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Lucky little creatures.

I stare at my drawing.

Be a jellyfish, Artemis.

Don’t feel.

It usually works.

Today, it doesn’t.

Annoyed, I look back at the boy. His clothes are dirty, and the cold has turned his cheeks pink.

The longer I watch him, the tighter my chest becomes.

Why?

I try to focus on something else.

The flamingos. The pink walls. The dreadful Christmas music.

Anything.

But my eyes keep returning to him.

This is inconvenient.

I don’t like not understanding things. I like answers, patterns, and reasons. This feeling offers none of them.

It makes me wonder if everyone else has been given instructions on how to exist and mine have somehow gotten lost.

Outside, the boy finally steps away from the trash bag.

For one brief moment, I think he might look up.

He doesn’t.

He simply turns and disappears into a narrow, dark alley.

Gone.

Just like that.

But the weird ache remains.

So, I press a hand against my chest.

How odd.

It feels as though something has disappeared before I’ve even had the chance to understand what it is.

“Artemis.”

I blink.

“Artemis.”

This time, I look up.