❝ I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory. ❞ — Hamilton: An American Musical

I was in the middle of drawing my third portrait when my pencil broke.

"Oh, come on."

I leaned back against the chair, exasperated, and looked at Sophia's half-finished face on the paper. Well, at least I was done with Meredith and Alvin's. I made a mental note to ask Junius for a new pencil tomorrow.

"Oye Theo?"

Hearing my name caught me so off guard I almost fell out of my chair. I leapt to my feet. My heart started drumming as I realized who spoke.

"Zoë?" I hadn't talked to her in so long I almost forgot how much I missed hearing her voice. "Hey, how are you doing? Are you okay?"

Silence. For a moment I panicked, thinking she had left, and I cursed myself for having asked that question. But to my relief, her voice filled my head again a minute later.

"Could you pray for me?"

"I pray for you every night, Z."

I had to pinch my arm to convince myself this conversation was actually happening. Her presence inside my head was so unusual now, even my nightmares of death felt realer.

"I'm scared of dying," she confessed, as if having read my mind. "I'm terrified. Because if there's a hell, I know I'm going there. I know it. I've done bad things."

Silence. I couldn't hear her tone, nor see her face, but I could tell she wasn't doing well. Zoë had been scared before, but never like this.  

"What are you talking about? You're not going to hell."

She didn't reply. I didn't have to read her mind to know she didn't believe me.

"I don't have long," she said. "My birthday is next month. March 7th."

There was a strange feeling that formed at the back of my throat. A lump, but a spiky one that I thought would suffocate me if I were to open my mouth and say something. I slumped down on the bed and dug my fingers in my hair.

"Is that why you haven't been talking to me?" I asked.

"I didn't want you to get hurt," she said. "Maybe if you thought I starved to death-"

"You've been using Occlumency, haven't you?"

How she had managed to do that without a wand both fascinated and intimidated me. Zoë was someone I always found to be that way—both fascinating and intimidating.

"It's for the best that I'm not letting you get in my head. It's a whole shitshow in there."

"You're hiding something, Zoë." It sunk in as soon as I said it, that she was hiding more than just 'something.' Now I knew why she avoided talking to me for the past month.

"It's for the best," she repeated. "You don't need to know. It ain't pretty."

"You know what my sister Meredith once told me? There's a difference between what you want to do and what you have to do to survive. So whatever you think—"

"That's the thing, though," she interrupted. "I didn't have to do it. What I did."

Silence. When I swallowed the lump in my throat, a sob ripped out of my chest. I pressed my hand against my mouth and bit down hard. Tears started flowing down my face, warming the back of my hand. I didn't stop them.

"I'm sorry," Zoë said. She knew I was crying. There wasn't anything I could hide from her, even if I tried to. "You're a good person, Theo. You deserve better."

I got to my feet and started pacing back and forth around my cell. My head hurt.

"There has to be a way. Maybe if we talk things out with the Aurors when they come for the inspection on Sunday—"

"Theo, stop."

"—they could postpone your date. Think about it. We could try to convince them. We could—"

"¡Cállate!" If it was possible to snap in a telepathic conversation, Zoë had just done it. "Just shut up, okay? I'm done with your false hope. You know that's not gonna happen."

"But what if it did?" I asked aloud.

My voice didn't sound like it belonged to me. It was strained and desperate, like that of someone on the brink of insanity. On second thoughts, maybe it belonged to me more than I wanted it to.

"Then what? Say it didn't happen next month, it will happen the month after that. Or the next one. But one day I'm gonna die. Ni modo. It's inevitable."

Silence. The world felt like it was shrinking around me. I wanted to grip the oxygen particles in the room and shove them in my lungs. I wanted to shake the metal bars of my door until I tore them down. I both wanted the ground to crumble under my feet, and at the same time needed it stop shaking so I could catch my breath.

"Maybe I don't know the things you've done," I said. "Maybe they really are unspeakable, as you say. But for what it's worth, the things I've seen you do, the part of you I do know. . . that's all I care about. You're not a bad person."

"What you've seen. . . that's just the good stuff."

"Well, you chose to show me the good stuff, not the bad," I said. "I think that should say something about who you are."

"I think it should say more about your naiveté, smart guy," she retorted. "I could have been trying to deceive you. Win you over for my own selfish needs."

The left corner of my mouth rose. I couldn't help it.

"Which are what, exactly?" Telepathy made the humor in my voice untransmittable, but she didn't have to hear it to know it was there. "Besides, you can't really call it winning me over when nobody else was interested in me to begin with. I mean, some no 'count average-looking Southerner who has two friends in total and spends all his time painting? Not heaps to offer."

"I don't know. Sounds far better than punk wannabe who has tons of fake friends and duels with jinxed clay sculptures to kill time." She paused. "Among other . . . worse things."

I ignored the last part. "Speaking of which, did I ever mention how much I love your sculptures?"

"About a hundred times at least."

"Well, here goes a hundred and one," I said. I realized I was smiling now. My cheeks hurt from moving the face muscles I hadn't put to use in so long, I'd started to wonder if they even worked anymore. Instinctively, I reached for the Crucifix necklace under my shirt. I unclasped it and held it at eye level. The silver figure of Jesus shone under the faint moonlight that poured into the room. "I'm glad we talked today, Z. I've missed you."

"Me too." There was a brief pause. "I was about to say something else, but for your sake, I won't."

"Don't. For yours too. I know it's tempting, but don't think of the bad stuff. You're gonna be okay. We both are. Joseph and Matt too."

"Do you really believe that?"

"I do," I said. I brought the necklace to my lips and pressed a kiss on it. "I have to."

Silence. The world seemed to have stilled its frantic pace for a moment, and I allowed myself to close my eyes.

"Nos vemos, Theo."

"See you, Z. I'll pray for you," I said. But I didn't. Instead, I fell asleep.

It was one of those idiotic, selfish mistakes—not praying for her when she needed me to—that a month later, I'd struggle to live with or forgive myself for.