I spent several minutes the next morning staring at my fingernails. Whenever I revisit Clyde's story with anyone, or I think about it too much, I start creeping out of my body. I need to concentrate on my limbs to remind myself that I'm still alive. I used to try looking in a mirror but it made me sick.

I stood by the fridge, curling and uncurling my fingers, stretching them out to feel all the bones.

Craig walked out from the hallway, rolling my sleeves up to his elbows. My clothes looked better on him.

He touched my hip and kissed my temple.

I snapped out of my weird meditation and went back to packing our lunches. He was going to hate what I put in his bag: Carrots and crackers and a sandwich. Water. I had yet to see him drink a whole water bottle.

"Why do you keep this photo?"

I looked up. Craig was staring at the photo of Clyde and me differently now. Switching from nostalgic fascination to billowing concern, he sought my tired face and asked again, "Why do you have this photo? Doesn't it remind you of what he did?"

I chewed my lip. Thank god it was early morning and my brain was bare enough to answer him without editing myself:

"I don't need a picture to remember what he did. I see it on my face every day. But that picture, that was my friend. The friend I knew. The friend I needed him to be. Clyde was so much more than that story I told you yesterday. He doesn't live as a monster in my mind. That picture was a good moment. And I don't want to forget the good moments, or pretend they never existed because something terrible happened."

"I can respect that."

"You better," I said, half-teasing, half-serious. I was still barefoot, sweating on the kitchen tile. "I hope this doesn't change anything between us."

"Nope."

"Just like that, huh? You don't care?"

"I care, but at the same time, I really don't. It's in the past. I can say with 110% certainty that it doesn't change the way I feel about you."

"How do you feel about me?"

His hands were in my pockets now, and his face a little slack-jawed.

I panicked. "You don't have to answer that."

"No, I will. I mean, I know we've only been dating a short while, but I do feel like I care about you in a way that's… more intense than before. I'm really happy that I'm with you."

An alarm clock, I assumed Cartman's, since Kenny was always the last to wake up, went off screeching. There was a horrendous slap, a cease of the alarm, and loud grumbling.

We smiled at each other.

I said, "Make sure I know that when things aren't going well."

"You mean like running after you when you bolt out of ice cream shops? Sure thing."

"Sometimes I'm worse than that. I'm sorry in advance."

"Don't be sorry." He ran his hands through my hair and kissed my forehead. There are invisible marks on all the places he has kissed me. They tingle when I think of him.

"I'm only telling you. There are so many things wrong with me."

"Nothing is wrong with you. You're perfect."

"Oh god, don't. No one is perfect."

"You are to me." He kissed me more. "I loved waking up next to you, by the way."

"Me too."

"You must have been dreaming about something funny. You kept giggling in your sleep."

"I don't remember what I dreamed. Maybe I'm just happy."

It will happen in the quiet hours of the morning. It will happen as I stand in the kitchen, my room, at the park, in line at the grocery store. I'll feel his breath on my neck.

We were having a hard time keeping our hands off each other. Even when Susan was there, we'd sneak little back touches, steal glances at one another and stare until our tasks pulled us back in. It was like our minds were running parallel to each other. We knew what we wanted and we knew it was going to happen soon.

I'll remember one day near the end of June, we were alone. I was calibrating scales for the next day when he came from behind and closed his arms around my body. I acted shy, though I wanted him to close in tighter, wanted him to dig his fingers into my ribs until it hurt. Fuck, I wanted him to fuck me. He compared me to heroin, how he'd been wanting to touch me all day, and I told him he'll never understand how much he is like drugs to me, but better. I told him how my muscles and veins were like air since I've met him.

He'll never know how I broke down crying trying to make my bed, how I wanted to die when he left me.

He'll never know that that afternoon in June, how when he pulled me into the corner, out of sight from the security camera and grabbed the front of my pants when he whispered "fuck, you're so hard," my brain melted into my spinal cord like hot steel, though he may have tasted my metallic mouth, felt my heart beating in his heart.

God, Craig, I was so vulnerable. I felt safe with you.

I hope you cried how I cried. After it was all said and done, I hope you fucking felt everything I felt. I hope you cried.