I took half a day off work and went directly from the office to Christina’s funeral by train. Danny stayed home.

The funeral was a small, simple affair with an anonymous grave. Danny’s expectations that Christina’s father would show up hadn’t come true. Her mother was there, along with Ricky, Simon, Giuseppe, Natasha, and me. That was the entire list of mourners.

Christina’s mother, a small, delicate woman with sunglasses much too large for her face, appeared unmoved throughout the ceremony. Just before we left the cemetery, I went up to introduce myself.

“I’m Jessica,” I said, extending my hand. Ricky remained close behind me. I think he probably knew what would happen.

“Mm-hm,” she said absently. I wanted to ask her where she’d been all these years. Why hadn’t she come to visit? Why hadn’t she congratulated her daughter when she’d gotten her job?

“I’m so sorry about what happened to your daughter. She was my best friend.”

She brushed my hand away, eyeing me as though I were some kind of hideous insect. “She wasn’t my daughter,” she said in an icy tone. “She was a cheap junkie whore.” With that, she turned and flounced off toward the cemetery gate.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, you evil bitch!” Ricky called after her, and for a moment, I thought he was going to run after her and smack her across the head. He stayed with me, though, taking my arm and pulling me away with him. “Don’t let that get you upset,” he said. “There’s no use.”

My knees were trembling, and suddenly I was incredibly glad Danny wasn’t there. It was bad enough that I’d had to hear that crap.

Ricky brought me to my car, like the second older brother he’d come to feel like to me, and promised to come by the following day with Simon. They’d done it several times already over the past week, trying in vain to shake Danny out of his lethargic stupor.

On the way home, I passed a stationery store, and on a whim, I stopped in to buy a couple of fat markers, along with a whole bunch of candles.

When I got to Danny’s, he was sitting on the couch, staring at the flickering television screen. The whole scene was just so wrong. I couldn’t get used to it, nor did I want to.

“How was it?” he asked without getting up, which wasn’t like him either. He’d always met me at the door before, back when he’d been himself.

“Okay,” I said. “Her dad didn’t come.”

He nodded and turned back to the TV. Sighing, I took the remote out of his hand and switched the television off. Then I grasped his uninjured hand and pulled him to his feet. “You said you didn’t want Christina’s room to stay how it was, and you didn’t want it to look artificial.” I pulled him into her room and handed him one of the markers. “So we’re going to redecorate. She loved poetry so much—let’s write something for her.”

He agreed. He was still the old Danny in that regard: up for anything, with no discussion. The realization made me almost euphoric. Maybe he really would find his way back to his old self someday.

We spread the candles out around the room—on the table, the windowsill, the shelves, everywhere—and lit them. Once that was done, we sat down on the floor and started writing. Then we used the markers to immortalize our work on the white walls.

Danny took the space above her bed:

I am not dead,

I’m just changing sides

To be with you all

Wherever you go

I used the blue marker to write a few lines over the old couch in the corner:

The cold earth will not hold me,

I am no longer trapped

In darkness I found the light

And now I am free

Over the window, Danny wrote:

One last time you went

Far away over the clouds.

Now you shine down, heaven-sent,

And live on in my heart.

And together we wrote:

And with her died a thousand dreams.

Time heals wounds, but scars remain!

We did that all afternoon. Afterward, we snuggled into her bed together, stomach to stomach, and started telling stories about her. It became a kind of ritual—our way of handling our grief. Every evening, before we went to sleep, we lit all the candles, got into Christina’s bed, and took turns telling stories about her. He’d go one night, I’d go the next.

Danny told me how he’d met Christina in that self-help group. She’d been totally distraught when she first started coming, and she’d sought him out from the beginning. At first, she’d just sat beside him; then, she’d started trying to get put into groups with him so that she could work with him. She’d clung to him like ivy, and he began taking her home with him after group meetings. They’d cook dinner together, eat, and talk. Over time, he’d become an ever-greater influence on her, and eventually, he’d managed to get her off the drugs. Then one day she’d come over to his place and simply stayed.

The next evening, I admitted to him that when I’d discovered Christina on his couch that first night, I’d been so jealous that I’d decided to hate her for all eternity—but the hate had quickly turned to love, because she’d been so much like Danny.

In turn, Danny told me that she’d hated me just as much at first, because she’d been sure I’d take him away from her and turn her newly structured life upside down.

I revealed how she’d threatened to kill me if I ever dared injure him, and I recounted the wise words she’d had for me when Danny had confessed he was HIV-positive.

He told me they’d talked that night as well. He’d been completely sure he’d lost me for good, but she’d promised him I’d come back to him within a few hours. And, as it turned out, she’d been right.

We called the game “Christina is…,” and for the next eight weeks, we played it every evening I was at Danny’s. It made us feel close to her, kept her alive in a way. Often, we spent the whole night in her room, falling asleep in each other’s arms. Although I’d never have thought it possible, Christina’s death brought us even closer together.

Never in my life had I been so close to another human being—emotionally close, not physically—nor have I been since. We were soulmates, no question. He was a part of me, and I was a part of him. I’d never need photos or other things to remind me of him. Danny lived within me, and I knew he would until my dying day.

We resided together in unconditional love, united through pain and cemented through the trust we’d worked so hard to build between us.

We were one, and we would remain so for all eternity.