Time is a funny thing. It has a life of its own, its own heart. Years can pass in an uncontrollable frenzy, seasons can slow to a crawl, and seconds can stop completely. But when you no longer have a heart, time loses all its meaning.

Meaningless or not, the beats come and go, a rhythm that can't be stopped and will forcefully resuscitate the stubborn.

My blood still pumps through my veins, years later. A decade after his stopped and five years after his mother's. Reliving memories of grief and the happy memories of watching anime with him and cooking with Mom alongside me are what usually keep me sleeping through my alarm.

I'm running late, on the second biggest day of my life no less. God, can this get any worse? I wrap my apron around my waist as I slide off of my scooter. This is it. Big day. I follow the signs that lead me to the other workers shuffling from the large white vans.

"Alora, where have you been? You were supposed to meet us at the restaurant!"

"I know, is Pedro mad?"

Stephanie, my closest friend and roommate, sighs and hands me one of the steel warming trays.

"You know he has a soft spot for you. Besides, he already has you in mind for that sous position, member? You can do no wrong in his eyes."

I laugh awkwardly. "Let's hope that streak continues. I've been working ten years for this chance."

"I bet. I saw the salary, it's pretty sweet."

"Not that. This," I say motioning to the building.

Stephanie scoffs.

"Some corporate event to distract everyone from the fact that they haven't gotten a raise in five years?"

I shrug my shoulders. She wouldn't understand if I told her. No one would. But I do. I worked my butt off to get to the Silicon Valley, and here I am. Catering an event for the newest recruits to one of the largest tech companies in the world. The same sort of place he dreamed of.

I never would have made it if it weren't for him. Though I'm in a position different than we had planned, I'm here, and a success in my own way. Before I step inside, I take a selfie in front of the building. Just enough to see the company name behind me.

Like most of California, this place screams excess and expense. The inside of the building looks designed to hold an expo, not a corporate meeting of the newest recruits. Banners are all over the place, and across the floor are tables being stacked with free swag. That's another thing these tech companies love, inundating their workers with free advertising.

I begin ushering the other workers to put out the plates and dishes that were prepped the night before. Getting ready for an event this scale started two days ago, and now should be the easy part. Keep the trays warm and keep the line moving once it starts. This is my event today. I'm in charge, for the first time ever.

I'm not going to mess this up. I may have been late, but I'm focused now. Nothing in the whole world could distract me today. I carefully place the dish names and allergen labels in front of the warming trays.

There.

Music begins echoing through the hall.

It's time. All the staff is lined up in front of their stations. I ask them to turn to face me. Now for the motivation.

"Alright everyone, we know our food is delicious, let's show them our service is more so!"

That didn't make much sense, but my team claps anyway so I'll take it.

The doors to the hall swing open and the crowd divides. Most go to the free stuff on the other side of the auditorium. I can't blame them. The food will be here whenever they're ready. Piping hot and enough for seconds. It's one of our creeds at the restaurant.

I go back to the van to take inventory, and when I come back, most of the crowd is at the tables enjoying their meal.

"Everything going well?" I ask Stephanie.

"Of course. It's not as if anything has ever not gone well."

She has a point, but I'm so nervous that this will be the day lightning finally strikes.

"Hello, new recruits, welcome to your future!"

A shiver runs down my spine. These people always sound so dystopian. The speaker talks about the history of the company, its meager start in a garage, and what good it has done for the world. I'm inwardly rolling my eyes throughout the whole thing, but at the same time, I feel moved. Not by what the speaker is saying, but by how Zach would've reacted to it if he were here. How captivated he would have been.

The light that would have glinted from his eyes. If he were here, I bet his hue would've been yellow.

The speaker invites everyone to have seconds of the food.

"Hey Alora, mind if I run to the bathroom real quick?" Stephanie asks.

"Sure, I doubt we'll see many people come up, I'll handle the end of the line."

I walk to the station at the end. It's all Spanish and Asian food I prepped yesterday. All food I learned to make from Elisa and culinary school. Some I learned from Pedro, but not much, he said I had good instincts.

If he only knew.

I pull out my phone and send a text to Pedro to let him know how the event is going and what we'll likely have left over. It isn't much, but enough to take to the shelter later.

"Excuse me, can I have another plate of the chili verde?"

I shuffle and drop my phone. It slides under the table.

"Of course!" I stand quickly, intending to ignore it. The guy is bent over now.

"Oh, you don't have to do that!"

"It's fine. Consider it payment for the good food. The verde, it reminds me of my mother's. Ah, got it."

He stands up and I drop the plate. The hall goes quiet for a minute.

His eyes go wide.

"Here you go," he says and slides the phone over. "You know what, I'm actually not hungry after all. Thanks."

He walks away.

"Alora! You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost," Stephanie says.

"I think I just did."

"We're going to start breaking things down, that okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I step away from the table and the mess on the floor. I must be dreaming, right? I must've gone crazy from all the stress.

No. Even ghosts can't carry plates or phones.

The man is walking out of one of the side doors. I hurry after him. I might make a fool out of myself. Everyone might think I'm crazy.

But so what?

I can't live with myself otherwise.

I break through the door. A park stretches in front of me, along with people on white bicycles. I see the man again.

"Zach!" I scream.

He freezes, then takes off running.

I knew it. It's him. He's here, so why is he running from me? I whip off my apron and run after him. Luckily, he still isn't in great shape and I catch him after a three-minute run.

"Why did you run from me?" It takes everything inside of me not to cuss him out.

"You...what are you doing here?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that? You're supposed to be dead!" I yell.

He puts up his hands to signal me to quiet down.

"I should be, which is why you shouldn't have run after me! Just turn and go back to your life, please."

I grab hold of his polo.

"Oh? You think I'm going to just let you go and disappear on me, again, servant boy? You think your little story was a good enough goodbye? Well, it wasn't and this princess is taking you back to her castle. Right. Now," I say and begin pulling him across the grass. He catches a light pole and holds it.

"Alora, please. I was giving you the chance to be happy without me. I was just dead weight. Look at you now. Successful, probably have a serious boyfriend, right?"

I shake my head and begin pulling on his hands wrapped around the pole. His skin is warm, taunt, and older than it once was.

"You cut our string for that?" I ask with a pull. "I could have died too." I pull again. "And what about Mom? You weren't there for her funeral."

He releases his hands and slumps to the ground. He sighs when I sit beside him.

"I know, Alora. I know. I sent flowers because I couldn't go. Fate said if I ever removed the string, I'd have to see her again. She never said anything about you dying. And the cryptic bitch never said it was a test to see if I could be a true hero or some other bs. Guess letting you go fit the bill, because she told me she'd bring me back as long as I started a new life. One separate from the one I left behind. Away from mom, everything. Don't you get it? That's why you should walk away and pretend you never saw me."

I look at the trimmed mustache on his face, his tapered haircut, and his pressed clothes. His badge holder is the shape of a Triforce.

"Alora!"

I look over and find Stephanie coming our way. Zach scrambles to his feet and I have to catch him by his shirt's hem to keep him from running off again.

"We're ready to roll out, you coming?" Stephanie asks after looking Zach up and down.

"No, I have some personal things to take care of, mind covering for me with Pedro?"

She raises her eyebrow at me.

"I'll need some serious payment in exchange for that, roomie."

I roll my eyes and begin tugging Zach along behind me.

"I'll do the dishes for the week and make shrimp cocktail on Saturday, cool?"

"Ooh, deal!"

I leave her to return to the vans and pull Zach over to my scooter.

"Get on," I say.

"Really, Alora, this isn't safe. You're playing with Fate."

"She's the one that put us in the game." I swing my leg over and pull him down. He resists slightly, but eventually gives.

We begin riding away from his new employer, down the treelined paths of town. The paths I used to ride through alone. I haven't hated the years that have passed. I worked my butt off after he left and took my plans with him. I figured it out, but there was no way I was going to live my life without him if I didn't have to.

We round a corner and come to my apartment building.

"You live here?"

"With a roommate, but yeah. Don't be fooled, it's pretty on the outside, but cramped as hell inside."

He follows behind me without me having to force him. We climb the two flights of stairs to get to my door. I have to shuffle through my ring of keys to find the right one. My hands are shaky, and the company van, storage, and restaurant keys keep mixing up in my frazzled fingers.

"Too bad you can't just go through it, huh?" I say with a chuckle.

"That's not really funny."

I shrug and finally find the right key. I open the door and let him pass me. His gaze drifts around the room, and even though it's been over a decade, I can tell he recognizes the vase and some of the artwork. The couch, table, and every other piece of blue furniture is from Ikea, but the nice stuff came from somewhere else.

"Mom left me everything. Come on, I want to show you something."

He hesitates and then follows me into my bedroom.

"Whoa."

I close the door behind him.

"Yeah, guess you converted me," I say.

He looks at my overlapping posters of video game and anime characters. Framed tickets to cons and signed mangas. Shelves of his figurines mixed in with a few of my own. The plushies taking over my bed and hanging in a net by the window.

But what I want him to see is in a box under my bed. I pull it out and hold the shoebox on my lap. He sits beside me.

I open the box and pull out one of the letters. He gasps.

"Mom was supposed to burn those," he says.

"Mom never listened, you know that. Want me to read you one?"

He looks away and I see a familiar pinkness come to his cheeks.

"No...I know what they say."

"Same. I've memorized them. I just don't understand how the boy who wrote me these letters grew into the man who'd never tell me he was okay."

"I better go," he says and stands up.

"Do you love me at all? Because I never stopped loving you. That's why I'm here. Not because you were holding me back, but because you were pushing me forward. And now that I finally feel worthy of you, you're pushing me away?"

"You think I'm doing this because I want to? Of course, I still love you, but we don't know what will happen if we stay together. I'm not going to risk you dying."

I stand.

"Then we're right where we started. We can get hit by an ambulance tomorrow, I don't care," I say and take his hands in mine.

"Alora, I told you already. Fate said I had to start over. "

I shove him into my mountain of plushies.

"Idiot! She said you had to start a life separate from the one you lived, right?"

He gets up on his elbows.

"That's exactly why I shouldn't be with you right now," he says exasperated. "This is just hurting us both."

"I was never a part of your life, dumbass!"

He stares at me blankly.

"I only became a part of it after you died. God! I thought you were supposed to be smart."

He covers his face with his hands.

"Fate is an asshole."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

He moves his hands away and looks at me.

"You really think that's what she meant?"

"I'd bet my paycheck on it, but I don't care enough to," I say.

He sighs and lifts his hand to me. I take it and he pulls me into bed on top of him.

"You never did care if you lived or died. I never knew how amazingly beautiful that really was. And it seems that freedom has only made you more beautiful."

I pull my hands to his chest and feel his heartbeat pulse under my fingers. His breath warming my forehead. I tilt my head and bring my lips to his. The only cold left in him is the minty coolness of his tongue.

"I missed that," he whispers.

"Me too. You going to make me miss it again?" I ask.

He cups my cheek and pulls me closer.

"Fate said we'd be tied together until I died, right? Let's not make a liar out of her."

I roll onto my back alongside him and curl my pinkie around his.

"Kiss me again and it's a deal."