Writing

If I were to say “justice” or “courage,” it would conjure up something in your mind. Something different, perhaps, than what I would see in my mind. I could ask my friends, my parents, my teachers, my neighbors.

Look, she's awake!

I pointed to daikon girl,

seeing her awakened on a bed in a cell we'd come into after a certain 

paintbrush showed us the way.

I want you to stay here with me.
Even if it's only in this world, I'm alive, you get to see me all the time! that's better than the real world, isn't it?
I want to stay with you.

Why?
Why would you want to stay here with a stranger?

I already knew the answer.

The same reason I hadn't jumped off the edge to fight his killer,

or screamed in that perfect classroom.

His voice was too light, when he said that.

His movements too easy,

his eyes held no shadows of a boy who had to agree to death,

just the annoyance of a teenager finding someone crying in his classroom.

No.

I can't do that.

I can't kill him.

I can't watch him die,

not again.

And this is him,

the real number 3.