The woman gets up to look out of the window, her heart sinking at the sight of quivering branches on winter-bare trees. She wishes that Valentine’s Day—that every holiday—could be different for them, but she knows that it probably never will be. Resigned to that fact, she turns to look at her silent daughter in the bed, only to see her daughter looking right back at her.
“Hi, Mom,” the girl says, her voice weak and raspy.
“Allie?” The woman hurries to her daughter, sitting in the chair beside her, taking her curled hand, and holding it—and for the first time in a very, very long time, that hand squeezes back.
“Sorry I’ve been gone for so long,” Allie rasps.
“It’s okay, honey,” the mother says. “Oh my God, it’s okay.” Tears burst from the woman’s eyes, falling more powerfully than the rain outside. They are tears of joy, because finally, after all these years, she’s been given permission to cry.
Picture this:
A skateboarder in New York City awakes to find himself on a street corner in the middle of the day. He looks around, and the world seems strange. Sounds are hollow, people pass by as blurs, and the colors all seem muted except for him, his skateboard, and the spot that he’s on. He turns to see a boy sitting on the curb across the street, also in perfect focus, watching him. As he goes over to the boy, he notices that there’s something wrong with the ground. It feels as if it’s melting beneath his feet.
The boy who’s been watching him smiles and stands up. He wears pressed pants and a leather jacket over a white shirt and a dark tie.
“What’s going on here? Am I dreaming? Am I drugged?” the skateboarder asks.
“Neither,” says the smiling boy. “You’ll want to tell me your name now. I’ll write it down in case you forget it.”
“Very funny,” says the skateboarder, and yet as he tries to say his name, it takes him a moment to pull it up. “Kyle.”
“Nice to meet you, Kyle. I’m Nick.” He shakes Kyle’s hand, writes his name on a piece of paper, then sticks it in Kyle’s shirt pocket. “Do you remember what happened?”