It’s just—it wasn’t how I envisioned coming out to her. In truth, I didn’t envision it happening at all. It’s a terrible reality that neither she nor grandfather will live much longer, and I figured I’d rather let them go happy than risk their potential disapproval. I didn’t know how they felt about any sort of sexuality, and I was content to remain in blissful ignorance, or maybe for them to remain in blissful ignorance. I mean, they’re old, they grew up in a different world, so I wasn’t expecting them to be super open-minded. It’s not something we’ve ever talked about. I haven’t been in any real relationships, much less with a girl, so it was easy to avoid—and it’s not like I wrote anything as direct as I think I’m really starting to like this girl. But grandmother knows me in a way nobody else does—and I sensed the pencil had told her all she needed to know as it melted into her. She’d seen right through my unsure scribbles to my state of mind, to the pining that I tried to hide, that I had not even fully admitted to myself.

All of that was going through my head, my self-doubt and paranoia so all-consuming, I barely even registered when she sliced into her wrist.

She bled black ink out onto a notebook. I watched everything I wrote and drew with the pencil recreate itself on the page before her. The drawing of the lion on the bed of cabbage, the note, the scribbles, and the message: How can you make me feel this way?

Grandmother looked at the wet scribbles for what felt like hours.

“Does father know how to do this too?” I asked in a desperate attempt to get her to look away from my words. It should have been easy enough. She had just done something absurd, after all, yet neither of us seemed to be able to stop staring at my scribbles.

She shook her head slowly.

“I never taught him,” she said. “Or even told him about it.”

“Why not?”

“The skill seems to pass to women. And I don’t think your father would have been interested.”

“To women? Why’s that?” I really thought I was succeeding in changing the topic.

“I don’t know. Maybe because we are more used to bleeding.”

Then she touched my still-wet words with the tips of her fingers. I swallowed.

“What does this mean?” she asked, looking so small with eyes so wide.

“It’s nothing,” I said immediately. I could only hope what she said earlier about understanding a writer’s words, about perfect connection, was an exaggeration. “Really.”

“This is about the girl you wanted to send food.” Her voice revealed nothing. “What was her name?”

“Louise,” I said weakly. “But really, it’s nothing—”