His name grew heavy in the air until the doctor cleared his throat and said something I couldn’t translate. “What day of the week is it, Mila?” Ronan asked. “I, uh... Fri—?” I cut myself off when he shook his head with a hint of a smile. I tried again. “Saturday?” The doctor made a hmm noise, apparently not impressed with this man helping me. No surprise. Doctors were no fun. “How many fingers am I holding up?” Ronan translated. I stared at his other hand resting on his knee, at the tattoos on his fingers in between the first and second knuckles. One was a cross, another a raven. The third, a king of hearts playing card. Ink and déja vu. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I couldn’t stop myself from touching him, from drawing an index finger down the tattooed raven. The whispered words were pushed from my depths by an irresistible force. “Darkness there, and nothing more . . .” The quote condensed the space between us, dipped in something as thick and dark as tar. I was sucked back into a tunnel, reading Edgar Allan Poe under my papa’s desk, with dirt on my face and uneven bangs I’d cut myself. Papa was speaking to Ms. Marta, my childhood tutor, unaware I was near. He was concerned about my imaginary friends and lack of real ones, my introversion, and my disinterest in schoolwork. He thought something was wrong with me. I thought so too. Those whispered words in the hall coiled inside me like a snake sinking its fangs in and slowly spreading poison as the years passed by. Poison that sent me on a warpath to acceptance. Sometimes, it was the little things that made us who we were. The heavy, empathetic look in Ronan’s eyes tightened my stomach like the click of a trigger. I didn’t expect him to understand what I said, but he did. I knew he did. “Sleduyushchiy vopros,” Ronan said. Next question. The doctor frowned. “U tebya yest’ sem’ya, s kotoroy ya mogu svyazat’sya?” “How old are you, moy kotyonok?”