"Hey," she says.

I duck my head and stare at my shoes. "Hey."

"Glad to see you aren't secretly some forty-year-old sleaze waiting to take advantage of me in the back of a van."

"I do have a van," I say.

Her mouth twists into a crooked, wry grin. "So where are we going?"

I stare at her blankly.

"The art show? Hello?"

"Oh." Right. I hunch up my shoulders and gesture for her to follow. The gallery is only a few blocks away, and we're fortunate it hasn't gotten too hot outside yet. I hate summers. I miss the winter rain where everything smells clean and renewed, not reeking and struggling to stay alive beneath the onslaught of sun and global warming.

Along the way, I try to think of something to say. A conversation starter. I'm honestly surprised she's not chatting my ear off; she can go on for pages through email. Maybe she's shyer in real life. "Um... How was the trip?"

She gives me a sidelong look and a raised eyebrow. "It was a trip."

"Your parents were cool with you coming all the way out here?"

"How could they not be when I didn't tell them?" She fusses with a barrette in her hair. I think it's Hello Kitty. "They don't let me go anywhere anymore."

I frown. "Because you're sick?"

"Because I'm sick," she confirms. "But if I'm gonna die anyway, I don't want to be stuck in my room for what time I've got left."

I imagine Casper's name in the forums, what it might look like with one of those timers beneath it in her signature. What would hers say, I wonder? Six months, seven months, ten years... I wonder what her diagnosis is. How much time the doctors gave her if the treatment doesn't start to work. But I don't know how to ask, so I don't.

We find the gallery. There are two people in line in front of us. Tickets are only five bucks a piece, but I pay for it anyway, seeing as she had to buy her ticket for the trip out here. Inside, we're reminded of the wonders of central air. No more sweat along the nape of my neck or making my shirt stick to my back.

We wander the halls where each mural stretches out. I try to imagine an artist buying all this sheetrock instead of regular canvases. They're huge. Taller than I am, some wider than my bedroom. Transportable walls pulled out of suburbia and placed inside the confines of a museum. They look out of place here. These are things I ought to see on the sides of abandoned buildings or along railway tracks. Something beautiful and bright to add charm to otherwise dirty and decaying things.

We linger in front of each painting, and Casper leans in to read the placards about each artist aloud. I try to think of something profound or intelligent-sounding to say.

At a mural of a wide, snow-covered forest, I stop completely while Casper reads. The piece is haunting and eerie and empty, made moreso by the fact it's viewed as though through a thick sheet of glass, subtly warping the bare branches and making the dreary sky seem lonely.