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“Not… lawn furniture.”

My fingers stop. Blair. The bar. My stupid joke.

He heard me. Heat climbs into my face. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The kitchen goes quiet except for the refrigerator humming behind us, and for the first time since Dave died, there is another man standing in it.

Chapter Four

Kell

Before I had a body, I had Laura.

Not all of her. Pieces.

Her voice came and went without warning, as if sometimes I drifted close enough to hear her and sometimes I did not. At times I understood the words. Other times I knew only the sound beneath them. Amusement. Irritation. Tiredness. A sadness so familiar that I recognized it long before I understood what sadness was.

I had no eyes to see her or hands to reach for her. No sense of where she was or how much time passed between one moment and the next. There was only her voice, arriving and disappearing again.

But I knew Laura.

I knew the quick sound she made before she laughed. I knew Blair could make it happen more easily than most people. I knew Rachel and Locke were important.

And I knew the name Dave.

Dave was different. Sometimes Laura said his name with warmth, sometimes with laughter in her voice. Other times there was silence afterward, and even before I understood death, I understood that Dave was someone she wanted who could no longer answer.

Then Blair was there, and I heard the words lawn furniture and wicker. I already knew Locke’s name. Locke and wicker belonged together somehow. There had been fire. Rachel had wanted something. Afterward, there was Locke.

Laura laughed, but underneath the joke was something else. A possibility.

Later, when Blair was gone, Laura’s voice came from very close. No laughter this time.

She wished for what she’d had with Dave.

Something reached me. The world opened all at once. And now I am here.

Light has direction. Sound has distance. There is a floor beneath my feet and weight inside a body I did not have a moment before. Air moves through the spaces in me. Heat touches one side of me. Too much arrives at once for me to separate any of it.

Then I see her.

Laura.

I knew her voice before I knew my own name. I knew her laughter before I knew what a face was. I knew the shape of her sadness before I had a word for it.

Now she is standing in front of me.

Speaking is harder than understanding. My mouth does not know what to do with everything already inside my head. I try once and make no sound. The second try gives me something rough and useless.

Laura waits.

I try again because there is one thing I want her to know before anything else.

“You are… beautiful.”

Her face changes. Color rises beneath her skin.

“Oh.”

I like that sound.