I could never get Paula's plastered grin off my mind. When I finish telling my story to my soon-to-be husband, the only thing he could say was, "wow." What was there to be given? A warm hug, hot cup of chocolate, and a rib-crushing hug? Maybe profuse sorries dripping from his lips like a leaky faucet. Since I woke up in that psychiatric ward, I spent more time with Paula. I helped prepare Max for his first day of fifth grade, and chuckled at the magnetism of joy which I had and never knew. Everyday in the mirror I recited to myself, "I am Tsuki. I am the moon which brightens the night and controls the tides, even if I'm much smaller than a star."

It was rather incredible to think all of this had been a mere figment of my imagination, nothing more. Now I understood why I smelled alcohol in that forest, why I was the only survivor in a crash, why the skies turned into a shade of blood so quickly.

The mind was a dangerous place. Now I wonder if any other things in my life had been real.

All I knew Paula's grin the day I woke up was the realest thing I had ever seen.

I buy my first house after graduating, a ranch-style with a red roof. Behind it was a forest which slathered over the land and looked ever so still, a reminder of Nature's slow-moving rhythm. On occasion I walked in there, embattling ensuing nightmares of that week, and when I look up at a tree, was a fledgling bird in white, a bird with a heart-shaped face and flitting feathers. The barn owl glared at me with its magnificent eyes and spread its wings out to the coming breeze.

Father gripped my shoulder, pointing up at the owl with a blistered finger. Mother patted my other shoulder, whispering that my father should lay off birding a little bit and focus on actually walking.

"Capture heart with the eye, not a pinhole," the wind seemed to say, and continued to entertain the owl in aerial art. Pretty soon Paula called me inside to decorate my bedroom, and the owl and I departed on our separate ways.