. Their faces were close right now; if they had been there in the flesh, their noses might have brushed together. Rosetta marveled for an instant at how they were breathing, but not the air that they could see. No steam floated up when they spoke, no visible remnants of the feverish intensity of life in frozen, chilly air. They were taking their breaths countless miles away, constant miles apart, and yet, there they stood, leaning over the edge of a gazebo, speaking to one another. "The real me...goes to college to study engineering and runs her own business on the weekends," she began slowly. At first, thinking of things to say was difficult, but soon, they were tumbling out, a plethora of one-sentence stories desiring to sum herself up, one after another. "The real me drinks coffee at night because it calms me down, for one reason or another. The real me loves fantasy novels because they make stories and people and life so simple, so easy to understand. There's the good, there's the bad, and both have motives to match the themes of light and darkness." Life was not the same, she had found. Life was full of gray, and full of blank time between the epic moments of grandiose emotions and worthy deeds that fiction chose to focus on. "The real me likes the little cafe on the corner of the street way more than the pub my best friend always tries to take me out to, because it's quieter. The real me is...normal. I don't know what else you want me to say."

"Rosetta," Luka assured, "the only normal people in this world are those who outright choose to be so. To me, it sounds like you have chosen otherwise. You sound wonderful." He paused. Then he amended the statement. "You are wonderful."

"What makes you say that?" Rosetta tried to laugh the words off, tried to make them not matter, tried with every fiber of her being to take Luka's compliments in the same brusque way that Lily took them from the many eager souls lining up in front of the door of her heart, but she just could not. Maybe it was because they were speaking in the realm of souls and everything was inevitably a poem or a song or a metaphor, something cryptic and enticing. Rosetta was not sure.

"Because," Luka answered, "I am looking at your soul, and it is beautiful."

A gentle silence settled around them, much like the snowflakes around them slowly fell to earth, all photogenically blanketed together in soft hills and slight depressions, following the surface of the earth. "Why do you think we can see each other?" Rosetta asked after what might have been a minute or a lifetime. She did not know and did not care to. For all it mattered, the world could have been passing the two of them by in those seconds. She did not want to leave. She did not want to run. Her desire was to stay close to him forever and let his saccharine, satiny words sound like church bells in the crisp, clean air. Every time he spoke, Rosetta was reminded of a small, rectangular music box that she had listened to as a child. His words came in a melodious tempo, and each time they faded out, she wanted to wind the box up again and again and again until it was midnight, and the music was lost in the songs of the stars, intermingled to the point where they could never again be separated.

"I do not know," he said, "and for your sake, I will not say destiny." Rosetta recognized the expression on his face as playful, and if she had been able, she might have nudged him in the arm in halfhearted chastisement. "I think that we might just be drawn to one another. That could explain how we met in the first place, could it not?"

Rosetta thought back to that day—the flower petals, the lake that mirrored the dainty perfection of the land around it, Luka's voice, and how compelled she had been to chase after it, like a butterfly flitting upon some tiny breath of wind that no one else could feel. "I suppose it could," she said doubtfully.

"I am glad of it, whatever the reason may be," Luka mentioned. "It would be much more...what is it you say in English? Awkward?...to compliment you as a mist."

She laughed. "So, you've seen them, too?"

Luka nodded.

"Ooh, I saw one the other day with a bright blue streak down the middle. I'm thinking of getting my particles done that way soon," she joked, giving her hair a preppy flip.

Luka laughed, too. "The flower has a sense of humor! This is good. Happiness suits your face much better than mistrust."

"Hey, you can hardly blame me for last time; I barely knew you," she defended, nowhere close to apologizing for being concerned for her own well-being, especially when it came to emotions, things that were so frail and brittle that they bent and snapped even at the smallest pressure sometimes. "I didn't know what to think. I was just being cautious. I still don't know how I feel about some knight in shining armor chasing after me in an attempt to 'break down my walls'." It was partially a joke, but, admittedly, there was a warning tone accompanying her words.

"Oh, rightfully so," Luka was quick to encourage. "That came out wrong. I did not mean it as an attack on you, Fiore. I simply mean...well...you have a lovely smile. It shines, but not harshly, like the sun burning golden marks onto the surface of the sea. It is gentle, come la luce della luna." He stopped for a moment, seeming to consider whether or not to go on, and then said, "Please do not misunderstand my intentions. I have no interest in breaking anything that is yours, and I would never be so invasive to shatter your sense of caution. I merely hope to prove that you do not need to use such caution with me."

"Oh, okay," Rosetta gave him an understanding smile that was more genuine than any she had granted him before. "Thank you. Your voice is that way, too. It's brilliant, but in a subtle way, like pastel colors."

Just like the last time she had paid him a compliment, Luka seemed to curl into himself and appear to be inherently bashful. "G-Grazie, il mio amica," he stammered. Rosetta noted that he seemed to revert into flustered Italian when he was embarrassed. It was quite endearing.

"I mean it," she affirmed. "Where did you learn to sing?"

Luka dipped his head and smiled to himself. "Learn? That is a difficult question to answer, you must understand. Singing...it has always been a part of my life. My very earliest memories are of my mother and father singing together at my bedside. Whenever I was sick, they would sing for as long as it took to get me to sleep—hymns, lullabies, love songs, they knew them all." The bittersweet look of nostalgia was written all over his face. Rosetta recognized it because she had seen it so many times in the mirror on tougher days. "They taught me what I know. Every breath that I take and release as a song...I attribute it to them."

"That's beautiful," Rosetta whispered. She could tell by the look in his eyes—like he was staring at fractured faces in a shattered mirror—that the people who had given him his voice, his life, and his upbringing were no longer with him. She understood. The symbols of loss and solemn remembrance littered both of their bodies, both of their souls, like matching tattoos.

"It is a way of living, I suppose."

Rosetta knew without asking that he did not just mean a lifestyle filled with light and song in order to banish the darkness. He meant that sometimes songs and joy and music were just as black and unappealing as the rest of the world, but out of what might have been habit, addiction, or pure, raw instinct, he still clung to them.

"E tu, Fiore? Have your parents taught you something that has withstood the test of time?"

The quick, brisk change in conversation was a strategy that Rosetta knew all too well. As open and easygoing as Luka seemed on the surface, she could see the jaded, wary boy lying in wait underneath. All at once, as much as Rosetta was still not fully convinced that she should fork her trust into Luka's safekeeping, she found herself longing to be someone that he could rely on. He probably already has someone, she thought in retribution. Someone to rely on...to count on...

Why was she unsure about that? Why were her thoughts so unconvincing? Why did she suddenly notice the slight slouch in his shoulders, as if he were bearing some invisible burden at all times? Why could she suddenly see past the veil of happiness that everyone wore to cover their skin and sadness, and why was she suddenly choking up at the forlorn, helpless glimmer of hope in his eyes and the devastation written on him like tales of tragedy etched onto tombstones?

Rosetta became painfully aware that she was staring, or perhaps prying was a better word, into his eyes, searching him for answers that, deep down, she was afraid she might already know. And to make matters worse, he was staring back, searching her in the same way. Feeling simultaneously enlightened and as though she had just been inspected without her knowledge, Rosetta glanced away, tugging at a spring-like strand of her hair. She had never looked at anyone like that before, and no one had ever looked at her like that before. It was as if she had seen all of him, and he had seen all of her, and yet both of them were still standing there. He was not running from the turmoil and turbulence of her in distress. She was not bolting from his vulnerabilities and scars. They had seen each other, looked one another right into the eyes, examined one another's souls, and the darker parts hidden deep inside were no longer undiscovered.

"So," she tried to go on casually, "I told you about the real me. Would you return the favor?

"You want to know about me?" Luka laughed, disbelief coloring his words. When Rosetta nodded and locked eyes with him once again, he smiled shyly and ran a hand through his locks of thick brown hair. "Well, all right. I grew up in a house on the riverbank—the shore of the river we last spoke over, actually," he obliged. "I love the color yellow, because my mother used to tell me that all the yellow flowers grew from drops of sunlight that fell to earth."

"That sounds like something my mother would say," Rosetta put in as the corners of her mouth turned upward.

"My father would pick them and tuck them behind her ears, because his nickname for her was Girasole. It means 'sunflower'," he reminisced fondly. "There truly is not much to say of myself, if I am entirely honest. The intricacies of my life are rather dull. I eat, I sleep, I sing, and I play my harp. How compelling, eh?"

"It is!" Rosetta exclaimed. "The harp is such a beautiful instrument. I was going to play it once; my mother was going to teach me, but then..." She sharply sucked in a breath as if she had been punched in the stomach. "She never did," she finished uncomfortably, shuffling uneasily on her feet.

Luka nodded empathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that, Fiore," he offered. His words were a meager consolation for how much grief still thrived in Rosetta's heart at the mere mention of the past, but she did appreciate that it was all he could give, and he offered his kindness as freely as the sky offered a view of the stars. "If you'd like to talk about it sometime, I would be happy to listen. If not...perhaps I could attempt to amend that, and teach you to play one day?"

"I'd like that," Rosetta responded after a moment of contemplation.

"As would I."

A comfortable silence fell over them, and it grew so quiet that Rosetta wondered if the world had stopped and hushed just to stare at the pair of them, because what an odd and unexpected pair they were. Rosetta theorized that being with someone in the astral plane granted a whole new field of perception, because she could sense so much that it was almost overwhelming. Luka stood tall before her, cloaked by the regal skill of music and yet still veiled with insecurities and weariness. There were parts of him, and parts of his past, that Rosetta knew she was not quite invited to see yet, but she could sense their presence hanging heavily in the air, pressing just between his shoulder blades. Perhaps they were the things that made it so hard to take a breath between sobs. She wondered if he could sense hers, too—hesitance, wariness, weariness, all three of them lined with determination as heavy as iron—chained to her ankles, weighing her down, and tethering her to cynicism. She had once taken comfort in the safety they ensured, but now she wondered if comfortable tolerance was safety at all, or if it was simply pleasant imprisonment disguised by its stability.

"I should go," Rosetta said after a moment. She was suddenly acutely aware of how dark the landscape had become; the whitewashed world was quickly being painted with rich dark blues and blacks, and the moon was hanging low in the sky. The light from it made every illuminated snowflake glisten like a tiny diamond. "I need to get a little sleep, at least. College is even more of a struggle if you're sleep deprived."

"Ah, of course," Luka agreed. "I forgot that, for you, this is the middle of the night. For me, it is dawn. And yet, for the both of us, it is now just a few moments after dusk, when the world is yawning and the sun has just retired for the day. Strange, is it not?"

"It is," Rosetta granted, "but there's something beautiful about it."

"I could not agree more," Luka grinned. "Thank you for coming, Fiore. It has been lovely to spend this morning—evening or whatever it might be—with you."

"Likewise," she smiled, though she was not sure why. Maybe it was because she truly meant it, or because this Italian man, whose words tasted of honeysuckle and morning dew and whose voice was decorating those few fleeting moments of her lifetime with a cadence as gentle as a piano ballad, had grown on her in the small amount of time she had spent with him. It felt as though their timelines had intersected and become tightly interlocked in the short span they had dedicated to philosophy and flushed smiles and tender words brimming with beauty together, so much so they might never unravel again. So much so she did not want to leave and let those lines that measured the pain, the relief, the joy, the tears of their lives part ways. So much so she suspected she would never be the same.

If it were at all possible to look at someone's soul and not care for that person immensely, Rosetta had failed to do so. She stared at his humanity, the very spirit of his existence, and it was beautiful. Broken, sad, imperfect, and yet still beautiful, lovely, pleasant, and, on no account, entirely ruined. And he thought the same of hers. All at once, Rosetta knew what the right kind of love was: it was the kind that wrought as much insight as it did butterflies, the kind that let you love every piece of someone instead of just the pretty, unblemished bits, the kind that surged past physical thrills and security of heart because it was undeniable that your emotions could be shattered at any moment, but choosing to trust that the beloved would not allow such a thing to happen, the kind that saw past the appearance of skin and style of hair and choice of clothing and instead searched for the underlying complexity, uniqueness, and soulful nature that was exponentially more intimate, the kind that was a little bit scary but urged its victims to be brave, the kind that sprung from shared suffering, compassion, and a mutual understanding that, while the sensuous luxuries of love were much more of a risk than a need, that the leap of faith needed to chase such bedazzled notions should be taken together. Most vindictively of all, it was the kind she felt in that more than anything else for Luka Allegri. More than uncertainty and more than jaded caution. It was the sensation of being free to fly wherever the wind might take her, but still knowing there would always be someplace, someone, to welcome her home when the storms grew too chaotic and loneliness outperformed the intoxicating sense of adventure.

The right kind of love was not unexpected, unbridled, or explosive. It dawned in the minds of lovers slowly, like the crescendo of a beautiful aubade. The right kind of love was a choice, and a choice that needed to be made over and over until it was not just a habit, but as familiar as breathing, sleeping, and nostalgia. It was the opportunity to see someone time and time again, to see the flaws and the perfections, the shortcomings and the successes, the crookedness of one's smile and the quiet, unassuming brilliance of the eyes, and to choose to put such things aside, to look at that person's very essence and to think it beautiful.

"Luka," Rosetta said, speaking quickly in case the words changed their minds and decided that they were too shy to slip past her lips, "I'd like to see you tomorrow."

Luka's expression of joy was as bright and vast as a supernova. Without the slightest bit of hesitance, he agreed. Then he was gone, and Rosetta was standing where his footprints would have, could have, should have been and wondering if the ground would miss having them there. Maybe not. It was difficult to miss something that was never really there. Difficult, but by no means impossible.
Chapter Six

The next time Luka and Rosetta met, it was over the untamed waters of Niagara Falls. The time after that it was an obscure lake in the northern peninsula of Michigan. So many places now had Luka's face, voice, and aura seared over them in Rosetta's memories that it was difficult to catalogue them all. Each time they met, it seemed as though they stood just a little closer to one another, delved just a little deeper into each other's thoughts, and became a bit more confident in asking if and when they would meet again. The answer to that inquiry, incidentally, was always yes, and the time agreed upon was almost always the very next night. Rosetta's calendar insisted that only two months had passed, but her heart felt years wiser.

She had learned that Luka sometimes gathered with his friends to sing Italian folk songs around a bonfire. That there was a room in his house with large, crystal-clear windows; it smelled like sunshine, and it was where he had grown up playing as a child. Now it was his preferred spot for reading romance novels. He did not care if they were cheesy, he said, so long as they were hopeful. He craved the simplistic style of love, all boiled down to an algorithm, a several-step process, a waltz that anyone could dance.

"Thanks so much for coming in today," Rachel said. The words pulled Rosetta back to the present, even though her mind was always pulling toward the past or the future. Relief was apparent in her tone, and Rosetta understood why: their little shop was buzzing with activity, and the noise level reverberating off the walls that usually felt so quiet was a dull roar, despite the fact that it was almost closing time. "I didn't mean to bother you on a school night, I was just getting so overwhelmed!"

"Don't worry about it," Rosetta replied briskly, inconspicuously changing the sign on the door from "We're Open!" to "Sorry...we're closed." and giving Rachel an understanding pat on the arm. "I'm glad you called. I funded this place, after all, and I should do just as much for it as you do," she reasoned.

Rachel tutted and furrowed her brow in disagreement. "I don't think of it like that," she said. "You work hard at school, and I'm grateful to have a job like this. Excuse me, everyone!" She raised her voice to attract the attention of all the customers milling around and turning various cosmetic products over in their palms. "We'll be closing shortly, so please bring your purchases up to the front and we'll get you checked out."

With both check-out desks open, getting the plethora of customers out the door proved to be a relatively simple task. Once the last few elderly women shuffled out the door, shopping bags clutched tightly between their age-weathered fingers, Rosetta sighed in satisfaction. "Go, Team Double R," she joked, raising her palm and inviting a high-five. Rachel obliged, and their palms smacked together. Both of them giggled a bit at the silliness of it all.

"What's gotten into you lately?" Rachel..." That's debatable, Rosetta's thoughts interjected. Really, I always managed to show you the best of life and pretend I thought it made everything better, too. Admittedly, though, once in a while, when the wind was right and adrenaline of childhood burned like magma in Rosetta's blood, Rachel had managed to make her truly believe in sunshine and miracles again. Those moments were very dear to her, and she committed them all to long-term memory. "...but lately...oh, I don't know, you just seem so energetic!" She paused for a moment, seeming to be pondering whether or not to add something else, and finally said, "It's nice. It suits you."

Rosetta smiled. Rachel spoke of cheer as if it were a color that could be worn, or a fabric that could be sewn into a gown, or a gemstone that could be hung from a pierced ear. It was a lovely thought in a shallow, noncommittal way.

"I'm not sure, exactly," Rosetta admitted. She was not so unseasoned in life that she believed her happiness was completely wrapped up in Luka now, and that he was to be credited entirely for the shift in her demeanor, but it was undeniable that he had shown her a side of life she had been too apprehensive to gaze at for too long before. He had helped her put faith in uncertain things and made her wonder if anything was really certain at all. "I guess I'm just learning to let myself enjoy the nicer things in life once in a while. Even if they aren't always what makes the most sense at the time, but could end up making more sense than anything in the end."

"Whatever that means, I'm happy for you," Rachel laughed, pulling Rosetta into a hug. Rosetta pulled the smaller woman against her and twirled a few strands of Rachel's pin-straight hair around her pointer finger, just as she had done when they were both children. A warmth that was pure and felt like kindness mixed with forgotten memories filled Rosetta. She closed her eyes and smiled, letting the freckles that had dotted their cheeks in younger, brighter years and the scent of sun-kissed afternoons fill her mind. All was perfect until Rosetta felt the slightest tremor quake through her younger sister and heard a small sniffle. "You were always the best big sister. I hope you'll keep taking care of yourself as well as you took care of me," she whispered. The strain of trying not to cry made her voice much tighter than usual.

Pride swelled in Rosetta's chest, and she found it very difficult to swallow the lump in her throat that had formed upon hearing those words. "I'll do my best," she promised. Her tone was hushed, like the voices of eager elementary students swapping secrets in the places that only they knew about.

"Thank you," Rachel said, pulling away and looking up to meet Rosetta's eyes. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Rachel."

*****

It was Rosetta's turn to choose a meeting spot that night. Luka and she had decided to take turns when it came to choosing where to visit one another. It grew easier to find each other every time they met, because there was more to focus on, more little things to cling to that would lead them exactly where they wanted to go. When searching for Luka, Rosetta had taken to thinking of his voice and the way it sounded when he called her Fiore, the way his fingers twitched when he spoke about his harp as if they were always itching to pluck it and make it sing, and the way she imagined her reflection would look in his eyes (the sight was no more than a daydream—souls had no reflections). She had decided on the way home that she hardly cared whether it was a cliché or not, and thus, she was now standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower, staring down at the famous City of Lights, simultaneously feeling the inexplicable fear of falling and the insatiable urge to fly. Illumination from streetlights and vehicles on the ground streamed through the busiest streets like tongues of fire along a path of kindling. If Rosetta turned her head at just the right angle, the pinpricks of light at the edge of the horizon seemed to mix with the canvas of the starry sky that was fading as dewy promises of daytime ushered it away.

"A bold choice," Luka's familiar voice caused Rosetta to turn, pointing her toes inward and smile to herself, "but a beautiful one." He tucked his hands into the pockets of his ratty jeans.

"I'm glad you think so, and I'm glad to see you," she said, motioning beside herself. Luka took the hint and approached her, stopping when he was beside her, feet just barely on the edge of the highest peak of the world-renowned structure. "I thought maybe it was too cheesy, but..."

"Not at all," Luka assured. "This is a very special view."

The landscape was indeed a special one; it symbolized human accomplishment in a very pronounced way, framed by bustling, paved roads and tall buildings and people with their eyes turned upwards, always looking to the sky, always looking to the next achievement. The tower on which they had taken up residence proved that easily enough. Maybe there was no particular purpose for the thing other than to rake up tourist dollars, but it stood for things that were more precious than the metals used to forge it. It was a stately salute to progress, a flag stretched heavenward with intuition and ingenuity engraved into it. But Luka was not looking into the distance to admire the city. His eyes were focused on Rosetta.

"How was your day?" he continued, more casually than Rosetta could have mustered.

"It was good," Rosetta answered truthfully. "Rachel asked me to help at the salon, but it wasn't a bother. I'm glad she did. She said I seem happier lately."

"Oh?" Luka articulated, sounding somewhat intrigued. "Well, you have become much more personable to me since our meeting in Vogogna," he teased, "but I had supposed that that was simply because we are no longer strangers. Still, I am glad to hear that you have found joy."

Rosetta shrugged. "Maybe joy was there all along," she challenged, giving him a meaningful look, "and I just needed someone to help me trust it."

"You mistrust happiness?"

"No!" was her immediate response, but, after a moment of consideration, she backpedaled a bit. "Sometimes. I don't know. Before, I felt that, if I let myself enjoy the little pleasures in life, I would be putting myself at risk, because then I was running the risk of having whatever I liked—whatever I loved—taken from me," Rosetta explained. "I think I've realized that sometimes there are risks worth taking, so long as I don't have to take them alone."

"I could not have said it better myself," Luka praised.

Rosetta was not sure how to put her gratitude into words, so she let an appreciative smile shared between the two of them suffice. She had grown quite fond of Luka's smile over the past few weeks, the way that it always started out small, perhaps even reserved, but quickly blossomed into something broader and brighter, as if his happiness were spilling over any sort of resolve he had, and he could not hold it in or lessen its impact on his expression. The corners of his eyes would crinkle, his eyebrows would rise upward as if he were surprised at every little lovely thing in the world, and a dimple would form in his left cheek.

"And how is the bird in your care? What did you name her, again?" Luka inquired lightheartedly.

"She's doing well, I think," Rosetta reported. "I named her Ray." Rosetta had chosen the name because the bird's coloration was like a ray of sunlight, and the mathematical interpretation of a ray went in only one direction, just as Ray's condition was only going to improve. It was a hallmark of positivity, and the small creature seemed to approve of the name, trilling sweetly whenever she heard it spoken. "Anyway," Rosetta hoped to change the subject, "how was your day, Luka?"

The authenticity of his smile faded in an instant, leaving a clearly-feigned half-grin. It was like watching the flame of a candle be snuffed out and then being expected to pretend that the smoky scent that followed its extinguishment was just as bright. "Oh, it was fine, Fiore," he said.

Rosetta frowned. She recognized the look on his face. It matched the one he wore when speaking of nights out with friends, or what his home was like, or why he could not exchange e-mail addresses with her. At first she had excused it as awkwardness or simple disgruntlement for talking about himself. But now she knew him well enough to know that was not the case. "Are you lying?" she asked, a twinge of what felt like anger but sounded like fear making her voice quiver.

Luka opened his mouth, initially about to deny it, but then closed it. Rosetta's stomach sank. "I am sorry," he said, chewing on his lower lip. His brows were furrowed with discomfort. "I did not want you to worry."

"Worry about what?" she demanded. Luka took a halting step back. His eyes searched hers, and they were full of apologies.

"Me," he admitted. Shame was contorting his form now; he seemed to want to be as small as possible, and his gaze fell from being locked with hers to the ground, yanked downward like a cinderblock to the bottom of the ocean. "My house is being destroyed," he admitted at last.

Rosetta was taken aback. "What? The one that your father built? The one that you live in now?"

"Sì, my father built it." For a moment, his gaze shifted to the edge of the platform that they were standing on, and he looked sorely tempted to jump, even though doing so would solve nothing. His silver cord would just act as a lifeline and yank him back to his body.

Rosetta felt sorrow springing up inside of her. She was not sure she wanted to hear what was coming next.

"But it is not mine, Rosetta. I have not lived there for a long time." He paused. Rosetta felt sick to her stomach. "I have not lived anywhere for a long time. I am sorry, Fiore. I always meant to tell you, but I was afraid."

"Afraid!" Rosetta scoffed back. She hated being lied to more than almost anything else. "Of what?"

"Afraid that you would not care for me if you knew that I was a poor boy with nothing to my name except the shirt on my back!"

The words came like an eruption from within him, and the eerie silence that followed them, like the somber sound of death after a roaring battle, chilled Rosetta to the core.

"As a soul, I am no poorer than the next fellow, it is true." He went on when Rosetta did not speak (she was too stunned to). "But as a man? Rosetta, I am nothing."

"That's not true," she argued meekly.

"It is," he insisted. "I have nothing. When disease took my parents, I was left with very little, and I could not afford to pay the bills that were piling up. Every day when I rose, I would wake up hungry and try to scrape together something, anything, just to keep that forsaken house I loved so much." Luka took a shaky breath. "It was all for naught in the end. I had to sell the land before I starved to death. Now I wake up, still hungry, and sore from the feeling of the ground pressing into my back."

Homeless. Nothing. Hungry. The words churned through Rosetta's head in a muddled whirlpool of confusion and heartache. "Luka..." His cognac eyes were red and shining with tears of disgrace.

"I did not want you to think of me as pathetic. As a nobody," he spat, sounding disgusted with himself. "But that is what I am. I have no shelter, no friends, and nobody in Vogogna will give me work."

A strangled sound of pain made it halfway up Rosetta's throat before she swallowed it in a rueful attempt to stomach what she was hearing. "Luka," she said his name again. She said it like it was precious, like it was priceless, like it had matchless worth, because it was and it did. "When I met you, I didn't want you to think of me as scared or weak or indecisive, so I lied to you. I pretended that I was angry, that I couldn't care less about whether I saw you again or not, because I didn't know what else to do. But the next time we met—in the snow, under the gazebo—I realized that I didn't have to worry anymore. I didn't want to worry anymore. I sensed something that day, sensed that I wasn't the only one hiding pieces of myself that I thought were unlovable. And I realized that people are all just piles of sand trying to hold themselves together while the wind tries to blow them apart." Luka dared to look up, to look at her face again. "I hate that you lied to me," she said, ensuring that he had no illusions regarding where she stood on the issue of falsity, "But don't think I hate you. I don't blame you for trying to hold onto something that you thought was special, even if you did it the wrong way."

"I wanted to tell you," Luka choked out. "I just did not want to lose..."

Rosetta wondered what word he had intended to say before he trailed off. You? Us? Whatever it is that we feel for each other? She was not in the mood to ask aloud.

"There's something else," he said, almost numbly. When Rosetta's eyes widened with concern, he quickly babbled, "Nothing bad, I swear it! Just something I would like to tell you. But...the time is not right."

Rosetta was dumbfounded. "What does that mean?"

"You need time to think, Fiore," Luka said woefully. The nickname sounded almost like a question, as if he were asking if she would still allow him to call her the name he had used when she had been under the impression that he was someone else. "I can see it in your eyes. I do not want to pressure you into anything, and I do not want you to do anything out of pity for me. You are a person of reason, Rosetta, and I would be a monster to rob you of that."

Her first instinct was to fight him on the matter, to order that he tell her whatever was lingering in his mind then and there, but she resisted. He had a point. It was a lot to take in. Maybe too much. "Okay," she said with feigned compliance. "I'll think about it, then. If that's what you want."

"Thank you," he bowed his head cordially. "Meet me in two days. I will be waiting for you."

"All right," Rosetta said stiffly. She wished her heart was not so soft toward him. Every word he said was pained and gave away that he was trying very hard not to burst with cries for forgiveness, and each syllable that left his mouth felt like a punch to the gut. "See you then."

"Farewell, Fiore," Luka waved weakly to send her off.

Rosetta felt the telltale tug of the silver cord that was perpetually tied to her body waiting for her back home and regretfully allowed it to snatch her away.

Her eyes flew open, and she tried to take comfort in the familiarity of the room around her—the haphazardness of nail polish bottles and makeup containers scattered over the tables and dressers that were pressed up against the wall, the tiny cactus in a pot that she had bought because it was the only plant she trusted herself to care for adequately, even the unusual musty scent that was not only an annoyance, but also was what she associated with home. No comfort came, however. Her hands were shaking, her heart was twisting within her chest, and her lungs were heaving under the weight of what she had just learned.

Where was Luka now? Had he returned to his body, too? Rosetta cringed at the thought. She imagined his once-lifeless form curled unglamorously on the ground, slowly twitching to life and trying to banish the chill of nighttime with uncontrollable shivers. Or, perhaps even worse, was he still standing at the peak of the Eiffel Tower, staring out at nothing in particular atop the mountain of metal, contemptuously debating whether he should even return to the accursed form that hungered, thirsted, shivered, and scarred, when he could search for beauty as an untouchable being? Was he waiting for her to return, hoping and praying that he would have an excuse not to go back for a few more seconds?

It occurred to her that she probably should have wondered much earlier why Luka dabbled in the art of astral projection in the first place. She guessed that she had just assumed it was for the thrill of adventure, the exhilarating feeling of escape from a life of bland normalcy, the challenge of experiencing something new every time and, for once, just letting go. But that was no more than a mere projection of her own reasoning stamped onto her perception of Luka. If he traveled for escape, it was for a different reason. It was not to run from emptiness or dissatisfaction or entrapment in a life that had grown too stale. It was to run from the harsh reality that there was no one to turn to, no home to conceal the tears life would inevitably squeeze from his eyes, nothing but himself, his harp, and his songs.

His reasons did not invalidate hers, nor did his struggles, but it was jarring to realize that even seeing someone soul-to-soul was not enough for her to claim to know that person. Part of her wanted to hate him, to mistrust him forever so she could abandon him and refuse to return in two days. She did not know why, but she guessed that hate was easier than love. But love would not let itself be lost to hate, because she understood. His motives matched an unofficial creed she had once followed. To hide suffering was a strange way of saying "I love you" sometimes. A broken, sad, misguided way, but a way nonetheless.

Rosetta's throat tightened as she swiped the moisture that was collecting in the corners of her eyes. It's not fair! her mind cried. I should have just left things where they were, let my dreams be nothing more than figments of my imagination. I should not have fallen in love with him! I should have just...

Her thoughts went silent as she remembered the song she had heard him singing when she had first laid eyes on him. She remembered how enthralled she had been and how much she had wanted to hear more. And that was when she realized she was doomed from the start. Doomed by his shaggy, mane-like hair, doomed by the exquisite nature of his eyes, doomed by the dimple in his cheek, doomed by the nature of his jawline that mimicked cut glass, doomed by falling in love with the way he smiled and the words he spoke and his very soul. She had always felt vulnerable around him. Perhaps that was why she had been so apprehensive at the start, but he had never taken advantage of it. Because he had fallen for her the same way. Some people claimed they were unable to tell if someone was in love with them, but Rosetta had no such trouble. She could see it in the way he looked at her, the tone he used with her, the way he only flushed at her compliments, and, most of all, the way he called her Fiore. She knew by now that it meant "flower," just as Luka's father had called his dearest one a sunflower. She knew by the way he said it with such hesitance after he had poured out all the shameful parts of himself, as if asking permission to love her still, because he granted her every right to detest his love and to detest him for feeling it. But she did not.

The right love did not turn its face away at the sight of suffering and sorrow. It did not abandon when old sores began to bleed. The right love was there in the face of agony and difficulty and utter disgrace. The right love would not let Luka hate himself for what was indeed a mistake, but a forgivable one. Rosetta sighed and turned onto her side, settling in for a sleepless night as thoughts of Luka and love and what on earth she could say to make him believe that he was not worthless, not to her and not to the world, not even to the universe in all its vastness and complexity. What could she say?

She knew what to say.

It was now simply a matter of whether or not she could bring herself to say it, and whether the words that were lingering like potential kisses in his lips matched the ones that now lined her heart like lace lining a pretty dress collar.

Every time Rosetta closed her eyes, she saw only Luka's face. Every time the wind, veiled in the night like a dark hero concealed by a cape, died down, she heard nothing but his voice. Even her thoughts seemed to have matched tempo with his, pirouetting with beauty and finesse as they spun tales of romance and days that were full of sunshine and happiness—the kind one relishes in the moment, though ultimately takes it for granted until the sun dips below the horizon like a stone sinking to the depths of the sea, leaving in its wake a numbing sort of emptiness. She could not call those things daydreams, since they were spawned from the warm depths of sleep deprivation and a shadowy room, but they were dreams of some kind. Hidden dreams, perhaps. The sort that were meant to be kept quiet for reasons nobody knew. Everybody had one, and everybody had some primal, inexplicable urge to shout it from the rooftops and tell the whole world, but everybody was afraid that someone else would hear them, judge them, even fear them. Secrets were a fickle thing. They begged to be told, even in small ways—dropped hints, meaningful looks, passive aggressive sighs—but were always quick to remind that they were capable of spreading like an infection if the itch to let them out was ever scratched.

Why are we all so jaded? she wondered briefly. She was not guiltless of being cautious to a fault, to be sure, and because of that, the answer was abundantly clear to her. The world makes secrets of us all.

She wondered if it really had to be that way, and if there was a way to stop the vicious cycle of being wounded, letting the wound fester and remain entirely personal forever, and then, in an ironic twist, wounding someone else. It was the unremarkable, unglamorous, grotesque circle of pain that went around and around and around. Perhaps it stopped briefly for some, but then, someone was hurt. Someone got broken. Someone died. And thus, the cycle jolted to life once more like a patchwork monster made of bad decisions and tears that no one dared to shed.

What if I choose something different? she mused. Maybe granting trust doesn't just mean giving up boundaries and borders. Maybe it means something more. Maybe it means choosing love when indifference seems safer. Maybe it means choosing Luka. She did not mean just choosing to love him in spite of his flaws. She meant choosing to care about him, despite the fact that the hundreds of miles between them would usually dictate that they should have no more quintessence to one another than pebbles. She meant choosing to wear her heart on her sleeve, so long as he promised to do the same with his, so that their pulses could synchronize and they could face the idea of those heartbeats ceasing one day together.

Eventually, Rosetta's alarm clock sounded, announcing in a series robotic screams that it was time to rise up and face the day with a smile. Her hand landed on the snooze button with a loud smack, and she decided to declare this day a sick day. Normally, she would have tried to power through the day on a few energy drinks, but, after all, she had promised Rachel that she would try to take care of herself. Rosetta texted Lily and asked if she could copy Lily's notes from the classes they attended together. Lily said yes, and she also asked if everything was okay. Rosetta told her it was. Lily asked if Rosetta was sure and told her she would personally buy all the chocolate bars from a local grocery store and bring them if she was not. Rosetta suspected Lily was wondering if she had become heartsick. To ease her worries, Rosetta promised that everything was okay, and that she just had not slept well the night before. "I should be better in a couple days," she had typed. She truly believed it, too.

The day passed, and Rosetta was drawn into a wonder-filled sense of immersion in the world around her. When she passed by furniture, she always felt the need to stretch a hand out and touch it, to feel its texture against her skin, to remind herself that this was what most would call reality. Lately, it was difficult for her to distinguish what felt more real to her: tangible things or intangible ones. She figured it really should be no contest, but that was not the case. Luka had shifted in her mind, somehow; all of the memories she had of him felt just a little more solid, as if they were a breath away from being just as palpable as the ones she had lived in the light, when she had her body and her responsibilities to shut her fantasies away.

It was when Rosetta was curled up in the living room under a warm, fleece, blue blanket that she noticed a flutter of wings from the bird cage, much stronger than ever before. Without really taking much time to consider what might be the cause, Rosetta cast off the blanket, letting it fall in a crumpled heap to the ground, and quickly walked over the living room floor, which felt uncomfortably cool on her bare feet. When she peered into the cage, Ray gave a chipper twit in salutation. The little golden bird was perched atop the highest faux-branch in her cage, and it abruptly dawned on Rosetta that she must have flown up there.

"Aww, are you feeling better?" she cooed, slipping one of her slender fingers between the bars of the cage for the bird to nuzzle up against. The tiny thing had never really been afraid of her, and now it trusted her without a second thought, always eager to chirp and trill at her whenever she looked particularly down. If Rosetta was honest, she had grown quite fond of Ray and was half-disappointed to see that she seemed to have healed. The bird hopped down and pecked at the doorway of the wire cage that served as its captivity, undoubtedly fixated on getting out and flying free once again. Rosetta could not blame her in the slightest. With the ability to fly, it was hard to believe that Ray would ever bother to land and to concern herself with the coarse roughness of the earth. The sky was so much sleeker, brighter, and softer, full of clouds and endless potential. Rosetta wondered if Ray dreamed of the sky, and, for a brief moment, was reminded of herself.

Just a few months ago Rosetta never would have allowed herself to prance around the astral plane, sharing every night with a stranger whom she wanted, with every fiber of her being, not to be a stranger anymore. The idea of the open sky would have frightened her as much as it would have enticed her with so many options, and so many wonderful things to see and do. How could she decide? And how could she be certain she would not get a broken wing, just like Ray had, and crash unceremoniously to some nameless, horrible level of depravity, in danger of never flying again? Surely a narrow field of options was better, because it was safer.

Now things were different. Now she had had a taste of the sky—the sweetness of the stratosphere burning in her lungs, boiling in her blood, making her crave the sorts of things she once would have deemed dangerous, unnecessary, and even foolish. Now she saw those things for what they really were—options. They were choices, nothing more and nothing less, but refusing to make them was perhaps more cowardly than outright refusing. Now, she could feel the perpetual hesitance in her personality fading, making way for a self-assuredness with which she was unfamiliar but still adored. Now she had danced in the clouds, had stood in the snow where footprints that should have been but never were, had strolled through trees with budding cherry blossoms as grandiose as cathedral decorations, had fallen for the soul of a man she had never touched and still knew exponentially better than most people would ever know anyone else.

Now she was different.

She still wanted the security of her life, to be sure. She wanted her engineering degree, her little shop that was so uncomfortably squashed into the strip mall, the sister and friend who made her confident enough to drag herself out of bed each day. But now she was willing to try other things, too. She was willing to let fireworks explode overhead instead of covering her ears at the loud noises they caused, willing to let the flames of excitement roar upward within her more than the meager candle of happiness she had dully maintained for so many years, willing to let love scorch her heart with exhilaration, willing to let herself love the sunrise again, because she had watched it one fateful morning with someone just as vibrant and colorful as the morning mosaic at her side.

"Just one more day, all right?" Rosetta decided kindly, pulling her finger from within the cage and smiling down at Ray. "I just want to make sure you're ready. Then I won't stop you. Tomorrow, you can fly again." And, tomorrow night, I'll fly, too. Fearlessly. For the first time in my life, I'm going to soar, she thought.

*****

Rosetta was taken by surprise that night when a sharp knock sounded from her front door. Upon opening it, she saw Lily standing there, clad in a neon-pink hoodie, light gray sweatpants, and fuzzy socks that were designed to look like panda paws—the same socks she had worn to every one of their sleepovers during their angst-filled, brutal teenage years, Rosetta noted. An enormous comforter was tucked under one of her arms, and three oversized pillows were being clutched precariously by the other. Standing beside her was a girl Rosetta did not recognize, but had a hip, punk-like hairstyle that was similar to Lily's, featuring flashes of bright colors in the midst of hair that was dyed black but gave itself away with soft blonde roots. She was even a few inches shorter than Lily and was built with a delicate, petite frame.

"Thanks for the ride, Britt," Lily said cheerfully. "I'd wave g'bye, but my hands are kind of..."

The unfamiliar girl laughed; she sounded a little like a chipmunk when she did, but not in an obnoxious way. "Don't sweat it," she replied. "Bye, Lily!" Then she swaggered away with a sashay of her hips and a flip of her hair.

Lily locked eyes with Rosetta. "Heya, stranger! You would not believe the night I've had," she said with a roll of her eyes that was both exasperated and amused. "Parties, food, dancing, more food..."

"You did all that, wearing that?" Rosetta did not mean to sound condescending; it was just so uncharacteristic of Lily to spend a night on the town in anything less than one of the chicest outfits in her closet. It was only until after the words came out that she noticed just how done-up Lily's face was: her eyelids had been adorned with the colors of smoky-gray eyeshadow, winged eyeliner, and a thick coat of mascara. Her cheeks were colored pink, and her lips were a brilliant magenta that nearly put the exuberant shade of her hoodie to shame.

"I brought a change of clothes," Lily explained with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You're one to talk about dressing down, anyway," she added.

Rosetta glanced bashfully down at the satiny pajamas that she had now worn for nearly thirty-six hours. "I wasn't expecting you!" was all she could think to say. The smile Lily adorned, brighter than a newborn sun appearing in a planet's sky for the first time, did not so much as falter.

"That much is obvious, Sweetie," Lily clicked her tongue disapprovingly. Rosetta knew she was not being judgmental, and Rosetta did not feel as if she were being judged. Instead, she felt as if she had been caught red-handed in the act of a lazy day, standing there in unwashed clothes with a belly full of the ice cream she had given into just a few moments earlier. "You said you were okay."

Rosetta was not sure if Lily felt betrayed or not. She hoped it was 'or not.' "I am," Rosetta promised. "It was just a really long night, Lily, I promise that's all." She stepped out of the doorway so Lily could enter, and the second she did so, Lily hustled to the living room and dumped all the comfort objects in her arms onto the couch.

"A long night, huh?" Lily snarked, obviously unconvinced. "It's Luka, isn't it?" She proceeded to arrange the blanket and pillows into a cozy-looking nest of warmth. Lily took a seat on one of the cushions and patted the one beside her to invite Rosetta over.

"I guess," Rosetta admitted, curling up beside her friend and pulling the heavy blanket Lily had provided over them both. She pulled her long legs up and hugged them against her chest, taking care to make sure the blanket did not lose its grip around her shoulder. "It's really complicated. I don't really want to talk about it."

"That's cool," Lily said, a playful glimmer flickering in her eye, "because I don't really want to, either." Lily laughed at Rosetta's surprised expression. Rosetta could not be blamed for being taken off-guard; Lily almost always prodded her to admit her thoughts and feelings, because she claimed it was better to let things out than keep them cooped up inside her chest. In fact, Rosetta had just begun to agree and was almost ready to treat the innards of her emotions like the little gold finch chirping sleepily in the corner of the room, setting them free when they wanted to be and not forcing them to stay caged and weigh her down. "Look, I'm a firm believer in talking being cathartic, and you know I'd be totally cool with letting you vent, but here's the thing: I'm the worst person to come to advice for, because we see romance totally differently. You see commitment. I see a short, intense fling and a good story for a future dinner party. You know what I mean? For you, everything is going somewhere, and everything means something really important. For me, romance is a series of isolated circumstances—mistakes, maybe—where life is hot and fierce and fiery, but it doesn't really touch the rest of what I do. For you, it's all interconnected. Your life is beautiful that way, you know? Everything is connected to everything, in one obscure way or another. It's this epic patchwork of hurt and healing, and romance got sewn in right in the middle of everything else when Luka came along."

Rosetta nodded to show that she was following Lily's point. "That makes sense, I guess," she said. Luka had undoubtedly become an aspect of her life that felt just as important as the rest, despite the fact that she had never touched him, had never held him, had been sewing him into her life with nothing but a silver cord that she could not even see when she was awake.

"Of course it does, I'm the one that said it!" Lily teased, giving Rosetta a jab to the side. "Anyway, the point is, I can't tell you what the right choice is. Nobody can decide that but you, because I think you're the only one that can make any sense of life at all, not to mention your own relationship."

Rosetta's lips quirked downward. She did not feel like she had made much sense out of life. She had just attempted to come to terms with the fact that life was nonsensical and nebulous, surging far past the simplicity that the word "timeline" would suggest. There was no straight path, there were no easy answers, there was chaos. Maddening chaos. Agonizing chaos. And, somewhere among the pain, stardust, and the legends emblazoned on the breastplates of those who lived through the worst life had to offer, there was beautiful chaos. But the look of respect on Lily's face urged her to avoid contradicting what Lily clearly believed.

"Here's what I can tell you, though," Lily continued. "Whether I believe in this astral whatnot or I don't, I do believe that what you feel is real, okay? And no matter what happens, I promise I'm going to support you through it. You could choose to ditch this guy tomorrow, and I'll be here with a playlist of empowering songs and buckets of ice cream to get him out of your head. Or, you can stay with him forever, and, if he's everything you think he is, I humbly accept the incredible position as your maid of honor."

"Lily!" Rosetta scoffed chidingly, rolling her eyes. "No one is talking about marriage yet. Besides, Rachel might want to fight you for that spot." Rosetta laughed a bit at the thought of Rachel and Lily heatedly debating who gets to stand beside her when she is adorned with a veil, meant to symbolize her resolve, over her face, flowers, meant to symbolize the fragility and beauty of a tender life, in her hands, and the light of the stars, meant to symbolize all the things she wants to say but does not have the words, in her eyes.

"We can share," Lily shrugged nonchalantly. "Or, we can fight, if she wants. I've got some serious muscle after mooching off Darren's gym membership. Anyway, you get the point! Whatever happens, I've got your back," she concluded with a smile.

"Did you come all the way here tonight just to tell me that?" Rosetta asked lightheartedly.

"That, and there's a cheesy sci-fi movie marathon tonight on a channel even you have," Lily explained, reaching for the remote for the cheap television that sat silently in the corner. "Plus, I knew you were lying when you said you were fine, so my best friend instincts would not rest until I came and knocked some sense into you. Nicely, I mean, I'm not going to clobber you over the head or something. Maybe hugged some sense into you."

Rosetta would have laughed, had she not been so stunned by Lily's earlier statement. "How did you know I was lying?" I didn't even know I was lying, she thought. I really thought I was fine. And then, I spent the whole day in my pajamas, her thoughts admitted with great vindication.

"Because that's what you always say," Lily said, "and it can't always be true." With that, she turned the television on and flipped through a few channels before finding the one she wanted. The electronic glow of the aliens, people, and spaceships on the screen filled the room and illuminated their faces. There was something beautiful about it—explosive color and light from stories that were just as moving as they were untrue, spewing into the room and filling their minds with affection for characters that were nothing more than figureheads of some greater, deeper meaning.

"Lily?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Lily said, pulling Rosetta into a hug. For a very brief period of time after that, it was as if the whole world was a blank slate and there was nothing but Rosetta and her closest friend in that one room, no other stories than the ones the television screen told, no pain too great that it could not be fixed by a dramatic monologue and a kiss shared as sparks flew from the crumbling structure around the pair of lovers, nothing but the simple, disconnected plots and arcs and resolutions. For a very brief moment, life itself felt simple. For a very brief moment, everything was okay.

Then the moment ended.
Chapter Seven

The sky was bright, blue, and cloudless when Rosetta stood beneath it in the later hours of the following morning. Her shoes scraped against the pavement as she made the short journey from her apartment to the parking lot just outside the building. It was mostly empty, which was to Rosetta's liking. She did not want any eyes on her when she let Ray fly free once again. She had decided that shortly after Kylie, the bird's first caretaker, had declined an offer to meet at a park and share the moment of the sweet little thing's release. Some beautiful acts were best left unshared.

"Okay," Rosetta said after taking a deep breath, setting the large bird cage on the ground and kneeling down to match Ray's eye level. Ray looked right back at her, and it suddenly seemed as though they were seeing one another for the very first time. Rosetta was more eager than ever to let Ray chase the extravagant freedom she deserved, but Ray looked more disappointed than she had before. It was a moment that tasted bittersweet, and would have sounded like a love song in a minor key, had it been a musical composition. "I'm ready if you are," she continued quietly. Ray gave a halfhearted chirp of agreement. Rosetta smiled. It was a sad smile, like that of a parent sending their child off to school. It was a smile that admitted what was best but did not deny that, sometimes, what was best could hurt. Still, it was a satisfying sort of hurt. The kind that swelled from one's heart into the entirety of one's chest, and was more an ache than a sharp, stabbing pain, and prompted the brand of tears that only come from humanity's most unique combination of emotions: pride, joy, and letting go.

Rosetta opened the door of the cage with steady, careful hands and offered a single finger for Ray to perch on. The bird hopped onto her hand, squeezing its nimble toes tightly around her finger as it did. It reminded Rosetta of the way the dearest friends in her favorite fantasy sometimes squeezed one another's hands as they walked into a battle that they were not sure would have a happy ending. A trifle of comfort, a promise that things would be okay (even if that promise was doomed to be broken from the start). The difference, though, was that this battle was life, and though some lives have happy endings, they all end with the same cliché line, "Goodbye." Perhaps that was why the word always felt like a blow to the stomach when it was spoken in times of sorrow. Perhaps that was why some people died before their hearts stopped beating. Perhaps the resurrection of such people was possible, and such resurrection was what most referred to as "second chances." It was a clinquant notion.

"Go on," Rosetta urged Ray, rising to her full height and lifting her hand skyward. "It's okay if one of us crashes one day. We'll be okay. If we hit the ground, then we can only go up from there, can't we?"

There was a blur of movement, and Rosetta felt the brush of a wing against her cheek as Ray dived from her perch on Rosetta's hand and took to the air, meeting the world with open wings that flapped wildly for the sole purpose of taking her away from this place and finding a new adventure to fly through, a new town to sing the same old songs to. She climbed up, flying with impressive speed toward the resplendence of the sky. Rosetta watched until Ray was no larger than a speck of dust. She had fallen victim to two of the greatest tragedies of all: time and distance. Now, miles of space stood like armed guards between Rosetta and the bird she had grown so fond of, and the little time they had spent together had passed in the blink of an eye. Those two tragedies were the destroyers of many things, and they inevitably reigned victorious over the unlikely correspondence of a wounded girl and a wounded bird, but their victory did not always come at the expense of their victims, Rosetta decided. Sometimes the end of an era was for the best. Even if it hurt, the joy of the memories was, more often than not, worth the pain.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, Rosetta could not help but think that it's illumination paled in comparison to the splendorous achievement of Ray that day. In the midst of a broken wing, she had kept the courage to fly—even to soar—leaving no room for fear or regrets. Ray's incredible resilience was the brightest thing to grace the sky on that warm pastel morning. Rosetta was sure of it. No burning star could even hope to compare when placed beside a heart that was aflame.

*****

Rosetta had anticipated this night more than anything else in recent memory. It reminded her of how nervous, eager, and surprised she had been to learn that she had graduated as valedictorian of her high school class. The speech she had given that fateful graduation day had mentioned what a struggle it had been to maintain grades, friendships, and family tensions. It had not mentioned the hunger, the sorrow, and the grief that had never really healed. She had delivered words of a bright future while simultaneously bleeding from the wounds of her past. The wonderful thing was, standing at the edge of those high school years and preparing to make the leap into a life that was completely and totally her own, she had finally started allowing herself to believe that the future might be even minutely brighter than the vast destruction and hurt that lurked behind in the wake of her life.

It was nearly time to meet Luka, and Rosetta felt like the moon was hanging a little lower in the sky just to get a better view of the magic that would almost certainly ensue. She was finally ready. Ready to let go of her fears and let herself fall completely, unabashedly, irrevocably in love. Ready to look hardship right in its ugly, dead eyes and dare it to take away from her the opulence of passion.

Oh, yes, she was ready. Still, though, whispery fears came to call whenever her excitement was not loud enough to drown them out, which made her attempts to quiet her mind as she prepared to separate body and soul once again extremely inconvenient.

Eventually, she managed to find a sense of calm that was so relieving after the many minutes of trying, she jolted from her body as if shocked by electricity. Finding Luka was second nature now—she had no reason to stay still, pondering what to think of in order to see him. She simply allowed everything he meant to her overcome every other thought in her mind for a brief instant, and that was enough.

She was standing before him.

The place where he had chosen to wait for her was familiar to her somehow. The leafy garments cloaking all the trees were green, but she recognized their shapes, thick and round and hanging low as if they hoped to kiss the ground. She recognized the way the roots pumped through the earth like veins beneath her feet, the way the blue sky was barely visible through the trees, even the sounds of the birds singing in the distance. It was the very grove of cherry blossoms wherein she had first laid eyes on him, the same place where she had heard his voice singing lithe, lyrical melodies for the very first time. The blossoms were not pink anymore, though; instead, a forest of light greens and faded browns whispered with the wind that blew through them. Luca's eyes, which looked like dark gems as they glimmered intensely beneath the shade of the trees, were full of hope and sorrow. She saw him much more clearly now, and it was sad. She could no longer be ignorant of the fact that, beneath his weathered T-shirt, his ribs were jutting out from his skin, the hallmark of a creature left in want. She could no longer be unaware of the slight shadows under his eyes that all but disappeared when he smiled—and he smiled often when he was with her—that proved a good night's sleep was as far from him as the east was from the west. Whether it was discomfort or nightmares that kept him up at night, she could not tell. Perhaps both, at least sometimes. But, even though she saw him for exactly what he was—a saddened soul in search of redemption—she loved him all the more and was happy.

"Hey," she said. Her throat was tight. She suddenly felt horribly overwhelmed, and all the lovely things she had pictured herself saying flew from her mind like butterflies, flitting their wings lightly and detaching from her memory. She was left with nothing but the rawness of her heart and a warm open space inside where fear used to reside.

"It is good to see you," Luka said, "Fiore."

"I like it when you call me that," she replied, unsure of how to continue. Tears that were full of joy and relief and healing burned at the backs of her eyes. She wondered if souls could cry. She did not want to find out in front of Luka.

"I am glad," he said quietly. "Rosetta, I am sorry, I am so sorry. I know you said you did not hate me, but I am consumed by guilt. I know I have hurt you, and I feel so wrong for it. You have been wronged enough in your lifetime. I am ashamed to have brought more trouble into your life."

"Luka, no," Rosetta hushed him. She discovered in that instant that souls could cry. Hot tears slid down, drawing parallel lines of anguish down her cheeks. Her hand reached out, purely by instinct, to cup the side of his face. He closed his eyes and shifted slightly, as if to press into her touch. She felt nothing. Her fingers were brushing against nothing but air. They could not trace the angle of his cheekbone or feel a pulse thudding just shy of his jawline or feel the warmth of his breath, no matter how close she got. It was a fate as cold as a midwinter night, because she had never before felt so inclined to touch another human being just to prove, if nothing else, that he was there, that he was with her, and that he would not be carried off by the wind. But she could not. He was inches from her, and yet the distance between them was truly incalculable. The wind surged through their very skin and whistled between their bones as they stood still, unconscious, immobile, on opposite ends of the planet, dreaming of one another and what the future could bring about for the pair of them. Her fingers itched to interlock with his, to find the curves of his spine and shoulder blades in the midst of a hug that had the potential of never ending, to pepper the blessed space of the universe that he occupied with gentle touches so that she could replicate the shape in her imagination later. "Of course it hurt to find out you had kept something from me. But you've done so much more..." She cut herself off, realizing that she had nearly let "Darling" slip out of her mouth. It was such an obscure, archaic term of endearment that she had not even consciously associated it with him, and yet, there it was, now growing stale between her teeth as she debated whether or not to let it be made known. "You make me think about things in new ways. Amazing ways. And I'm so much better because of it. I'm so much happier," she continued, "just because I know you." At last, she drew her hand away to wrap it over her middle, hugging herself and wondering briefly if she had been wrong to make herself so vulnerable.

Luka's eyes were wide, and Rosetta had never seen him look so appalled. He was bearing the image of a man who had just seen an angel. For an unbearably long moment he stared at her with his lips half-parted, as though whatever he was going to say got lost in his surprise. At last, he spoke. "Fiore," he spoke in a reverent, secretive tone, "do you mean that?"

"I do mean it, with everything that I am," she promised. The words lacked any jaded caution or fear she could have tacked onto them to make them feel safer. Without a doubt, Luka had succeeded in his quest to show her that she did not need to surround herself with shielded phrases and avoidant glances when she was with him. "Now, what was it you were going to say to me? The thing that you mentioned last time, at the top of the tower."

Luka smiled shyly. "I am flattered, truly, and I...I am not sure what to say anymore," he admitted. "But, sì, I suppose that since you are here, you must be curious. My apologies; it was not my intent to be so cryptic. The timing back there...it just felt wrong."

"I didn't just come for that," Rosetta protested gently. "I came because I wanted to see you. Still, though, it would be nice to know."

"But of course," Luka nodded in understanding. "You see, Fiore, I have great amounts of time to think when I am in Vogogna. Truly, it is all I have to pass the time on a regular day." The tone was light, but it was still spiny and dangerous with truth, the way most dark jests with truth behind them ended up—happy words tumbling out of bruised lips like barbed wire. "But I think in lyrics, mostly. Lyrics and musical notes. What I mean to say is, I wrote you a lullaby. It is even in English, and I did my best to make it rhyme! Do you want to hear it?"

Rosetta was taken aback. He had laid out all the proudest points of his musical creation before her as quickly as a child would explain a treasured project to a disinterested parent, and he had delivered the inquiry with such quiet hesitance that it cracked her heart a bit. Affection seeped through the fracture like water through a crack in a porcelain vase.

"Yes, of course I do," she said eagerly.

"Grazie," he said with a smile and a dip of his head. "It is short, but..."

"It'll be perfect," she encouraged. "Go on."

He assumed the stance he had had when she first saw him sing. His eyes turned heavenward, as if he could see through the leafy canopy, the clouds, even the vast blue sky, and look straight into heaven, drawing the effervescence of his voice from somewhere purer than the earth had to offer.

My dearest flower, my purest star,

Draw near to me at the midnight hour.

My distant galaxy, my next-door butterfly,

What is it that causes you to cry?

My dearest friend, most special gem,

Is it the thought that every book must end?

Rosetta was choking up, though she did not particularly want to cry again. Her eyes were still stinging from the tears she had shed moments ago. The words he used for her—flower, star, galaxy, butterflies—were both big and small, minuscule and insurmountable, with all sorts of beauty woven into them. They did not sound like the words she might attribute to herself, and she knew why. They were not adjectives. They were not labels. They were tangible, beautiful, lovely things that people dreamt of across the world each night. Things that shone like luxurious, opulent diamonds and things that exhibited the dull, drab, everyday sort of loveliness that made living in a polluted world bearable. That was what his song was saying, she realized: to him, she was like those things; to him, she was everything.

I cannot bring you much, my flower,

But what I have, I give: a fortune of compassion

For as long as we both may live.

I would offer everything I have, my dear,

But I simply cannot, I fear. I cannot give you to yourself,

And I doubt you would accept, but still, my love...

He paused for a moment before letting the two tiny, far-from-insignificant words soar from his mouth into the air and float past her ears as gently as dandelion seeds.

...I offer you the little I have,

and I pray you don't forget.

So now, fragrant flower, curl your petals, go to sleep,

and in your peaceful slumber, therein we shall plan to meet.

The silence that followed the end of the soft ballad was deafening as he searched her, looking perhaps for approval, or maybe he was, instead, on the lookout for an offended grimace that would cue him to apologize. Rosetta knew he would find no such negativity in her. There were not words to describe what the song meant to her, but perhaps the tears she had failed to stop and were now dripping down from her chin like rain running off of a rooftop. Before Luka could apologize for making her cry, she forced herself to say something, anything, to convey her gratitude.

"Luka, that was beautiful," she croaked, her voice thick with emotion. "Thank you. Thank you. I don't know what else to say, except that I...I love you, too." In that moment, she became acutely aware that the lullaby was as much a confession as it was a song. A confession of affection, of respect, of love. A confession that he was just as astounded by the magnitude and complexity and darkness and beauty of her soul as she was with him. A confession that he saw that magnitude, complexity, darkness, and beauty in the first thing. He was handing her his heart, she knew, and he was saying, "I trust you not to hurt it."

You can have mine, too, Luka, she thought without a trace of doubt or regret. It was the most confident she had been in her entire lifetime. I trust you not to hurt it. And even if you do, I believe that it will be worth it. Because that's what love is, isn't it? It's a risk. It can hurt. It can be stronger than steel or fragile as glass, and the shards can pierce your heart when they scatter after one person doesn't feel it anymore, but love doesn't focus on that. Love sees it all, spins it into poetry, and tries anyway. Because sometimes there's someone who will be worth it in every parallel universe, every iteration of reality, every possible version of our world. And you're worth it, Luka. I'm glad you think I'm worth it, too.

"Il mio Fiore," Luka whispered, "I hope you know—regarding the song, I mean—when I say 'my' the intent is not to claim ownership of you. I merely think—no, I am certain—that you are a precious thing, and I do not want to lose you."

She had figured as much without him saying so. The word had not remotely parroted a possessive claim or vicious seizure, like ripping a daisy at the center of its stem and pressing it into a book in order to force it to maintain the beauty on its surface even in death. There was no harshness to his tone; it entirely lacked demand and insistence. Instead, it was much more like a gentle vow of attendance, to water the daisy and watch it flourish, standing by its side all the time as it turned its petals to catch the sunlight.

"I know," Rosetta assured him. "I don't think you could lose me if you tried. I love you." Perhaps those three words were getting redundant, but Rosetta honestly did not care. She was still testing them out, relishing the sweetness she could taste when she spoke them, and they made her blood run hot like liquid gold.

"Ti amo così tanto. Così tanto, Rosetta," Luka spoke in his mother tongue, and though she could not translate the words on her own, she was perfectly capable of picking apart the way he said them to find their meaning. She made mental notes about the way he said her name, like it was some secret place that could only be found by the pure of heart beneath the light of the moon, and the ragged, hushed breath he took before he spoke, and the fireworks that were exploding in his eyes as they peered deep into her own honey-hued irises.

He offered his hand, and she pretended that she could take it, pretended that she could feel his coarse fingertips entwining with her own slender ones, pretended that he could brush his thumb over hers just as a reminder to them both that they were alive, together, and timeless, pretended that all of this was just as real as the body and responsibility weighing her bed down back in Albany. They walked, and, at first, Rosetta thought they were traveling to nowhere in particular, journeying into the spaces of the world that neither one of them had seen, half-scared to get lost and half-hopeful that they would, because if they did, perhaps they would forget how to go back to their shells and instead roam as souls together forever. However, Luka had a destination in mind, and that became apparent once Rosetta realized they were standing beside the lake she had admired for a fraction of a minute the first time she had been there. It was just as glassy as before and would have been a perfect mirror for the landscape, if only mirrors had such a layer of abysmal darkness behind them. Mirrors held nothing of the sort, save in rare instances, since some of the people who looked into them held such murkiness in the depths of themselves. Often, even those people could not see the scorched blackness within their bright, shining, sequined skin. Or perhaps they did not want to. Still, the lake was lovely in spite of its darker underside, and Rosetta thought people could be like that, too. After all, sometimes, that very darkness was not so frightening, if you only took the time to see it for what it really was—a veil to conceal misunderstood emotions and artifacts from days long-since forgotten by the rest of the world. There was just as much meaning to hurt as there was to heal, and Rosetta felt glad. She was glad that Luka saw both in her and, even more importantly, brought out the very best in her. He admired her most complicated, intricate, inexplicable scars and stories like artwork. Perhaps that was what they were, in all reality, as they slashed across the canvas of her life like gashes. Though they bore the vengeance of cuts from a dagger, perhaps they were brushstrokes intending to set her character and personality alight with pastel colors. Perhaps painful pasts led to the prettiest futures when the sun finally rose and banished the nightmares.

"The very place we first met," Luka pointed out. "This is a very special place, Fiore. It was the place where I first laid eyes on you."

Rosetta blushed and tipped her head bashfully, letting her curls fall in front of her eyes. "Luka..." Everything felt so vividly surreal. All the colors of the world around them seemed to burst with intensity, and there was Luka, standing next to her with his head turned so he could look at her instead of their beautiful surroundings, and he was more captivating than anything else Rosetta could think of in that moment. Maybe it was silly, pretending to hold hands, pretending that they were really together, pretending that she could see her reflection in the water that lapped the ground just shy of their feet, but she did not care. The one thing that mattered was not pretend; se loved him with every cell of her being, every strand of soul, every piece of her existence—even the damaged ones. That was real.

"I mean it," Luka continued in the face of her uncharacteristic bashfulness. "If all were right with the world, this place would be sacred, because your soul touched down here, of all places. So few corners of creation can boast of such a feat, to claim that Rosetta has visited them. I am a lucky man to have seen so many new places with you, don't you think?"

Rosetta rubbed a hand against the side of her neck and smiled slightly. "Oh, I don't know about that. It could be argued that I'm the lucky one."

Luka appeared to be flattered, but he shook his head. "When I first saw you, and you saw me—that first indescribable moment when our eyes met—I thought you must have been an angel. After all, what other creature could be so beautiful and could see me in a dream?"

"It's not really a dream," Rosetta interrupted. She was not sure why she felt so compelled to say so, but she wondered if it had something to do with the fact that every whim of her emotions was now threaded into this astral plane, and she desperately craved confirmation that it was all real. "You know that, right?"

"Certainly," Luka said, "but it feels like a dream. Floating around and forgetting that anything but you and the things you can see in that moment is real. A happy, carefree dream, it would seem. Anyway," he continued brusquely, "I realized shortly after you disappeared that it was a silver cord, just like mine, that had drawn you back. Angels are beings of spirit in their entirety, but you had something real to you. Something to be drawn back to. Your beauty that day was indescribable, Fiore. You looked like a perfect diamond, a collection of stardust all wrapped up in binding like that of a beautiful, timeless book. I was changed after that day. Your eyes had looked at my very soul, the part of my existence I thought would be most abhorred, because surely it would be nothing but the color of bruises and blood. A mist, like every other soul we've seen pass by, and an ugly one, too."

Rosetta's throat was tight. Empathy gripped its iron fingers around her neck and plunged its razor-sharp aura deep into her heart. "No," she choked out. She did not know what else she could possibly say to console, to assure, to simulate the feeling of pulling him into her arms and holding him until such pungent thoughts were purged from his mind. It pained her to think that a person like him could have so many beautiful things to say and sing, a person that could feel so deeply and be so gentle and unassuming, a person that could treat others with such kindness that it would make one's head spin, and yet still regard themselves as something ugly.

"But, somehow, you saw me as something more," Luka said. His features were full of gratitude. "I do not know how it came to be that you can see me for exactly as I am, nothing more and nothing less, and still stay here, allowing me the utmost pleasure of your company. When you came back and we watched the sun rise in Vogogna, I was shocked. I was glad."

"I think there's something about us," Rosetta said, "that's different. Special. But not just me. I know you think that you're worth so little, just because the world hasn't been kind to you, but that isn't true. Luka, I've lost more than I can even tell you. I had times when getting out of bed was the hardest thing in the world, and the only reason I did it was because my sister didn't know how to fix her own breakfast, and I decided that caring for anything as deeply as I care for you was nothing but a danger, a way to set myself up for failure. And now, here you are, and here I am, and I don't just care for you, I love you in a way that I have never loved anyone else." She had to stop for a moment. Emotions were running high and wild in her mind and in her blood, causing her skin to prickle with the intensity of it all. I fell in love with your soul. Don't you understand? she wondered, frustratingly unable to adequately translate everything she thought and felt into speakable language. "You helped me see that believing in something isn't a bad thing. It's not weak, it's not even unnecessary. Sometimes trusting in something is the one way to learn that you're capable of trusting anything at all. And I trust you, Luka."

Luka said nothing. He was beaming, but his eyes were shimmering with moisture that he was rapidly trying to blink back.

"But you have to trust me, too, okay? You're not worthless. I don't care if you don't have somewhere fancy to live, or that your corner of the world has rejected you, because I'm not going to do that. The one thing I do care about is you. I want you safe. I want you happy. I don't know how much I have that I can give you, but I'll always listen to you, and I will never, not ever, think of you as less than you are."

"What exactly is it," Luka sniffled, "that you think I am?"

Rosetta paused, searching for how to put everything she regarded him as in a single word. Luka hated labels. She did not want to try to dilute the magnificence that he was into inadequate phrases. They stared at each other for a moment as Rosetta searched her mind for something—anything—she could say to explain it all to him. Her gaze did not so much as falter when she finally said, "You're a daydream." Luka looked taken aback, and she quickly delved deeper, spinning her intent into speech as if it were straw being spun to gold. "The kind that gets people through bad days. The kind people think of when they're staring out of windows and wondering when their lives will really start, instead of being merely dull routines that repeat day in and day out. The kind that people think of when they wish on stars and catch a clock when its hands are pointing to 11:11. And you're not just any daydream, Luka. You're my daydream. Call it what you will—an aspiration, a desire, the fantasy of someone who didn't know she was a hopeless romantic. I don't care. Whatever the future may hold, when I think about it, I always think of you, too."

The moment that followed was as quiet as Rosetta imagined the farthest, most obscure corners of space would be.

Then, at last, Luka spoke. "I am coming to see you, Rosetta," he said. Rosetta shook her head slightly, as if to dispel the static buzzing between her ears and ensure that she had not misheard him.

"You're...what?" she gasped.

"The small portion of money I had in my possession...I've used it to buy a plane ticket, Rosetta. A one-way trip to the United States. A one-way trip to you, and to a new life," he explained. "My father always said that your country was a land of opportunity. Before, I never had anything to prompt me to leave Vogogna. I could never bring myself to leave the city of my childhood if there was nothing for me to hold onto when I left. Now, though, things are so different, because I...I have you, sì?"

"Of course," she confirmed without hesitation. "Always. You're really coming? To New York? To me?" Excitement was churning within her, fizzing like champagne. She could see him, have him, hold him, touch him, kiss him, be with him. She could realize this dream, make it as tangible and believable as any other part of her life. She was beyond excited. She was, in fact, ecstatic, burning inside with the insatiable desire to shout from the rooftops that she was to see Luka Allegri. "When?"

"In a week's time," he answered, smiling at her schoolgirlish glee. "That is, I will, if you truly will allow me to be a part of your future."

"Allow you?" Rosetta repeated, laughing a bit at the absurdity of the notion. "Luka, I want that more than anything."

"Perfect," Luka beamed.

In that moment, he looked at her with such loving admiration that she thought she must have reddened from the tip of her nose to her toes with a flattered blush.

"I will see you soon, then, my flower."

"Fiore," Rosetta corrected. "I think I like it better when you say it that way."

"As you wish," Luka's voice was warm and thick, flowing like maple syrup, viscous with precision of the words he chose and sweet with affection, "...Mio Fiore."
Chapter Eight

Rosetta spent the next day preparing for Luka's arrival. She knew she had a whole week to make a place ready for him, but impulse commanded her to act as expeditiously as possible. She was not sure where Luka planned to stay, but just in case he had nowhere to go at first, she made a comfortable bedded area in her spare room. The idea that she could possibly stand for him eking by out on the street, living a woefully inadequate life in the smoggiest, muckiest, most grotesque corners of the city, was the absolute least of her intentions. She was nothing if not nurturing to those she loved, and Luka had undeniably made his way into that admittedly short list of people.

She could not find words to describe the elation she felt at the thought of seeing him in person. Occasionally, she would see a pair of lovebirds strolling by on the cracked sidewalk beside the bustling street with their hands interlocked, laughing and smiling and cherishing the whole world because they were fortunate enough to experience it together. She watched them pass by and, for the first time in her life, smiled in understanding. She now saw the joy in loving, the way that the butterflies urged one to let go and laugh, to let fairy tales take over for a while.

As she bustled back and forth throughout her home, tidying here and there along the way, she debated time and again whether or not she should call Lily. She decided against it. Imagining the surprise on her friend's face when she showed up on campus with Luka in tow would be worth the wait, she reasoned. Rosetta could not help but laugh to herself about how Lily's mouth would hang agape as Luka and Rosetta would tell all the stories of their romantic meetings and philosophical debates. They would tell about how it all had led to a remarkably book-ended story, how Rosetta had recognized him at the heart of the crowd in the airport and he had swept her off her feet as their lips crashed together, united after months of waiting—months that were beginning to feel more like lifetimes.

Rosetta could not help but think the mental image should embarrass her—she had not fantasized so much about kissing a boy since grade school, and she could not ever remember a time she had ever imagined it in such vivid detail. Her imagination left no small aspect of the long awaited kiss unexplored. She found herself thinking of the softness of his lips against hers, how they would match the unassuming nature of his personality in the same way that faded blue jeans seemed to match up with every outfit. She wondered if her own lips were adequate for kissing and bit her bottom lip as she did. She hoped they were. She hoped she was good at kissing in the first place. In all actuality, she had never kissed anyone before, save her mother.

Rosetta paused in the doorway between her dining room and kitchen, pressing to fingers to her lips. She had heard people describe love as explosive and fiery, and she could not stop herself from feeling a bit worried about getting caught in the blast somehow. She supposed it was natural. When one was on the verge of seeing what once felt like nothing but a figment of one's imagination, it was nothing short of impossible to keep from feeling a bit nervous as one hopes that everything would be perfect, that everything would be correct.

All worry aside, it was undeniable that Luka was the only thing on her mind. She was glad he had broken such news on a weekend, and that Rachel had been understanding enough to let her take a day away from the shop. Whenever she saw a plane pass by in the sky, she would smile to herself and wonder if it were the very same steel miracle that would transport him from being nothing but an astral projection to a physical human being.

When she tucked herself into bed that night, she found it difficult to decide where to travel as she peeled her soul from her body and stood up, nothing more than a spirit once again. It was her turn to choose a meeting place, but nowhere felt right. Instead, she opted to wander as a soul around her house for a while and wait for Luka to appear. Perhaps it would ease his mind somewhat to see that there truly was a welcoming place being prepared for him here. She knew that deciding to travel must have been an enormous undertaking, and she wanted to ease as many qualms as she could.

It took her a while to realize that something was wrong. Once she became aware of the fact that she had memorized the patterns of the cracks on the bathroom floor tiles and had named all the discolored patches of wallpaper in the living room, her emotions took a nosedive. She had been waiting for what must have been at least a couple of hours. Concern sank to the pit of her stomach like an anchor dropping into the black depths of the ocean. What's taking him so long?

She had never had to wait long for him before. He was always so eager to see her, to spend time in their little shared fantasy. Being late had never been an issue whatsoever. Not to mention that, to put it bluntly, it was now apparent that he had little to do aside from explore the world via what was essentially soul travel. Rosetta felt uneasiness start to creep under her skin, causing goosebumps to raise and hair to stand on end. Something felt wrong. It was as if the tilt of the earth had been nudged askew, and everything was just slightly pushed out of place. Rosetta's heart pounded in her chest as she tried to appear before her, alleviate it all, and assure her that it was all an accident or misunderstanding. She wanted to be told that the growing sensation of suffocation in her chest was unjustified.

Why did she suddenly feel so empty?

Was she just being dramatic?

Surely nothing could possibly be so bad that it would leave a permanent crevasse in their relationship. Surely everything would be okay.

Why did the world feel so quiet?

The wind had gone silent. The whole world was hushed, as if in focused prayer. Nighttime creatures like crickets and owls seemed too preoccupied with other things to bother breaking the unbearable silence that felt as heavy and gruesome as a corpse.

Rosetta's breathing was rapidly growing heavier. "You forgot it was my turn to pick a spot," she told the space where she imagined Luka would stand if he were there with her. "You're out there somewhere, waiting for me. Of course you are." Even the silver cord joining Rosetta to her physical form seemed to be paling and quivering with anxiety. "I'll come find you."

She closed her eyes and searched her mind for him. She searched for the angular, chiseled outline of his cheekbones, the thick shadows his eyelashes cast in the right lighting, and the soft, shapely nature of his lips. She searched for the creases in his forehead that formed when he was thinking particularly hard about something, the woebegone look his features adopted when he spoke of the past, and the exuberant expression he wore when pairing his future with hers. She searched for the way he had only tried tea on a few rare occasions but always filled it with copious amounts of sugar, the way his voice could mimic the most timid swallow or the boldest songbird, and the way that he looked at her, a look that was unlike one she had been given from any other person. He always looked at her as if it were the very first time he was seeing her properly, as if every piece of information about her that he gleaned from her mannerisms set her in a whole new light and made her that much more beautiful. She searched for all the little reasons why she loved him.

When she opened her eyes, she had not moved. She had not travelled to him as she had every other time she had sought his soul in the astral plane. She was still standing forlornly in a dark corner of her house, looking frantically in every direction, hoping to find an answer written on the wall or hidden somewhere in her own head. Where could he be? Why was she incapable of finding him? Was he sleeping and had merely been too tired to meet her tonight? How was that possible when she was so alive with nervous, excited energy?

A strange mix of anger, confusion, and, most prominently of all, loneliness, roiled within her very core as she allowed herself to be pulled back to her body. Who am I supposed to blame? she thought exasperatedly as her eyelids flew open to stare at the ceiling. Whatever the reason was behind Luka's uncharacteristic failure to show up was far beyond anything she could fathom. A small, self-loathing part of her whispered that perhaps he had just gotten bored of her and had decided that she was not enough for him. She shoved that voice from her head as quickly as she could. The idea was ludicrous. The love she had felt between them was not one-sided. I could not have been so.

As she stared up at the ceiling, dimly aware that hour after hour of the evening was slipping away like water between fingertips, she felt something strange building up inside, clawing its way up her throat. Maybe it was a scream or a cry, an accusation or an inquiry, but Rosetta did her best to shove it down. All she knew was that it hurt like a dagger pressing threateningly at the soft spot just below her ribs, prepared to slice her open and take her happiness from her alongside the blood it would inevitably draw.

For those first few hours Rosetta did her very best to convince herself that things were not as bad as they seemed. She was painfully reminded of a younger, more innocent version of herself sitting at the side of the bed, knees bent and hands folded in desperate prayer. Even back then she had been prone to attempting to rationalize situations that made her feel like she was drowning in the very air she breathed. Luka just forgot. Or fell asleep. Or maybe he had something he needed to do tonight and just forgot to mention it. Her thoughts were fearful and small, and they were not enough comfort to dispel worry and a sense of abandonment from her mind. At a certain point, her mentality shifted from hopeful to defensive, and rage borne of reopened scars overcame her.

"Why didn't you come back?" she rasped, turning over onto her side and gripping the bedsheets for all she was worth. It distracted her from the growing hurt inside. Suddenly, more than anything, she wanted it all to be a nightmare. She wanted to wake up and find that this whole day, every moment since Luka had told her that he was coming to see her, to be nothing but falsity. As she delivered an unforgiving punch to her pillow in an attempt to alleviate some of the hurt she felt, she realized she was crying. "Come back. Come back!"

She tried to astrally project for the second time that night, stripping away skin and bones and muscles and walking away a freer, lighter being. However, as she rose up from her body, she noted that even her soul felt heavier than usual, and the pain in her chest that was slowly and methodically squeezing the breath from her lungs was not gone. She searched for Luka once again, ravaging every corner of her brain in an attempt to find all the meager scraps of him that were there and piece them all together so she could see him once more. It was like trying to remake him with scraps of cloth—she could only produce a distorted rag-doll imitation in her mind, a perception flawed and tainted with bias. How had such a marred perception been enough to bring them together before?

The answer to that question hit her in the stomach like a brick, and she staggered backward as though she had physically been struck. Because he was looking for me, too. All the warm tears of gratitude and joy she had shed the last time she had seen him had grown cold with fear and pain and now felt like a growing avalanche behind her eyes.

A grief-stricken cry of frustration tore through her throat without her consent as every ounce of her existence stretched out in hopes of finding him. It was like thrusting one's arms into darkness as pitch-black as the pupil of an eye in hopes of finding a light switch or, at the very least, something to hold onto. All at once she felt herself begin to travel, and a wave of relief surged through her. The reprieve was as short as a flash of lightning, however, because that relief quickly gave way to how cold everything suddenly felt. Rosetta had never experienced temperature in the astral plane before, but now, all she could think of was how bitterly cold the dark, shapeless, intangible space around her was. She was still caught between one place and the next, in the midst of travel, and trapped, as far as she could tell. She could see nothing but endless darkness and feel nothing but a cold more intense and more chilling than anything she had ever felt before. It was the sort of frigid temperature Rosetta associated with raw fear, with the most abysmal depths of the ocean, and with death itself. It felt like she was a corpse. Lifeless. Numb. Paralyzed. So, so cold. She might have screamed, but it was hard to tell—the sound was muffled, as if concealed by a thick sheet of ice. As if she were trapped beneath a pond that was now frozen over.

Her silver cord, the beautiful lifeline that it was, yanked her from the horrible void she had been cast into, and she could see once more. Her vision was blurred for a moment, and everything looked fuzzy, as if stained glass had all melded together, leaving no straight edges and defined boundaries. When she blinked away the impediment, she realized she was in Vogogna. Her head whipped around so quickly she suspected she might get whiplash as she searched for Luka's face. Bright midday light was enveloping his town, making everything appear somewhat golden and inherently alive. It would have been beautiful, had Rosetta not turned to admire the shine of the light reflecting in the river and seen something she would not forget for as long as she lived.

Down by the shore of the river she had once admired with Luka at her side, sitting in a crumpled heap, was a familiar plaid shirt. It was faded and stretched in the sleeves from muscles built by months of what little paying manual labor Luka could manage to find. It was half-drenched in water from the river, and full of sand. Its pattern looked wrong, because there was no Luka for it to adorn; it was alone. Its wearer, as far as she could tell, was nowhere in sight. Taken by the river, it appeared. The shirt looked as empty as she felt. It was like she was being choked, as if the coarse rope of loss had enacted a steely grip around her neck. Every breath she managed to take in quickly rushed out of her lungs—the crushing weight of reality forced each inhalation from her. She could not think straight. Her head was a hurricane, and her heart was taking all the damage.

A glimpse was all it took for her to feel every single cell in her body freeze in absolute horror, and the shock of it all sent her reeling back. She was not even aware that she had been pulled back into her body until she was curled up with her knees pressed against her chest, trying to remember how to breathe.

She tried to convince herself, for a few moments, that it meant nothing. But it was always the small things that sent one collapsing into insurmountable grief, when one really thought about it. She felt the same sort of mind-numbing emptiness that came from setting out two cups of tea when only one was needed anymore, from yelling something to the other room only to remember that no one was there to hear it, or from looking at an old photograph and feeling compelled to wish one could believe in ghosts just to feel the presence of someone dear for one last time.

She wanted to believe that it was just some random shirt that happened to look like one of his, but she knew the look of it too well. And trying to label it as a stranger's property was like trying to misname the Big Dipper constellation on purpose. She knew it was wrong.

She wanted to believe it was all just a misunderstanding, that Luka had left his shirt by the side of the river for some bizarre reason, and that they could laugh about it together later. Tragically, the memory of the bone-chilling, blood-curdling, silent darkness that had taken his place in the world refuted that notion entirely. There was only one explanation for such a vacant, frozen space in reality: it was a mere placeholder for where Luka's life was meant to be, and that precious life was no longer there to fill the space with warmth and sound and lovely thoughts.

Stifled sobs shook her frame like earthquakes stemming from a volcanic eruption. Everything within her was on fire, but every inch of her skin was unbearably cold. Her insides yearned to be free of the love she felt for her beautiful, broken daydream. Her outer shell, thin as it was, yearned for the touch of his calloused hands. Her mind yearned to be unburdened with the knowledge that such a touch was not coming, would never be coming.

How was she supposed to come to terms with this?

As the first threads of daylight began to filter through the blinds on her window, she half-leapt out of bed and slammed them shut. Then she retreated back under the covers, feeling exhausted and utterly defeated and sad. It was finally beginning to sink in. The fragmented pieces of worry she had stumbled upon throughout the night were finally falling into place, and she hated the picture they made. It was a picture of a watery grave, no funeral, no family to miss him. Only her. It occurred to her that she, an insignificant girl from Albany, cared more for this man who was thousands of miles away, might care more than his entire city that he was gone.

Time stopped as those words ran through her head again.

He is gone.

It did not feel real. It had to be a nightmare, the most terrible nightmare she had ever experienced. How could this possibly have happened? How could Luka have vanished so suddenly, without even an inkling of explanation? Her head spun with a million questions, none of which had answers. She felt detached, as if she were watching life pass over her head from high up above and could not bring herself to join the waking world. Rosetta squeezed her eyes shut, and a few tears slipped out. Had it been physical exhaustion that had caused him to collapse at the edge of the river he was so fond of, the river that had lapped at his feet when he was a child and seemed no more dangerous than a family pet? Or had it been exhaustion of a different sort? Had he simply given up? On life? On her? On the future?

A thought whizzed between her ears—a thought so repulsive to her that she sat upright. Was any of this real?

She hated herself for wondering it. She had never harbored such doubt before. But now things were very different. Something inside her snapped. Perhaps Lily had been right all along: what Rosetta had called astral projections were simply vivid dreams, her brain's attempt to bring a spark of carefree adventure to a life infested with responsibility. Perhaps Luka was no more tangible than an imaginary friend and disappeared once she had learned that she was capable of love and trust, hope and healing. Or perhaps she wanted it to be a dream so she could shake it from her head as easily as any other rose-hued, intoxicating fantasy. She was excellent at leaving impossibilities in the past, but she was rapidly learning that she had no such talent for abandoning things that once felt impossible and then proved otherwise. There had been a day—it felt like lifetimes ago now—when she would have laughed in the face of anyone who told her she would fall in love in a place that was not technically reality, and with someone she could not even touch, but would come to love every part of, both the light and the dark, the special and the ordinary, the precious parts and the broken bits alike. Where had that day gone? How much must she have changed?

What if that's the reality behind the illusion?

If Luka had been nothing but a character her mind had conjured up to help her believe in the sorts of dreams that could be realized once again, surely it would make sense for him to disappear the moment everything fell into place and she was stolidly confident in matters of both the head and heart. Surely it would make sense for him to vanish with no trace, save an empty scrap of clothing that once might have served as the stitches which held him together, animating him, making him like a marionette for her to dance with.

She was not sure which would be crueler: to write everything off as nothing but a dream, or to cling to the slim chance that it was all as real as she had believed it to be when she was standing with him. As waves of grief, sorrow, and confusion battered her body, it occurred to her that the infinity she had felt with him was not interconnected, as she had once thought it to be. Slowly, it dawned on her that some infinities, lines that would span the entire length of the universe, would never touch, just because they had one debilitating flaw—they were parallel lines. They could be so close—mere inches apart, in fact—but they would never, ever touch, because their paths ran beside one another and were doomed never to intersect. That's what we are, or were. Parallel. We could never have touched. Whether he was real or not, no force in the universe is strong enough to push parallel infinities together.

Rosetta wanted to vomit, and she suddenly wished she had paid less attention in geometry class.

Moving with more caution than she ever had before, fearful that the slightest wrong move could send all her fragmented, crystalline pieces of skin and bone and soul scattering across the floor like sand from a broken hourglass, Rosetta dragged herself to her feet. She trudged robotically from her room into the hallway, nearly tripping on a rug as she went. She could not bring herself to watch her step or look at the ground beneath her, because it made her sick to think that these halls would never shake at the majestic sound of Luka's voice and the gentle strums of his harp. She retrieved a permanent marker from her backpack and proceeded to the living room. She took a step. Then a breath. Then another step. It was the only routine she could bring herself to focus on, so she stepped and breathed her way to the couch and collapsed onto it like the survivor of a shipwreck would collapse on the shore. The sound of the marker's cap when she tore it from the marker and cast it onto the floor echoed in her head for an entire minute. The sound of the marker's tip as it pressed just a little too hard into her flesh and drew swirling patterns onto her arms was like ghostly, haunted whispers. It pierced the silence like a rock shattering a window. The tiny sounds of those small strokes of one small pen were so loud to Rosetta that she thought she might go deaf if she kept drawing. But she kept drawing.

She spent hours adorning her skin, and when she was finished, she set the utensil aside, still without a cap. That was how she wanted it—no inexplicable forgetfulness caused her to leave it in the open air. Quite the contrary, in fact. It was her utmost desire for marker to dry up, for it never to draw another line again, for it to be as shriveled and dead as the person who inspired the designs it had created. She looked down and admired her handiwork. Floral patterns covered her arms, all the way from her wrists to her shoulders. Black outlines sketched out petals, stems, thorns, and the blood those thorns drew, wrapping around both of her arms like thick, green vines, like wide, scarlet arteries. On her inner forearms were the most crucial aspects of the beautiful impermanence that stemmed from a marker that claimed it could withstand a forever: on the left she had written the word "Fiore" in big, bold, cursive lettering, and on the right, she had drawn an infinity sign with two parallel lines skimming its top and bottom. The lines extended from the tips of her fingers to the peak of her shoulder. She would have drawn them into the air if she had been able, but the marks would not stay. It served as more proof that it was impossible to make emptiness look pretty. She was not sure what drove her to draw such lovely things. Perhaps it was her own memorial service to the man who would not have one, regardless of whether he was real. Or perhaps it was a symbolic gesture to express that her belief in his permanence would wash off with time. Or perhaps it was just grief. Horrible, painful, seemingly endless grief. The kind that made people do strange things and think terrible, destructive thoughts.

For a brief moment, Rosetta felt like she was in control. It was a fraction of a second wherein the clouds seemed to part and make way for some semblance of sunlight. She knew it would last no longer than the scent of smoky wax lasted after a candle was extinguished, but she sighed in relief nonetheless. Her head felt clear. Her eyes stopped burning, if only for a second. Her throat loosened. She wondered if this was how feeling normal again would be. She had somehow already forgotten exactly what feeling normal meant. Pain was good at causing one to forget such things.

She rose to her feet once again, a bit quicker than when she had yanked herself from the warm comfort (if she could call anything comfortable at a time like the present) of her bedsheets. Numbly, robotically, she trudged her way toward the bathroom. Her gaze flickered like weak candlelight between the doodles on her arms and the ceiling. She was not really looking at the ceiling, though. She was searching for heaven, searching for him. She wished the sky would burst open, spilling light and healing and an end to desperation into the most depraved corners of the earth, and she wished the heavens would swallow her up, too. No such thing happened, no matter how hard she wished. When she made it to the bathroom, once again feeling so drained that she might collapse at any moment, she quietly closed the door behind her so as not to disturb the shadows on the walls. She turned on both the light and the fan in one sweeping motion. The noise from the fan nearly drowned out the noise in her own head. It had been a bit broken since she had moved in, and much louder than it was meant to be, to be sure. She liked it that way.

She still felt numb and chilled to the bone. She was hoping a hot shower would fix that. She shed the sleepwear that had been hugging her slender frame and turned on the water. She did not bother to wait for the water to heat up before stepping under the man-made rain. It was not that cold, anyway, compared to the blizzard raging just below the surface of her scalp. The tiny droplets of water hit her skin; they felt like hail at first, hitting her hard and with painful precision, but eventually she grew accustomed to the pinprick agony of every little drop. She wondered why everything hurt so much now. She guessed it was because when all one felt on the inside was pain, sensory input from the outside followed suit.

Rosetta's eyes, which were dull and dim, latched onto the bright bottles of nail polish that had somehow ended up next to the shampoo, courtesy of her careless, cluttered tendencies with beauty products at home. Scarlet and ocean blue—that was what the labels said. The colors were so bright they hurt her eyes.

When the water warmed up, slowly starting to send tendrils of steam climbing into the air and fogging up the bathroom mirror, it felt scalding hot on her spine and shoulder blades. She was surprised that burns and scars did not follow the paths the rivulets of liquid drew upon her. The designs she had so elegantly crafted smudged a bit, but they did not fade or go away. Beautiful impermanence—that was what they showed. Marred, weathered with wear-and-tear, and a bit damaged, but still beautiful, and they would fade slowly, like a seashore succumbing to the tide. Like lungs clinging to oxygen before the water inevitably snatched up their final breath. They would be forced to fade slowly, like Luka had, and yet, she knew she would be just as surprised to wake up one morning and realize they were gone for good.

It was in that moment, as she shivered at her core from frozen grief inside and burned at the surface under the steady stream of scalding water, that everything came crashing down. She could only compare it to being crushed under a falling building and somehow remaining alive to feel all of the weight shatter every part of her body, crush every bone, and fill her mouth with the taste of debris, metal, and destruction. She collapsed onto her knees, and stinging pain shot up as soon as they hit the snow-white floor of the shower. Her hands flew outward in an attempt to grasp something, anything, just so she could steady herself, but she was ultimately only successful in knocking the impossibly bright bottles of nail polish onto the floor. Their glassy containers shattered, and their contents spilled out into the river of water that was headed for the drain. Scarlet and ocean blue, intertwining and mixing and becoming more diluted by the second, and then washing down the drain. Rosetta's entire body convulsed with the force of a single sob that sounded like mayhem and misery when it worked its way out of her throat.

He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone.

The thoughts tolled through her mind like church bells, and they sounded as lonely as the tones they emitted in honor of a funeral procession. All at once it did not matter whether Luka was real or not, because everything she had felt during the time she had known him had been just as real to her as any other memory. All the initial confusion, the slow, dawning realization that she was falling in love with him like ink bleeding into a tissue, the fluttery thoughts of kisses and hugs and nights spent under the stars with hands and hearts interlocked, the pain—all of that was real. Dreams were not content just to let one observe them from the outside, Rosetta realized. They were only happy when the dreamer was sucked in, immersed, and able to be destroyed if the façade dissolved. And she, in a woeful, bitter twist, had fallen head over heels, not just for her dream, but for the act of dreaming itself, and now the dream that had shown her the way to that sort of exhilaration was dead.

The worst part of it was that every ache inside her was beginning to seem more like a bruise than pierced, bleeding flesh, and oh, what a tragedy that was. When a person bled and everyone could see the wound, when someone cheated or did something unforgivable, the world cried with the victim and moved to bandage the wound with all the speed of a caring mother, tears and blood all mopped up with the same cloth, which was made of sympathetic words and compassion. However, the unlucky souls with their cheeks reddened by the back of fate's hand were bruised. Their wounds pooled beneath the surface of their skin, painful and sore, but passers-by did not look on with the same sympathy they granted to open wounds. "It's just a bruise," they would quip. "It will heal." And yes, it would, but it would hurt first. It would hurt indescribably, because bruises to the heart were nothing but the quiet, gaping absence of closure. 'Nevers' and 'almosts' that battered one's body again and again until it was more bruised than pure. Tainted, it would seem, by an unfortunate and unforgiving reality, and no prettier to look at for it.

There was Rosetta, bruised and broken, holding herself together with the few threads she had left. Perhaps the bruises she could feel growing and consuming her insides would heal with time, falling in step with the decrescendo of the designs on her arms, but first she would have to come to terms with the fact that some dreams and stories did not have happy endings. Some, in fact, did not even have good endings. Far too often, when reality mingled with fantasy, just enough things got switched, remixed—or perhaps tainted was the right word—that the dream simply could not survive with poisoned blood. Sometimes it could; but other times, it never would, and it was inevitable for it all to fade away. There would be no closure, no proper goodbye, no pristine message drenched in clarity. Each person would have to decide whether that was a good reason to give up dreaming, but it would not change the fact that some stories did not have good endings.

Some stories just stopped.

###

Honnah Patnode

Honnah Patnode, the author of _Parallel Infinities,_ is a seventeen-year-old high school student. She has been writing since she was drawn to the hobby in the midst of middle school boredom and has, as of the release of this novella, created two works to be professionally published. She has many ideas for future works of literature and hopes to publish them as well. In her college career, creative writing is one of the things she aims to focus on most in order to incorporate it into a successful career.

When she is not writing, Honnah occupies her time with music. She plays the clarinet and piano, composes musical pieces on computerized programs, and listens to a wide variety of genres. She prefers to listen to and create music that is emotionally moving and has authenticity and uniqueness to it. Honnah is a member of her high school band and considers the elective to be a favorite hobby for the sense of community and accomplishment it brings. She also busies herself outside of school by caring for and playing with her four pets: two cats and two dogs.

Her plans for the future are to pursue happiness in whatever form it may be. She hopes to continue writing and bring moving, emotional, and ultimately thought-provoking experiences to readers that pick up her books. For her, writing is a very personal, cathartic experience, and she hopes to bring that same sense of individuality into her readers' lives. Her favorite aspect of writing fiction is the knowledge that every reader will perceive the story in a slightly different way, intertwining his/her personal life into the story in a way that makes it even more poignant.

Honnah's inspiration comes predominantly from beauty and tragedy in the world around her, and both of those emotional experiences are what she hopes to express through her writing, regardless of where the characters or plots take her. It also comes from the artistic success stories that motivate her to try to forge her writing into something remarkable.

Natalie Spence

Natalie Spence, as of the publishing of _Parallel Infinities,_ is sixteen years old. Her artistic talent is well-known among her peers and supervisors and has appeared in two published works. She also obtained a first prize award at the 2016 EUP art show for a mixed-media piece. Multimedia, incidentally, is the most prominent, defining feature of her art style.

Her plans for the future include studying art in college, at least in part. She hopes to implement artwork into her career. She diligently works at improving her skill through her educational art class as well as recreational drawing. Her ultimate goal at the moment is to become a self-employed studio artist and also continue collaboration with literary works. She aspires to care for a large, happy family one day.

Natalie's most frequent choice of art to create is that which includes people and faces—specifically eyes. Features such as these are her specialty and what she practices most. Her favorite aspect of drawing is the relaxation it brings her, as well as bringing specific, accurate, lifelike depictions of vivid scenes to the page.

Outside of art, her talents and hobbies include reading and cooking. She owns a cat named Pearl that she loves dearly. She is a proponent of online media content that ranges anywhere from writing to video production. In the last year she has adopted a Vegan lifestyle, a quality she hopes to pass on in generations to come.

Natalie's inspiration and motivation comes from the comforting nature of her talent for expressing beauty in multimedia art. It has qualities that reflect the meticulous diversity that makes life simultaneously challenging and exciting. These qualities are responsible for her hopes of integrating art into a crucial and stable aspect of her adult life.
Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won't you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer?

Thanks,

Honnah Patnode
