Let me tell you what I do know: I am more than one thing, and not all of those things are good.

.

There are only two things that are ever real: the past, and whether or not you are breathing.

You learn things about yourself when you don't drink as much. Drunk, you are plastered diagonally across bedsheets, mouth open, gaping. No form. Just dog-tired.

Sober, you curl inward. Small. The fetal position, right? Is this supposed to be better?

You might as well scrawl it across your forehead: I am afraid. But you're not supposed to be afraid, what with all the demons gone.

You're supposed to be grateful.

The kid—the kid that you think of that way because once you start thinking of him by name you're going to love him or something stupid like that—gives you a glass-chip bottle of black nail polish one day.

"It goes with your jacket."

You know he didn't steal it; Oscar is very clear on the rules. Five dollars allowance every week.

You haven't painted your nails since you were fourteen and so blissfully stupid. You are one of those people who will never be happy, because you never know when you are supposed to be. You will know about it afterwards, when the world is shit and someone is praying. (That someone is not you.) But you will say, I should have been happy, then. They were here.

But you have always been very stupid.

"Thanks, kid." You reach out with one hand and ruffle his hair. You remember when your brother was this age. If he had lived, would he have been the one with powers? Would it be better for him to have lost everyone? You hate that you have to decide.

Vido smiles, one tooth missing.

You go home and paint your nails very badly, thought they dry surprisingly smooth. Vido. Goddamnit. You thought of him by name.

.

The truth is complicated. It's two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet. I used to think that if I dug deep enough to discover something sad and ugly, I'd know it was something true. Now I'm trying to dig deeper.

.

Some nights, you kill Trish. A quick snap of the neck is too kind; you kill her like you killed Reva, and she doesn't die at first so you keep punching again and again, because this is Trish, and it is so much harder to kill her than you want it to be.

You wake, gasping. On those nights, you only want to be alone.

Because in the moment when you first wake you think it's true, that Trish really is dead, and you killed her.

You killed her. Trish.

Trish, who can survive anything.

You are still here, but you do not feel like you have even survived. There are just…pieces of you, scattered across this city. Bathroom stalls in bars. Rooftops. That restaurant he used to take you to, the place where Hope bled out.

Hope. You are not one for symbolism. You reject all that bullshit. But you know irony when you hear it.

When it's sticky on your hands long after everything else is over.

.

I didn't want to write these pages until there were no hard feelings, no sharp ones. I do not have that luxury.

.

Lighting a candle for a dead guy is some weird shit. If Murdock hadn't been such an insufferable Catholic—really, making a joke of it in the first ten minutes of knowing him?—you wouldn't have come here at all.

Churches creep you out. You don't like to think that someone is watching you. Don't want to imagine that there is a higher power pulling the strings.

Dead is dead. That's enough for you, enough to think that they aren't suffering anymore. At least your mom was looking at you when the bullet tore through brain. You're not worth much on your best day, but you wonder if maybe she was happier, that way.

There are floorboards under close-pile red carpet, and they creak. The place smells like pine and dust. The candles are fifty-cent tealights, crowded in red glass.

You could light a hundred candles here, probably.

(You don't.)

Matthew Murdock died under Midland Circle and you got up again and found your mother and then your best friend shot your mother and so much else happened in between but those are the lights that link together now, the ones that blind and hold and shine out in the darkness of whatever the hell you keep living through.

There are only two things that are real, right?

Ash, and breathing.

You light the candle. The higher power stays silent.

.

I am sad and angry and I want everyone to be alive again. I want more landmarks, less landmines. I want to be grateful but I'm having a hard time with it.

.

Trish Talk is officially cancelled, but Trish has a book deal. You hear about this on the news and wonder what she plans on writing a book about.

"It turns out, pulling a trigger is just a quick squeeze. Not much effort—"

That isn't fair. Trish didn't want to be cruel.

Cruelty never crossed Trish's mind, and fairness has rarely crossed yours.

"You painted your nails," Vido says proudly. He has lined up all his action figures, ready for battle.

"Yeah." They're starting to chip, but they looked good. Looked badass. Went with your jacket, and all that. "Thanks, bud."

Then he hugs you.

It makes sense. You come to dinner once a week and sometimes you stay over when he's at his grandma's, and you have never been mean to him.

That's all it takes, right? Kids are so trusting.

You let your arm settle around his shoulders. He doesn't hug you like you're all sharp edges. He doesn't seem to think that you are something cruel and unfair, pieces scattered all over the city.

(You are both breathing.)