Sam is telling me I am not defective, that I was never defective. She wants me to trust that I was let go so that I could have a better life. She wants me to believe that my birth mother loved me.

I’m unraveling in ways I don’t know how to handle.

I type to her: *weeps*

Sam: *sends the Fairy Godbot to dispense tissues*

Me: Sam. I don’t know what to say. How are you so good to me? Thank you. *hugs*

Sam: *grabs Humphrey and flies you back to home planet for comfort food*

She sends a snapshot of a trio of tacos from Taco Bell with an enormous pile of sauce packets alongside them. I laugh a little even as I swipe tears out of my eyes.

Me: *hopes there’s enough to get back to outer space*

Sam: *saves some for the FTL fuel cells in our interdimensional rocket* *gets food to go, loads you into the rocket’s sidecar, and careens out of orbit toward a far galaxy*

How I long for it to be real, to be somewhere far away — not here in this life where everything is too much.

I write: I don’t think there’s enough Taco Bell hot sauce in all the world to take me as far as I’d like to go.

Halloween night, it’s just Mom and me — my dad has a dinner with his department. My friends are out doing all the Halloween things, and Sam went quiet a few hours ago. I hope things are okay for her at home. I hope, to be honest, she’s quiet because she’s working on Starworld. That she puts so much thought into it makes me feel like it means as much to her as it does to me. I can’t wait to see where the quest takes us next.

For dinner, Mom and I decide on enchiladas, which we both love. In between trick-or-treaters (or “the crumb-snatchers,” as my dad calls them), we snack on guacamole, which is meant to be for the enchiladas but will be history before dinner, because we never can stop eating guacamole until it’s gone.

“How spicy do you want the filling?” my mom asks as she starts to chop jalapeños.

“As spicy as you can stand it,” I say. I’m well aware that I’m the only one in the family who can handle the heat. I hold out a chip with guacamole. “Hit me.”

She laughs and puts a fat slice of chile on my chip.

The doorbell rings and I go to answer it. When I open the door, a tiny princess smiles shyly at me, and her dad nudges her. “What do you say?” he says to her, his tone warm and encouraging.

“Trick or treat,” she says in almost a whisper.