Inside, Nancy Sinatra’s “Lightning’s Girl” plays and I bob my head to it and sing along: Better stop your groovin’ round another rooster’s hen, if Lightning ever catches you he’s got to do you in.

“I’m so happy right now.”

Kiera smiles and narrows her eyes at me. “It’s nice to hear you say that. Most of what you talk about is wanting to get the hell out of here. Which I can only imagine is what you were saying in Alligator Land before you came here.”

Kiera takes a big bite of naan and winks at me as I kick her under the table.

“Well, you’re right,” I say. “I was desperate to get out of Florida. And it sounds like I was desperate to get out of here. And I’m sure you can guess how I was feeling in LA.”

She nods deeply.

A breeze lifts and bends the grass toward us, the smell of greenery I can’t identify and lavender I can identify in the yard mixing with the cumin, basil, cinnamon, and garlic in our food. I stretch back over the old creaky chair and look up at the still-twilit sky.

My toes grab at the grass beneath my feet. It’s starting to get a little cooler out and the blades feel chilly on my skin. “That’s the thing, Kiera—whatever’s happening right now, what you keep calling time travel or visiting from another planet”—I smile as she nods soberly—“I can’t understand why I’d ever let it end. But … will this go on forever? I never get back to my other life? Why would I want to, when—”

She looks at me. “When what?”

I narrowly avoid blurting out the truth about Aimee. I don’t want to tell her. Or anyone. Maybe part of me is afraid it’ll become true again if I utter the words.

I wish I had someone shepherding me through this strange experience.

“I feel like I’m my own Christmas ghost,” I say, aware that it sounds like nonsense.

She puts her fork down. “I completely understand what you mean. You’re your own guide on this journey.”

“Ohmigod, yes, exactly!”

“Go on.”

“You really get me.”

“Best friends for years for a reason. Carry on.”

I really like her. Yet another person I’m beginning to fear losing. “I don’t want to leave. There’s nothing whatsoever in my real life that I’d choose over this one. I miss my dog. I can’t think about her. I can’t. But … nothing else is missing for me here.”

“Maybe not yet, but you didn’t seem completely happy to me. Not the Meg I know.”

“But this life is better. It suits me better. I’m happier here.”

“The Meg I know could very well say the same thing about a life in LA.”