I exit as soon as it’s safe and blaze my way to the library at top speed. My usual lunch spot will provide me with a quiet place to try to continue my conversation with Zoe. The library is familiar. It’s safe. And if Zoe doesn’t respond, I can lose myself in a few pages of a book that will take me somewhere far, far away — preferably a different solar system where the problems are big enough to make mine seem small.

I settle in the back of the SF/F section in the library and pull out my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Strawberry jam, quartered radishes, barbecue-flavored chips, and Twizzlers: Mom chose a red theme today. I dig in and pull out my phone. My heart lifts at the sight of another message from Zoe in response to my gloomy weekend prognostications.

Zoe: What would make it better?

Really, a whole other world might be the only thing that would make things better.

Me: An alternate reality.

Zoe: Ah. Is that why you paint such fantastical worlds?

She’s not wrong. Painting helps me feel like I’m somewhere else — like the places I create could maybe be real.

I’m not sure what to say when the truth is way too much.

Zoe: It would be nice to spend a weekend in that fairy-tale castle.

After hearing what Erin and Syd said, I have a tiny sense of why she might also want to escape.

Me: *books tickets*

Zoe: Who needs tickets? We have something much better than planes! *points to dragon in your painting*

Me: *gathers sparkly treasures into a pile, hoping to lure him*

Zoe: *sets off a flare to draw his attention*

Me: *ducks behind nest as he careens in*

Zoe: *admires his magical shades of green*

Me: *scrambles around and puts a bow tie on him*

Zoe: SO HANDSOME! He needs a name. Sheldon? No, too mama’s boy . . . Dexter? No, too bespectacled and lab-ratty. HUMPHREY.

She has me laughing, and the exhausting weight of my entire life is temporarily lifted.

Me: *lassos a spike on Humphrey’s back and climbs up*

Zoe: *scrambles aboard, climbing up his shimmering scales* *clings to your hoodie* TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

The notion of her wanting to come with me, of her holding on to me, is so absurd that my breath catches. How is this even happening?

Me: *pilots Humphrey toward a distant star*

Zoe: *gazes at the shrinking Earth and into the great dark beyond, wondering if there are Taco Bells in space*

Me: *hopes you don’t like beef burritos because they’re Humphrey’s favorite and he’ll fight you for them*

Zoe: *buys Humphrey bunches of beef burritos to keep him fueled* *adds extra hot sauce to enhance combustion*