My brain came alight with tenderness for her. I felt so sorry for everything. I yearned to embrace her, kiss her even, to stay with her, always her, my sister, my friend to the end. It was a story after all, even if a sick one. It was completely ours.

I meditated on my childhood, vague and distant before high school, where Laura still flickered only on the edge of things.

I wanted to walk faster, to run, far as possible from her, from my entire life, from the first day I ever saw her always just a few steps ahead.

Our past would dissolve. We would move on from each other and from the ghosts of our youth.