ALPHA DOM AND HIS HUMAN SURROGATE

lations, Ms. Navarro, in approximate

ithout h

the pen hits paper, your hand doesn't shake. Your eyes don't water. You just sign, cap the pen, and slide the clipboar

you,"

e when they're relieved a patient isn't cryi

m complet

I wouldn't recognize Gia Ferrante's number, my supposed best friend, a woman I'd known since college. Two years of messages. I'd stood in our bathroom holding his

nt to keep. Fallin

till

front desk. She's young, enthusiastic, the kind of person who hasn't yet learned tha

l take all the crosse

more than

anding. I'm used to it. I've been standing on my own since I was nineteen, the year my mother died and left me a small apartment, a stack

ver it.

build yourself because no one else is going to build it for you. And then Marco walked into my life and for four years I let myself

n I learned my window was closing faster than I'd expected, and we sat in a consultation room

ointment. I thought it was because of the

about a lo

my hands in my coat pockets and my face tipped down against the cold. I don't let myself think abou

one thought and

It has to h

et it ha

right when I'm heating up s

before I even ge

l, w

ll

The procedur

ontrolled explosion. "I can't believe you did it. I can't belie

unger than you, P

dead. How do you feel? Are you ok

e. Marco moved out six days ago. He doesn't know why, exactly. I told him I needed space. I told him the appointment had me in my head. I told him a lot of carefu

e," I te

ways sa

I'm alw

ves me too much to push right now. "Call me if you need

I say. "

nd I haven't figured out how to feel about that yet. The apartment is quiet in the specific way that emp

nst my stomach, just for a seco

something. "It's just us. I know that's not the plan we star

bed beli

ter, the cl

ile. Dr. Maddox himself, which is the first sign that something is wron

hen someone has been practicing what to say. "I need to ask you to come

the phone. "Is the p

sful. This is umm ... it's a separate matter. An admini

istra

ting for me in that office is not small. I schedule the appointment for two o'clock, hang up, and stand in the middle o

t on my c

light of his office, and he can't quite hold eye contact, a

something this clinic takes with the utmost seriousness, and we are fully

Not willing to let anyone see the

ells

donor I selected. They discovered it during a routine internal audit.

and somewhere behind my sternum something very large an

mple was

esit

behind

tu

set hard, which is exactly what it's doing right now. He's wearing a charcoal suit that costs more than my monthly rent and he's looking at me the way I look at cri

omething about the way he stands makes introduction

, his voice fraying at the edg

eyes don't

thing else moves, something I have no name for, something that has nothing to

ossibly, like