“Yeah, well.” It was hard to swallow past the lump in my throat. It was the damn smile that did it. I knew she was a hallucination. I just didn’t care. “You zigged when you should’ve zagged.”

“What’s done is done. So are you up for this?”

I didn’t say anything.

More sharply: “Shaun? Are you even listening to me?”

“I miss you so much.” I looked down at my feet. I couldn’t keep looking at her, not if I wanted to hold on to what little was left of my sanity. “I mean, you know that, and I know I’ve been talking to you this whole time, but I also know it’s because I’m really not all here without you, so I’m talking to myself in order to pretend I can ever be all the way here again, and this isn’t even really a sentence anymore, so I’m going to stop now, but God, George, I miss you so much.” I stopped, and hesitated before adding, very softly, “I don’t think I know how to do this without you.”

“You have to.” I heard her stand, heard her footsteps as she crossed the van to stop in front of me. Her knees were on a level with my field of vision. If there’s a rating system for quality of hallucination, I can say I was definitely scoring pretty high; I could see the wrinkles in her slacks where they fell over her knees, and a bit of carpet lint sticking to the sole of one sensible shoe. “Shaun, look at me.”

I raised my head. This close, her eyes were even more alien… but they were still her eyes. It was still her behind them.

“Step up or step down,” she said, very quietly. “Those are the choices.”

I swallowed. “Do I get anything more than that? Step up or step down?”