Chapter 24

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I've come back to Richman. I don't know how exactly, or why they let me sometimes. But they---it—whatever controls my death, does let me. So I am here with her. Even though it pains me to see her. At least I see her. I get some comfort from that.

It's early in the morning here, she's in her bathroom getting dressed. In the little house she was buying. She's living here now, got Tailor with her surely, that poor girl too probably. But it's only her I want to see, in my time here.

She is putting on her bra, slowly, in front of the mirror. It's not the right size because her breasts are swollen and bulging out of it. She puts it on, then sighs a little, looking at her belly. She strokes it a little.

"You should go see a doctor," I say, quietly, though I know she can't hear me.

She puts her hands on her flesh. Of course the scars are still there, from where she cut herself. Some disastrously recent.

"Is that why you won't go? Because you don't want them to see you? And you think they'll take that baby away?" I guess. That is why. She tried to stop me from seeing them didn't want her shirt off until it was dark and I was too occupied to notice. But I had seen them. And I loved her anyway didn't that count for anything?

"Didn't that mean anything for you?" I whisper. Didn't it show her that not everyone is judgmental some people would understand and care and see her for more than her scars? She loved that baby she would do anything to take care of it? How was cutting more harmful than smoking or drinking or overeating or a million things women do without having their babies taken away from them? But that was what she was thinking I knew. And she was probably right. But still she needed to go in, she needed shots and ----levels checked and things like that I knew.

She bends over the sink, crying. I reach out to wrap my arms around her, hold her close and never let go. But I can't of course, I'm not there.

"I know you're still here," she whispers.

"What?" I ask.

"I'd know if you were gone you have to be still here," she says, tipping her head back, "Why can I feel you here?"

"Because I am here," I say, pressing against her hair, I want to smell her breath in her clean skin and feel her strong body pressed against mine.

"I saw you dead---I'll find out how to get you back, I promise," she says.

"I don't think I can get back," I say.

"I won't let you go," she says.

"I love you," I say.

"I love you, Rocket," she says.


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