Amy felt punched in the stomach with resonance. She was terrified. And then she said quietly, “I don’t want to do this for five more years.”

Amy’s heart filled with love for this woman. She felt it burst like a cloud and crack open with the thunder, she felt it rain love.

Jack. Amy and Jack. It sang. Of course, she would have to speak to him for him to fall in love with her. She had forgotten how to be human, though. She had forgotten how to think or talk or care about anything but herself.

The woman stood up tall, a good half foot over Amy. She was about Amy’s age, but her skin glowed like the moon and her eyes were alive with life. She was absolute vitality itself.

Amy looked back up at the sky, now completely fluorescent pink, the birds were calling Good Night to each other, a dog barked in the distance, and Leanne -- Leanne had one tear leaving the far corner of her crinkled right eye.

Now Amy was angry. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need anyone. She would go home and open a bottle of wine and turn on the television. Maybe there was a Law&Order marathon on. Fuck this woman. Her nostrils flared like a bull in a pen, but she was silent.

At home, Amy sliced open the pizza box and then leaned her belly against the porcelain sink, staring out at the ocean while the cheese and bread bubbled in the oven. The sea seemed to change color every few minutes, like it had its very own emotions, its own story, its own joy, its own pain.

She hadn’t cried so much since she was a baby, but back then someone would stick a pacifier in her mouth and rock her. Now there was no one around to touch her at all. This is why, she thought, she took all those pills. To suppress the river of tears that was always pushing at the dam within her.

She reached out to the People magazine in front of her. Her hands shook as she picked it up. They had found a particularly dashing picture of James, a particularly pathetic picture of Amy and a particularly sexy picture of Cassandra. Even that name was sexy. It was like Egyptian-Sex-Priestess  ...

She didn’t know much about intimacy, but she thought it had something to do with telling the person you loved the truth, despite the consequences. Somehow though, she understood why he did it, why he could tell a sea of strangers who lapped us his every word like gold, because that was safe.  ...