This much I told Sid, but I didn’t tell him about the grief clenched tight in my chest. How loneliness was a bone caught in my throat. How sometimes I remembered Helin’s shallow breath on my face. I wondered what I had been dreaming, in my unforgivable sleep, when she breathed her last breath.

But I could not have been dreaming. If I had, I would remember the dream like I remember everything else, like I remember her.

15

I HAD NEVER TOLD ANYONE about Helin. I told Sid because I would never see him again, and because missing her felt like a full, heavy bowl I carried inside me. Usually I feared that speaking about her would be a way of spilling the bowl’s contents, and I did not want to. I wanted to keep what I had of her.

But it was tempting, listening to Sid’s lightheartedness, knowing that he was lucky. Life had treated him gently. His hands, surely, would be as smooth as his voice.

What would it be, to feel a little lighter? To be like him?

So I told him, and discovered that as soon as I poured the bowl out, it filled right back up.

There was silence for a long time after I spoke. I assumed he had fallen asleep.

I felt a mix of resentment and relief. Maybe it was best that he hadn’t heard me, or hadn’t heard the whole story. I huddled in his coat and imagined his closed eyes, head back against his stone wall, the way sleep might soften his mouth.

He said, “I’m sorry.”

“Oh. I thought you were sleeping.”

“Nirrim.” He sounded startled. “I would never.”

“Well, you are tired.”

“Do I seem that callous?”

“Not callous.”

“What, then?”

I thought about his desire to leave places. How he disliked his mother for interfering. His flirtation, which had the ease of long habit. “You seem hard to hold, I guess. Your attention.”

He took a moment to reply. “That might be true, usually. But you hold mine.”

Though he wouldn’t see the gesture from where he sat, I swept a palm to indicate my cell and his. “You are a captive audience.”

“Nothing is making me talk with you, or listen to you, beyond the fact that I want to.”

I ducked my chin into his overlarge coat and felt the collar rub against my mouth.

He said, “Your friend sounds kind. Like you.”

“But it was because of me.”

“It was not because of you that she died. Have you been holding on to that idea ever since? It’s not true.”

“I should have known better.”

“You were a child.”

“I shouldn’t have trusted her when she said that she was all right.”

He was frustrated. “You trusted her because she was your friend and we believe what friends tell us. Trust me, Nirrim.”