Chapter 20: Cheer Up

There wasn’t much I wanted to take with me to the human world. I stood in my bedroom, scanning the few things of value I had, wondering if they had any meaning at all. Father had items from Earth delivered to my room on a daily basis. Clothes, books, music, jewelry - his attempt to dictate how I should dress, act, and think. That I adopted a strictly minimalist approach to life drove Father wild with frustration. Still, he’d send up what few additional items he thought would befit me. Or anger me. The only stuff I had any attachment to were an afghan I’d had for as long as I could remember, The Summer Tree, the book Aaron gave me the day I’d tripped over his feet in the library, and his coat.

It hung in my closet, all the other clothes pushed away from it like death was catching. Because that’s what the coat stood for. Aaron had given it to me - something to remember him by, he’d said - the night he drove toward his death.