That turned dark quickly. Instead ̶ we had some time. We got to walk for a minute, walk for a while ̶ no one said much. I just looked at my friends, thinking, “What do we say? What do we do?” We continued walking. My friends were a few feet ahead of me, and I was lagging. I kept walking and thinking. I could see the lights of what used to be my neighborhood. And at the same time, I felt like someone had ripped my heart right out of my chest. It felt like nothing else could exist, like everything I’d ever dreamed of. Everything I’d ever wanted. I was suddenly here, and it all felt so small. This is what my life has become. This is what I really am. For the next few minutes we all just stood there and I didn’t talk. There wasn’t anything to say. We were near a place on the road where we could turn around. I wanted to wait for my friends. We would go back to the house. We would go inside. It would still be warm inside. But the wind was picking up and I didn’t want to be out on the cold road, and I didn’t want to be out here in this place. I wanted to be warm and tucked away and hidden from the world. But I also had to be somewhere, and I knew I was. I knew it all the way to the center of my heart, even though I’d never felt that way before. Even though the word had only just been introduced to me. I took a deep breath and turned around, and when I did I realized that it wasn’t windy out, it was raining lightly. The puddles were a bright black under the streetlight. I started to walk, alone and wet, to the house. It felt like I’d fallen into my own dream. In a way I had, because it was exactly what I had hoped would happen ̶ I just never dared to hope for it. They were there before me, and when they opened the door I walked right past them and went inside and closed the door behind me. I turned around. My house had been demolished. There were windows and doors missing. I could see where the house had been, but it was just a shell, more like a memory than anything. “Where is everyone?” I asked. “Myra?” I heard her say behind me. Her voice was shaking. I turned around and saw the red spots on her cheeks, and I knew. I didn’t have to ask. I knew. “Where?” she said. “Where is everyone?” I closed my eyes. “They’re gone. My family. My mother. My dad. My brothers. My sisters. My grandma. They’re all gone.” I opened my mouth, and tears started to leak from my eyes, and my lips were trembling so badly it was hard to speak. “They’re all gone. Myra. They’re all gone.” I heard her take a deep, loud gasp. It was a sound I’d never heard her make before. I’d never heard anything like that before. “I know,” she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. “I know.” We sat there together, without speaking. We never spoke again. We stayed there in that room for hours. * * * There was a part of me that felt like everything had been set into motion that day. I felt as if there was something to say, or a story to tell, but I couldn’t find the words. I was quiet that night, and there was something about the silence between us that made me feel as though I should tell her something, anything. But I could tell by the look on her face, and by the look in her eyes, that I couldn’t say anything. I looked out the window, where the night was clear and there were millions of stars and hundreds of planets and solar systems. They looked so distant, so incredibly tiny. I leaned forward, put my hands together on the table, and looked out the window. We were so, so small. “I had this day planned,” she said. Her voice was soft, gentle. She was so beautiful in the moonlight, or under the night sky. “I had this day planned. I was going to be twenty. And I was going to go to a party with the girl I liked. And we were going to go inside, and we would walk through the grass together and all the stars were going to come out in the sky. And all the planets were going to look so small, and we would stay there and we would talk forever. The stars would come out and we’d just look at them and enjoy the night. All the stars would shine, and the stars would sparkle.” “But they won’t,” I said. “No,” she said. “Not tonight.” I still can’t feel. Not really. My eyes will water when I try to cry, which is why I used a few tears to look as though I could shed some tears that day. When the tears came, they came for real that day. All the tears I cried in that time were real. They weren’t fake. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel again. But I didn’t want her to see me cry. I told myself I was okay. I felt the way you feel when someone takes your heart, and rips it to shreds in front of you. At first I was filled with so much anger and rage. I screamed and punched and kicked. I called them liars and cheats and told them that I’d heard from my dad and the rest. But deep down I knew I wouldn’t feel any better until I let them have the last word, so I did my best to make them hurt as much as I had. It’s the way I’ve always been. I take what they say, what they do, and I push it down deep, deep inside me. It makes me numb. It makes me a monster. I was a monster long before I had any of this magic. I’m not going to forget that. “I need you to know,” she said. “I need you to understand. I never did. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean for all of that to happen. I don’t know how you’ll react, but please know this ̶ I never meant for any of that to happen. I never meant for your family to be taken from you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it. I never meant for you to see me like that. I never meant for you to hear from me what I heard. I never meant for you to be brought down to the ground with my family. I was angry. I was furious. I felt betrayed. I feel like you betrayed me and my family. I feel like you betrayed us, and I’m sorry for it. But I don’t know how to make it better. I don’t know how to heal it. I don’t know how to be okay. I don’t know how to forget any of it. “But I have to try, because it’s impossible. I will. I promise. I will. But if you try to make me forget it, or if you ask me to forget it, I can’t do it.” “I know.” “I’ve been there every day, you know? Every day, I wish you would come to me, but you haven’t. And now it’s too late. Now I’m so angry, because I never got to say goodbye to you. I never got to say goodbye. I’m never going to get to say goodbye. And you don’t know how hard it is to be angry at something that was done to you, when you were just a little girl, when you were so little. I wish I could take your pain away, but I can’t. I can’t do it. I wish I could feel it all again, like I’m a little girl ̶ it wasn’t a lifetime of pain, it was a few minutes. I was little, and now I’m big. But you’ll be just as little forever. You’re always going to be just as little, and I’m going to be just as big. I wish you were my little girl, and I were your big girl, and we’d sit together under the stars and talk about our days.” I wanted to say that I couldn’t take her away from the pain she had already lived through. I wanted to tell her to take it, because she had to feel it, because it would help. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say goodbye,” she said. “I can’t say goodbye. I want you to know that. I wanted you to be part of that. If I could change it, I would, but I can’t. Please understand that. If I could change it, I would. I would change it all. But I can’t. I’m sorry. If there was any other way, I would change it.” “I