"I'm fine." Her voice steadied a fraction. She hadn't let go. "I don't. I'm not usually. This isn't."
"I know."
"I don't do this."
"I know."
"I thought you were dead." She said it small, and the crack was back, and her fingers tightened in my jacket one more time. "You promised. You said we. You said we'd figure it out. And then you jumped off a cliff on the news and I sat in this apartment for three days and I couldn't tell anyone why I was. Why it mattered. Because who would I even. Everyone thinks you're just my roommate."
The graft pulsed once, slow and warm, and somewhere in a Santa Barbara workshop I imagined a pale blue ring on a crystal plate flickering, ticking up, occupying a frequency range none of the others covered.
"I'm right here," I said. "I came home."
