They say that when you receive an organ donation, the person lives on as part of you, but what if the donation was from your best friend? Would their impulses and compulsions become yours?

Would you be able to cope with the grief of their death, knowing they gave you life?

One of a pair alongside Christina's Story.

---

Christina often said, with every ounce of seriousness she possessed, that if she could, she would give me her heart. As I lay in the hospital bed, drearily wasting away, I felt her warm hand touch mine.

I spent my entire life with the specter of this day hanging over me. Born with a genetically defective heart, I could never participate in intensive sports or even “pump iron” which left me with a frail figure despite my height — five feet seven inches, thank you very much.

When we were children Christina would invite me as well as my younger sister over to play with her friends. They weren’t the rough-and-tumble sorts, and while playing with dolls seemed odd for a boy, we did other things together too. She and her Girl Scout friends would take me along on their non-sanctioned nature hikes, always letting me stop to rest as I needed it, or just sitting together watching movies or television.

I had just turned twenty-one a week ago, and now found myself confined to this bed, for doctors’ fears that any strenuous activity might make things worse. Christina, my beautiful, loving childhood friend seemed almost angelic as she smiled down at me, her soft, strawberry blonde hair in perfect waves over her shoulders. She mouthed something and bent down to kiss my cheek. She turned to leave, and I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I couldn’t explain it. I just knew I would be okay.

“John?” the melodious voice of Doctor Brahms called from the door. I tilted my head, smiling as she approached. She had the most beautiful chestnut hair, cut into a short summer bob, despite it being late September, with just enough leftover bangs to frame her olive-hued face. “How are you feeling dear?” she cooed. A cold chill rolled with determination straight down my spine.

“Hi Becky,” I whimpered. Rebecca had been my primary cardiologist for the last year, even though she only had about eight years on me in age. She always insisted I call her by her first name. She had such a wonderful bedside manner.

“Same old same old, but seeing Christina helped.” I had only been in the hospital for a few days, but If I didn’t get a transplant, I wouldn’t live to see the end of the month, so I’d take whatever small victories I could get, be they a visit from an old friend, or my doctor sneaking my favorite salad dressing in when no one was looking.

Rebecca’s face seemed to falter at my comment. She seemed uncertain about something, as though she wanted to tell me something important, yet she stayed quiet, instead moving to my bedside to read over the various monitors that seemed hard-wired to my body. Finally, she turned back to me.

“I have some good news. We have a donor lined up. I was surprised to learn the match was so perfect, but everything looks good. We’ll prep you for surgery tomorrow.”

“That’s great!” I cheered, as best I could anyway, given the circumstances. “If you don’t mind my asking though, what happened to the donor?”

She shook her head slowly. “I’m not at liberty to say yet,” she answered in an uncharacteristically neutral tone. She reached out to squeeze my hand. “It’ll all make sense when you wake up.”

“Does this mean I can’t eat anything?” I asked as I looked up at her. I knew Rebecca well enough to know when something seriously bothered her, but I decided not to press the subject.

She laughed warm-heartedly. “Yes, that means I can’t sneak you any salad dressing. Look on the bright side though. In a few days, you’ll be able to eat a real hamburger without your dietician having an aneurysm,” she teased. Even though she had gone back to joking with me, she had a twinge in her voice that felt so out of character for her.

I passed most of the rest of the evening into the next morning sleeping. No one, not even Christina came in to check up on me. I tried to call my sister’s dorm, but no one answered, and Christina seemed to have turned off her cell phone. She NEVER turned off her cell phone. Someone would have some explaining to do when I came out of surgery.

~oOo~

I awoke to find myself in a darkened room. I vaguely recalled, earlier in the day, waking and dozing off again several times over as nurses poked and prodded, albeit gently, while they ran their various and myriad tests, though now all seemed quiet. I squinted, shifting my gaze slowly from one side to the other.

I could just barely see the top of my nineteen year old sister’s dyed-blonde crown as she slept, slumped forward in a chair at my side. I thought I caught the briefest glimpse of Christina out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned to say something, I saw no one. I groaned lightly, causing the slumbering angel’s snores to subside.

She sat bolt upright, her soft, jade gaze focusing on me for just a moment as though she were the one that had been sedated. She smiled gently, almost sadly as she leapt to her feet, her sneakers eliciting a muted ‘thud’ as she leaned over the bed. She bent down to kiss my forehead.

“You’re finally awake,” she sobbed in a bittersweet tone. My sister and I had always been very close as children, and she beat the ever-loving snot out of more than one boy who picked on me in high school even despite being nearly two years my junior.

When her tears finally subsided enough for her to speak, she cleared her throat. “Oh, John, I’m so glad you’re awake. Something bad happened, but we weren’t allowed to tell you because the Doc said your old heart wouldn’t be able to take it.”

I frowned, shaking my head slowly. “I knew something was up when Christina turned her phone off. What’s going on Angel?” Angel, by the way, was my pet name for her. Her real name was Melissa, but she had been my guardian angel all my life.

“I-it’s Christina,” she started to sob again. “John I don’t know how to tell you this, but,” she paused, swallowing a lump in her throat that just wouldn’t go down, “a-around noon yesterday, sh-she … she was in a fatal car accident.”

“What?!” I yelped more than shouted. This couldn’t be possible. “You’re joking right? This is a sick joke!”

She shook her head slowly as she tried to contain her own grief. “I’m so sorry.”

I could see in her eyes that this was no joke, even as much as I wished it was. As close as Christina and I were, she and Melissa were as much like sisters after these past few years as well.

“But she was just here last night! She came in and squeezed my hand and smiled at me!” I insisted vainly.

Melissa stared awkwardly, her bottom lip quivering. “John, that’s impossible; she died on the way to the hospital!”

Suddenly, I no longer cared whose heart I’d been given. I slowly released my sister’s hand, which I hadn’t realized until now that I’d had a tight grip upon, as I numbly lay back. This was a nightmare. I had to be dreaming.

“Please, dear God let me wake up. This has to be a nightmare,” I begged, but no answer came, other than Melissa’s light squeeze on my forearm.

“John, there’s more,” she whispered more softly. “Christina had a donor card.”

I slowly tilted my head to stare at her, bitter tears beginning to sting my eyes. “A-are you saying she…?”

She nodded. I could no longer hold back the floodgate and burst into tears. Melissa leaned close and wrapped me in a tight hug, carefully avoiding the tubes in my clean-shaven chest even as I weakly buried myself in her shoulder. Christina kept her promise. She gave me her heart, but at a terrible cost to us both.

~oOo~

I found it incredibly difficult to think about anything over the following week, but how much I would miss Christina. Even as adults she had always been there for me with a smile and a hug. To add to it, I felt horribly guilty that I could live on at the expense of her life.

It was an accident. Accidents happen, but it still hurt deeply. Worst of all I couldn’t even attend her funeral because my doctors wanted to keep me under constant observation to ensure that the transplant was a success. I first started to notice the impulses about a week after the funeral, though.

It was such a subtle thing that at first, I literally gave no thought to it. I chalked it up to grief, to missing my best friend. The first thing I was going to do when I got out of that hospital was to visit her grave, and apologize for not coming sooner, then maybe I could start to find some small semblance of peace. At the two week mark, I was finally discharged.

Christina’s parents had for the most part become my and Melissa’s parents. Mom died giving birth to Melissa, and we lost Dad five years ago from complications to what should have been a routine operation. Nancy, Christina’s mom, wanted to take me straight home, but I insisted they let me visit Christina first. I owed it to her.

I said before that I had begun to feel the strangest subtle impulses, and it’s true. As time passed they became more deeply nagging. I never truly felt compelled to do anything, so much as that it felt wrong NOT to do these things.

For example, when I would go to the bathroom and noticed my hairy legs, I felt a subtle compulsion to shave. When I’d clean my fingernails, I’d instinctively reach, expecting to find a bottle of fingernail polish on my bedside table, and more than once I thought of asking if I could borrow some of Melissa’s. Things like this, I chalked up to grief. It had to be my addled mind missing my dear friend.

The cemetery where they had laid her to rest moved me to tears in its beauty. They buried her in the shade of a large oak tree. Christina loved climbing trees when we were little, but never once, not once did she give me a hard time about not being able to join her. She’d scamper like a squirrel up to a high branch as I sat at the base and watched in awe.

I sat at the base of the ancient wooden behemoth that would now watch over her through eternity, and as I drew my knees closer, I stared at her grave marker. I rambled, ranted, babbled endlessly and incoherently at her, and when I could finally say no more, when I cried my last tear, I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I looked up, hoping to see Christina, instead coming face to face with her kneeling mother, twin trails of tears rolling down her cheeks. She embraced me, and I turned to squeeze her tightly close. It felt ‘right’ somehow. Being held like that, crying into her arms felt right on so many unexplainable levels. Before, she had been more like a favorite aunt, but now…

“Please don’t blame yourself like this. She always said she would have given you her heart if she could. She’s a part of you now.” she whispered in my ear. I simply nodded and laid my head on her shoulder. I never wanted to let go.

I never thought of it like that though. Christina was now a part of me. I smiled meekly and kissed her cheek. “Thanks Mom,” I responded without really thinking. We both stared awkwardly at each other for just a moment after that before she smiled a little more brightly, pulling me to my feet and into a proper hug. I’d never called her that before, but that’s really and truly what she was to me now.

~oOo~

When Dad died and we moved in with Christina’s family, she and Melissa shared their bedroom up until college. Melissa had her dorm to go back to, but I’d been so weak since June that I simply couldn’t bring myself to re-enroll. Instead I arranged to take my classes for the semester online, so that I could rest as often as I needed while hoping, vainly, for an organ donor.

I followed Nancy as she carried my bags inside. I tried to help, but she insisted, saying that I could help her with groceries tomorrow if I felt up to it. I certainly physically felt up to it, but emotionally I wasn’t so sure.

I stopped outside Christina’s and Melissa’s old bedroom. Nancy paused and turned back. She set my bag down and approached, wrapping me in a hug. “I haven’t had the courage to go through her things. No one’s even been in there since August except to move the boxes from her dorm into the closet.”

I felt the oddest compulsion to go inside. My hands shook as I eased the door open. I’d been in Melissa and Christina’s room a thousand times, and knew every nook and cranny by heart, from the twin beds in matched white lace-trimmed bedding to the plethora of stuffed animals both girls collected, but neither felt brave enough to take to college with them.

I quickly pulled the door closed. Nancy had already gone on to my bedroom. I moved to follow, squeezing her hand as we passed in the doorway. As I sat on the edge of my bed something felt wrong, though. This was my room. This was my personal space where I spent every night before college, on breaks, and now while I took online classes, yet it didn’t feel like ‘mine’. I slowly eased myself off the bed, and after pulling my shoes off, I padded barefoot back down to the girls’ room.

Again, I eased the door open and stepped inside. The feeling of ‘wrongness’ faded, despite my grief. As I sat on Christina’s bed I picked up her favorite stuffed lion. I stroked its hot pink mane and white fur as I curled up on her bed and closed my eyes. I felt the beginnings of a faint smile tug at my lips. I began to relax, and soon found myself fast asleep.

I woke with a jolt to find ‘Mom’ gently nudging my shoulder with her hand. She sat on the edge of the bed, watching as I let go of the stuffed lion and sat up. After a bleary second or two to collect my scattered thoughts, I smiled at her.

“Sorry, I guess I dozed off,” I whispered groggily. She smiled back as she leaned forward to kiss my forehead.

“It’s alright sweetheart. I came to check on you, and when you weren’t in your room, I got worried.”

“But I am in-” I began, but stopped myself. Wait, this is Christina’s room.

Mom — sorry, NANCY gave me a funny look, but she apparently decided not to ask, instead shifting her gaze toward the stuffed lion. She picked it up and turned it over slowly in her hands as tears welled up. “This was Chrissie’s favorite. She hated leaving it home, but refused to take it with her.”

She exhaled slowly, setting it aside as she sniffled. I slid down the bed, planting my bare feet on the floor as I wrapped her in a tight hug, letting her cry into my shoulder. “I wish I could stay here,” I mumbled quietly. She slowly looked up at me, and I shook my head. “I mean, in this room. I dunno what it is, but I feel ‘right’ being here. I feel safe, ‘home’.”

“If that’s what you want, honey, we won’t stop you,” she replied gently. " I know it’s going to sound silly, but I’m making Chrissie’s favorite meal tonight — stuffed bell peppers.”

Oh God, stuffed bell peppers sounded so tasty right now! But I’d never eaten them before because they were so bad for my diet, at least the way Christina liked them.

“I guess you could say it’s my way of saying goodbye,” she added as she stood. “I’ll whip you up a salad if you want?” she looked back at me, and for a brief moment, a thoughtful smile crossed her lips.

I shook my head quickly as I stood to wrap her in another hug. “Mom, I … I think I’m going crazy,” I exhaled slowly. She looked at me with no small amount of concern.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s little things. Like this room doesn’t feel like Chrissie’s. It feels like mine, and right now stuffed bell peppers sound-” about that time, my stomach rumbled, loudly. I giggled. Yes. Giggled. “Really, really tasty.”

She pulled me into a hug, slowly stroking my hair. I never wore my hair long before this past few months, but I’d let it go as I hardly ever had the strength to go anywhere, even before the heart attack. It now hung delicately just at my shoulders.

“We’re all grieving differently honey,” she cooed, trying to be strong for me, I guessed. “Chrissie’s father has been burying himself in his work, and I’ve taken up sewing again. I don’t want to forget her. I’ll never forget her,” she insisted, “But right now, I do what I can to take my mind off the pain because it’s what she would have wanted.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed as Mo- Nancy left the room. What would Christina do? Christina would wrap me in a hug, kiss my cheek, and tell me it would be okay, but what did she do to relax? Well, besides yoga, she painted her toenails. She once joked that painting her nails was to her what meditation was to a Buddhist monk. The slow and methodical act of deliberate strokes with a nail brush required focus and dedication.

I was ready to try anything right now, and given the odd impulses I’d been having to bother Melissa for a bottle earlier in the week, I couldn’t really find an argument against at least trying. Christina’s makeup kits, along with the rest of the things she had taken to college with her, resided in one of many boxes in the closet that I dared not touch, though I felt another odd compulsion. Following it, I knelt down beside the bed, reaching up into the darkness.

A bottle of raspberry sparkle had been suspended from a single piece of twine. A note on the bottle read, “Chrissie, found this in my makeup kit. Hiding it here in the usual place in case you leave yours in the dorm next time you’re home. Love, Melissa.”

I smiled thoughtfully. Christina was so forgetful at times. She’d lose her head if it weren’t so firmly bolted to her neck. I laughed to myself as I sat down on the bed and, drawing my bare foot up, peeled off my sock, planting my foot flat on the bed. As I rested my cheek against the side of my leg, focusing intently on my toes, I began to lose myself in my work.

My mind drifted to happier times. I thought of the fun the three of us had with Christina’s other friends, how excited Melissa always seemed to be hanging out with the ‘older girls’, and how no one seemed to really mind or care that I was a boy. We were all friends. Silly things like gender only mattered when we were going to the bathroom, and even then, I had been dragged more than once into the girls’ room to guard a stall, much to my embarrassment.

“Dinner will be ready in … an…” Mom trailed off as she stared at me. Not only did my toenails now sparkle, I had apparently gone on to do my fingernails as well. I hadn’t even realized I’d done it until her voice roused me from my reverie. I blinked a few times.

“Sorry. It’s just, I-” I fumbled, trying to explain my twisted logic, but she interrupted me.

“No, you don’t have to apologize sweetie. It’s just … Well for a second there, you looked just like Christina,” she spoke in a soft, reverent tone. I felt tears welling up for no explainable reason. I stood to approach her, but she met me halfway, embracing me as I rested my head on her shoulder.

“Chrissie used to talk about how painting her toenails was like her way of meditating,” I sniffed. “You said you guys are coping differently, so I asked myself what she’d do if it were her.”

“I think it helped,” she offered softly, kissing my forehead. “You don’t seem as tense. Hey, do you want to help me make dinner?”

“That sounds like fun. I’d love to.” Granted, I’d never actually cooked before, it did sound like fun. She squeezed my hand as she led me back down the hall.

“I’ll talk to Dean about your nails,” she teased, “But I don’t think he’d give you any trouble anyway. Honestly I’m surprised Chrissie and Melissa never ganged up on you.”

“They threatened to once in awhile,” I laughed, fondly remembering, “But they’ve always been careful with me. It’s so weird. Chrissie gave me a new lease on life. Now I can go jogging without fear of collapsing somewhere away from a phone,” or get involved in cheer at college. Wait, what? Christina was a cheerleader at our state college so that thought didn’t entirely seem alien. She looked so cute in her red-and-white uniform.

Mom smiled gently at me as she set to work on dinner. Utterly clueless as to what I should be doing, I just stood to one side awaiting each instruction as it came then after the bell peppers were ready for the oven, sat at the kitchen table. I couldn’t help staring at my self-manicure, the sparkling nail polish gleaming in the overhead light. I felt so relaxed after finally giving in to these subtle little compulsions.

It’s important to emphasize that I never felt coerced or goaded or anything so bizarre. It just felt ‘right’ to do these things, as weird as they sounded when I let myself think about them. I decided to try an experiment. The next time I had a compulsion, I’d just let myself follow it and see how I felt afterward.

If this was my mind’s way of dealing with my grief, then that’s just the way it would be. I’d get through it eventually, and maybe have a better respect for my friend, and my sister, on the other side.

~oOo~

The strange, subtle impulses I’d been ignoring for the last two weeks since my surgery seemed less strange as I allowed myself to indulge them. Sitting down to use the bathroom, for example, didn’t bother me as much as I had expected, though the desire to take a long, very hot bubble bath on the other hand, I found more difficult. I only ever took showers, so I had some trepidation about boiling myself in hot, soapy water, to say nothing of taking a razor to my legs in the process!

I survived, though. Through bubble bath and scented beads, I truly felt renewed as I stepped out of the tub and carefully patted myself dry. As I picked up a pair of boxer shorts though, I again felt a sense of … off-ness.

There was no way in Hell I was going to do something about that, though. All of Christina’s clothing had been carefully packed up by someone at the school, and Dad stacked them in her closet, but I refused to violate Christina’s privacy like that.

Grumbling to myself that such a thought could even cross my mind, I pulled my sweat pants up, throwing on one of my baggy t-shirts and padded out of the bathroom. I slowly walked into the kitchen. I needed a neutral place to think, which meant my old bedroom wouldn’t work. As I buried my face in my hands, Mom stepped in from the living room.

“I thought I heard you in here. Is everything okay dear?”

I shook my head slowly. “I think I’m losing it,” I whimpered. She rushed to my side and wrapped me in a tight hug. “Oh, sweetheart. Do you want to talk?”

I nodded, turning to bury my face in her midsection as I threw my arms around her. “I-it’s these damned little compulsions.”

“You mean like painting your nails?” she asked, concerned.

“Yes, and wanting to stay in Chrissie’s room, and now, I-I-” I stammered. I closed my eyes tightly. She slowly stroked my still-wet hair, waiting patiently for me to continue.

“I caught myself thinking about going through her boxes for something to wear,” I sobbed. “This isn’t normal. This isn’t just grieving. I think I’m going insane!”

She smiled softly as she leaned down to kiss the top of my head. She pulled me up into her loving embrace.

“Sweetheart… Chrissie was like a sister to you as much as you’ve been like a child to us,” I noted she carefully avoided use of the word ‘son’, but didn’t say anything. “Chrissie loved you with all her heart. She would want you to do whatever you feel will make you happy. We were just going to donate everything to Goodwill without even looking at any of it, but … but if you want to go through her things,” she paused, cupping my face in her hands. I melted at her soft, unconditionally loving smile, “Then you should.”

I gave her a meek smile as I nodded. She made a lot of sense. Melissa and Christina were forever sharing their things. I’d swear I’d see them wearing an outfit one week that the other would wear the next on many occasions. But I still had to wonder if she would really be okay with that.

“You said earlier that I looked like her. Are… Are you sure it’s okay?”

Smiling fondly, she nodded. “It hurts not having her, knowing I’ll never see that precious smile again, but it’s as I’ve said all along honey, she’s a part of you now. Her heart beats in your chest.”

“Thanks, Mommy,” I whimpered as we both burst into tears. We stood, quietly sobbing as we clung to each other for what felt like an eternity.

That night, before I went to bed, I went through Christina’s things and found a simple pair of white panties and a peach colored pajama set. I took her favorite purple hairbrush from another box, sitting on the edge of ‘my’ bed and brushing my hair. Mom appeared in the doorway holding a glass of warm milk. She smiled so softly at me as she approached, and I set my brush aside.

“Here, this will help you sleep. It’s something my mother used to mix up for me when I had trouble sleeping.”

“What’s in it?” I asked as I accepted the glass, yet somehow I already knew. I felt, for the first time, an intense impulse. I felt strongly that I should drink it, and as I did, a warming sensation washed over me. I smiled at her as I handed her the glass, sliding my legs up onto the bed and lying down.

“Honey and cinnamon mostly,” she answered as she pulled the covers up over me. She reached for Christina’s favorite stuffed lion, carefully laying it beside me. As she bent down to kiss my forehead, I smiled a little and whispered.

“Good night Mom.”

“Goodnight Princess,” she whispered back. “We’ll sort all this out, I promise. Just do what you feel is right. It’s what she would want.”

~oOo~

I suddenly found myself in a strange and unfamiliar place, but it still felt kind of relaxing. A big oak tree like the one that now watched over Christina stood tall behind me, and I could see an endless, starry night sky sprawled out overhead.

“I must be dreaming,” I said softly, and blinked. “Was that… is that my voice?!” I sounded female. I giggled. Now I knew I was dreaming, but what a dream!

I felt something tickling my calves and when I looked down, spotted the source. A simple white sundress clung to my newfound curves. Further along, a pair of wedge sandals hugged my feet as though they were handcrafted for me.

I couldn’t explain why, but I felt an overwhelming urge to stay here and wait, as though I were supposed to meet someone here.

I eased myself down, and suddenly felt something beneath my hand. A book? Its gilded pages, bound in rustic leather, seemed at once ancient and brand new. I leafed through a few pages, but I couldn’t focus on the words. I suddenly became aware of a pair of footfalls approaching, and a familiar voice: one that I never thought I’d hear again.

“What’s Melissa doing here?” Christina asked in surprise.

“I’m not Melissa,” I answered, smiling up at her. I giggled as I stood to hug her.

“John?”

“Kind of,” I answered gently. I still hadn’t gotten used to this girlish voice, but I kind of liked it.

“Oh God. John I’m so sorry,” she wailed. Suddenly her knees buckled, but I’d already been on the approach to hug her so I managed to catch her in my arms. I pulled her close, and another giggle escaped. I couldn’t help it. I was just so happy to see her again.

“Don’t be sorry, Chrissie!” I answered cheerfully, beaming a smile that could melt the coldest heart. It felt so good to hold her again, just one more time.

“John, please forgive me. I had no idea-” she tried to protest, but I cut her off.

“I told you, stop apologizing! It’s okay, really. I’m just so happy to see you again.” I had to hold her out at arm’s length to look her over again. This felt too real to be a dream. “It is you, isn’t it?” I asked, hopeful.

Until now I had been ignoring the younger girl with her. Despite the pigtails I had to guess the other girl, dressed in a cute blue sundress, had to be about seventeen or eighteen. She stepped closer to us and smiled reassuringly.

“Yes, it is her John. Think of me as an intercessor. We can’t stay, but in order for you both to move on, this meeting was necessary.”

“John, this isn’t you,” Christina sobbed as she wrapped her arms around me. “I did this to you. I’m so sorry. Please, please forgive me!” What was she talking about? She gave me my life!

“There’s nothing to forgive,” I told her as gently as I could manage. “You saved my life, Chrissie. I’m the one who should be feeling guilty. You had to die for me to live,” I practically whimpered.

“No, John. Don’t blame yourself. Never, ever blame yourself.”

The other girl moved a step closer. “She’s going to be okay, John. I promise. You have to let her go for her to be able to let you go, okay? You will see one another again.”

I bit my lip. There was something I just had to ask. I’d thought about this all afternoon. I knew it felt sudden, but I couldn’t escape or deny how much closer I felt to both my Angel and Christina now. I didn’t want to give that up.

“Um, just one thing,” I hesitantly asked. They nodded in unison. “If I want to keep dressing like this, may I?”

Christina laughed. She laughed! “What?”

“Don’t laugh!” I teased, poking her lightly in the chest to put a point on my statement even as I smiled at her to show I wasn’t really upset. “Chrissie, I feel closer to you and Angel than I have in a long time. I feel like I’m part of some sort of secret club guys aren’t supposed to be a part of. I don’t want to let that go.”

She nodded happily as she leaned closer to kiss my forehead. I gave her a light squeeze in response. “Of course. Do whatever you have to do to find happiness, but please do find that happiness. Don’t mourn me anymore. I’ll wait for you on the other side, when it’s your time, and not a day sooner, okay?”

“Not a day sooner,” I answered happily as I gave her one last sisterly hug. “I love you sis.”

“I love you too, ‘sis’,” she teased. I felt a little blush in my cheeks as she giggled.

The other girl took her by the hand and smiled gently. “It’s time, Christina. I’m sorry.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“When it’s your time, you’ll see us both. Remember to live life to its fullest, so that when your time comes, you’re ready to let go too.” The girl responded. She leaned up to kiss my cheek cheek. I could still feel the warmth of her lips as I smiled and waved.. They stepped away, turned, and she squeezed Christina’s hand. “Let’s go home.”

I woke early the next morning. Darkness pervaded my surroundings. Was that all just a dream? Did that really happen? In the distance, I heard a lilted giggle. I suddenly became aware of something in my hands that felt rough, almost like rustic leather.

I reached out over the nightstand, turning on Christina’s lamp, to find the book from my dreams. I clutched it to my chest as I sat in silence, smiling fondly.