“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 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 amonster-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, andwhole, and mine again. I find his hands, lace my fingers through his evenas he tries to pull away. “It’s me, Alex. Lena. Your Lena. Remember? Remember37 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, andkeep 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 couldfind from the store was canned spaghetti and some green beans? And yousaid to mix them—”“Don’t.”“And we did, and it wasn’t bad. We ate the whole stupid can, we were sohungry. 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.”

“And when I wake up it's wonderful, like I've been carried quietly onto a calm, peaceful shore, and the dream, and its meaning, has broken over me like a wave and is ebbing away now, leaving me with a single, solid certainty. I know now.”

“I know the rules. I've been living here longer than you have."He cracks a smile then. He nudges me back. "Hardly.""Born and raised. You're a transplant." I nudge him again, a little harder, and he laughs and tries to catch hold of my arm. I squirm away, giggling, and he stretches out to tickle my stomach. "Country bumpkin!" I squeal, as he grabs out and wrestles me back onto the blanket, laughing."City slicker," he says, rolling over on top of me, and then kisses me. Everything dissolves: heat, explosions of color, floating.”

“It is as though he has just recognized me. Then his eyes continue to sweep, and my heart comes hammering back to my ribs. I'm just being paranoid.”

“Maybe it would be better if we didn't love. If we didn't lose, either. If we didn't get out hearts stomped on, shattered; if we didn't have to patch and repatch it until we're like Frankenstein monsters, all sewn together by who knows what”

“I used to lie here like this all summer long,' I tell her. 'I'd come up here and just stare at the sky.' She rolls over on her back so she's staring up as well. 'Bet this view hasn't changed much, has it?'What she says is so simple i almost laugh. She's right, of course. 'No. This looks exactly the same.'I suppose that's the secret, If you're ever wishing for things to go back to the way they were. You just have to look up.”