Haley Cross &
Fear of Missing Out by Kate McGovern

I close my eyes and watch bits of light dance behind my eyelids. They look like the Perseids, pieces of burning comet debris rocketing through the night sky. Or shooting stars.

My tumor made of stars.

The view from here is beautiful.

My brain is broken. But my mind?

My mind is all mine. Strong enough still to make my own choices.

Now I understand that we're both going to start telling each other lies we hope will turn out to be true.

"It's a lot of time."

"Okay."

"Okay, so, it's a lot of time away from you."

There it is. Time. Time we don’t have. Time we can't waste.

"What is time, though?" I ask, stroking an imaginary goatee. "Time is but a social contract."

"Time is everything. I promised you I was all in. I want to be all in."

"Well, I'd give you the money if I had it. But since I don't... I give you the Internet."

"Astrid," Mom says, finally breaking the silence in our more-than-a-decade-old Honda. "It's okay. This is just a hiccup."

It feels like an impossible intrusion, like someone else's journal or checking their email, listening to my mother's private grief. The part she doesn't want me to see. I have to shut it out before it sucks me in and I can't think about anything else.

Things of beauty, and instruments of death.