Alakazam! [Zoë]

I don't know why I come here. To these places, to these streets, wandering aimlessly through the in-between of life. People with places to be and people to see float by me, and I, I just be. Life has filled me up with sunlight and reasons to be alive, and occasionally I smile once in a while. It gets easier and easier each day - not forgetting, no. I'll never forget. Not ever. But forgiving, living, being, breathing - that gets easier.

So I stumble into shops because I can, listening to the doors tinkle open and acknowledge others with a nod of my head. I don't want to smile at some because they baffle me, with their fancy clothes and outlandish appearances. Some I'd like to smile at, but simply can't. My smiles are saved for special people, significant souls who acknowledge me for who I am and what I was, and what I could eventually be. (I will never fill the spaces the Games made in the Lightwood house, such as the Lightwood house will never fill the spaces that death made in me. But we can try, and co-exist, and it will get easier every day until one day we can all breathe again with new-found acceptance.)

And then, because I am me and the unexpected always seems to find it's way into my being alive, I collide with a stranger. As her food falls to the floor she falls with it - although controlled - and I blink at her in surprise. "Oh," I say - as if there were nothing else to say at all in this situation. (I hate the word sorry. It was never enough. It never will be.) In an attempt to be human, to be living and breathing and sunlight and good like all the best humans should be I find a single bread roll by my feet and pick it up, handing it back to her with a "Here," falling from my tongue.

I've never really had friends. Barely acquaintances. It was always just me and Eli, Eli and I. Children came and went, but for most of my childhood I was awfully alone - except I didn't know it. All that I ever knew was my brother and I. And then he left, for a while, and the emptiness crept out of the shadows. (He came back, and I was home. And then he left and I was once again left in a trance of not knowing how to live or be without him.) But time heals, or so I've found it has begun to. Time heals, and time mends, and time grows. So I shall grow up from being a lonesome little child and learn, once again, how to function without my brother.

"Thank you," she mutters, and I think that that is the end of our story. Everybody leaves - it's all I've ever known. (Quick, abrupt endings I've found are far easier.) But she stops by the door and turns to me, asking if I'd like to walk with her. Normally I would say no - but I would like to. At least, I'd like a friend. Friendship is something I've never had but often longed for, something humans have and I never found the need to establish. And it cannot hurt to try, so I nod. "Sure" - and a sad attempt at a smile turns into one of actual pleasantry. Yes, I think. I would like to. The sun glistens through the window and greets me with warmth. (Eli's smile was just as radiant.) I'd like to think he'd be smiling right now, if her were here. (I think he is, in a way.)

"Where to?" I ask as we step out of the store and greet the morning air.