“I’m not trying to tell you to be less loyal to your brother. I’m just trying to say that I hope you’re taking care of yourself. And putting yourself first every once in a while. If I’d actually put myself first sometimes, then maybe we would have had a healthier lifestyle at home. Maybe I would have seen that your mom needed serious help. And not just all the little stuff I was doing for her . . . Ah. Anyway. Coulda woulda shoulda. I hope you’re good to yourself, kid.”

“I’m not . . . bad to myself.”

“But you’re suffering.”

“I’m sad.”

“Your whole life is changing.”

“My whole life is changing.”

“Treat yourself the way you treat me, yeah? Fight to the death for yourself, kid. Just once. At least. Your brother will land on his feet.”

When Pops and I hang up a few minutes later, I get up and grab a pen and paper from the kitchen. On the paper I usually use to make my grocery lists, I write down everything I can remember from my conversation with Pops just now. It takes up two sheets of the long, skinny paper, and I put them both under magnets on the fridge when I’m done.

My phone dings and it’s one of the tenants needing my attention. That’s okay with me. I’m grateful for the stuff to do. I get ready for work and spend half the day up in 6D again, finishing their floors. The rest of the day I’m running errands for the building, picking up potted plants for our front steps and rodent traps for the alley out back.

I don’t stop thinking about my conversation with Pops the entire time. He’s right, I think. I’ve spent so much time taking care of other people that I have absolutely no idea how to take care of myself.

Eliot was good for me. But anything good for me feels selfish. And how screwed-up is that? Anything that’s good for me feels selfish.

The happiest I’ve been in years was talking to Eliot on the phone and I wasn’t even showing him who I am. I couldn’t even give myself the gift of telling him my name.

After work, I shower off, pull on some sweats, put my hair in a wet bun, and sit down with a sandwich. I get a notification on my phone, and my heart swoops when I realize that it’s telling me that Eliot’s webcomic has updated. The last one was just a few days after he found out who I was, and it was the most wonderful torture to get a peek inside his mind, his world, his art. I wanted nothing more than to talk to him about the turn the characters had taken. But, of course, I didn’t give myself that gift.