I do know you.” I’m still crying, swallowing back spasms in my throat,
struggling to breathe. This is a nightmare and I will wake up. This is a
monster-story, and he has come back to me a terror-creation, patched together,
broken and hateful, and I will wake up and he will be here, and
whole, and mine again. I find his hands, lace my fingers through his even
as he tries to pull away. “It’s me, Alex. Lena. Your Lena. Remember? Remember
37 Brooks, and the blanket we used to keep in the backyard—”
“Don’t,” he says. His voice breaks on the word.
“And I always beat you in Scrabble,” I say. I have to keep talking, and
keep him here, and make him remember. “Because you always let me win.
And remember how we had a picnic one time, and the only thing we could
find from the store was canned spaghetti and some green beans? And you
said to mix them—”
“Don’t.”
“And we did, and it wasn’t bad. We ate the whole stupid can, we were so
hungry. And when it started to get dark you pointed to the sky, and told me there was a star for every thing you loved about me.
