I'm too tired to process that fully, which is why I agree so easily with an, "Uh-huh."

"But I'm ready."

Any sleepiness I felt vanishes in an instant. My eyes open; alert, awake, I shift to sitting until I can stare down at her. She rests a hand on my arm, signaling me to not speak and risk waking Adam.

"Not right this second. God. Calm down. Just..." She sighs. "This week sometime."

My jaw tightens, teeth clenching, trying to focus so I don't get upset. "Why? You're not... You're still..."

"This is the first day I've gotten out of bed since I saw you last," she says. "I couldn't even take a walk down the street without doping up on pain-killers and falling all over myself. I have to take baths because standing up in the shower is too much effort. My legs are swelling and I'm throwing up every time I try to eat. Even my thoughts are so... I can't...I just...I hurt, Vinny. I don't want this anymore."

Her voice is so soft and tired and I know...this is it. This is what the last few months have led up to, and even if I've dreaded it, worried about it, I haven't prepared myself for it. Not at all.

Slowly, I lie back down. I slip my arms around her and she comes to me easily, tiny and delicate, and she curls her fingers into my shirt and hides her face against my chest. I don't say anything, because I don't need to.

I made a promise. Now I'm going to have to keep it.

November

CHAPTER 25

Casper has everything planned out.

Friday night is when she wants to do this. One week after Halloween. She leaves it to me to tell Adam, because—justifiably so—he's upset. He throws a pair of socks across my (our?) apartment and says nothing, but I'm getting good at reading his silences. This isn't a good silence.

"Maybe she'll change her mind," I offer, but Adam looks at me, and we both know it's nothing more than wishful thinking. That night, he finds my hand as I'm drifting off to sleep, and laces our fingers together. When Casper is gone, it will be just the two of us. We're going to need that.

We spend every day that week at Casper's. She's too tired to go out and it's obvious she's not happy about it. Monday and Tuesday, she gets angry over not feeling up to a trip to the movies. By Wednesday, she's quieted down and seems almost resigned. When we show up on Thursday, she's bowed over her desk, scribbling.

"Letters," she tells me. "I don't have everyone's email addresses."

I look at the stack of them. "Do you want me to make sure they're delivered?"

"Yes. But if you don't actually do it, that's okay. I'm not going to be around to care." She crams the letter into an envelope, places it with the others, and puts them in a drawer where her parents won't see.