He rubbed his lower belly with his large dirt-caked paw and his thin grey t-shirt rode up to reveal the marble carvings of his hip bones. She breathed in through her nose and her eyes got stuck right above his soft leather belt for a moment. But he seemed to like watching her watch him.

Amy thought of her late mother, she saw her delicate, small round face. She had a perfect angelic face and tiny beautiful hands. She looked down at her own hands, so similar, they could be her mother’s. She began to massage the right palm with the left thumb, and then she switched.

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.