The line Lynell stands in moves forward. She looks at her watch again. 3:30.

Lynell watches the couple make it to their window. She listens as the man says he wants to Register his wife. She stands next to him, leaning on him for support, smiling up to him with so much gratefulness that Lynell wants to sob. That is what selfless love looks like, she thinks. Ending your best friend, your partner, your teammate’s life because it is too unbearable to keep living. Because you love them enough to let them go.

The line moves. 3:33.

A small part of her hopes she won’t reach the window before the clock strikes five o’clock and each window clangs shut. But when the queue is more than halfway done and her watch says 4:08, she knows she won’t have that escape.

She starts shivering. The air-conditioning is blasting and she’s standing directly under a vent. She glances up and a strand of deep brown hair breaks free from her bun. Huffing, she tucks it behind her ear and hunches her shoulders.

They move forward again. 4:11.

“I’d like to Register Michael Nancine,” a stocky man with a shaved head says at the front of their line.

“Name?”

Lynell stops listening as the man starts feeding information to the Registration clerk. She wonders what Michael Nancine did. Does he know his days are numbered, that he probably won’t live to see May? Does he feel regret for whatever propelled this man to Register him?

She knows Alan feels no regret. And that he’s too arrogant to assume someone might waste their Registration on him. He doesn’t truly know Lynell. He doesn’t understand the effect of what he’s done. And he doesn’t care.

The line surges forward after Michael Nancine has successfully been Registered. Lynell flexes her fingers and moves her arm forward. As if in slow motion, she feels the friction as she pushes the sleeve back to read the watch again. She can feel every hair on her arm, the pain in her right ankle, the shortness of breath. The world loses focus, and she never notices the time at which she hears six words that make her spine shake with fear.

“I’m here to Register Lynell Mize.”

Lynell smells unwashed feet, applesauce, and a sharply sweet peach perfume. But she hears nothing but the cough that comes from the man at the front of the line. She leans to the side so she can see his back, broad and covered in a simple gray T-shirt. It’s stained with two small patches of sweat under his armpits. She sees him place his hands on the counter as he speaks to the woman behind the window. She watches the lady’s mouth move as she asks for his name.

“Zachary Price.”

Lynell feels her breath punch at her chest, forcing her to keep on living. She watches the back of the man’s head as he accepts a form the lady slides under the window.