“I’m not here for the view,” I reply.

“I always think that, too,” the girl says, laughing.

“But people get particular about these kinds of things. That’ll be twenty-five dollars.”

I throw down my credit card and enter the cool, dim theater. I slide into my seat and close my eyes, remembering the last time I went to a cello concert somewhere this fancy. Five years ago, on our first date. Just as I did that night, I feel this mad rush of anticipation, even though I know that unlike that night, tonight I won’t kiss her. Or touch her. Or even see her up close.

Tonight, I’ll listen. And that’ll be enough.

Mia woke up after four days, but we didn’t tell her until the sixth day. It didn’t matter because she seemed to already know. We sat around her hospital bed in the ICU, her taciturn grandfather having drawn the short straw, I guess, because he was the one chosen to break the news that her parents, Kat and Denny, had been killed instantly in the car crash that had landed her here.

And that her little brother, Teddy, had died in the emergency room of the local hospital where he and Mia had been brought to before Mia was evacuated to Portland.

Nobody knew the cause of the crash. Did Mia have any memory of it?

Mia just lay there, blinking her eyes and holding onto my hand, digging her nails in so tightly it seemed like she’d never let me go. She shook her head and quietly said “no, no, no,” over and over again, but without tears, and I wasn’t sure if she was answering her grandfather’s question or just negating the whole situation. No!

But then the social worker stepped in, taking over in her no-nonsense way. She told Mia about the operations she’d undergone so far, “triage, really, just to get you stable, and you’re doing remarkably well,” and then talked about the surgeries that she’d likely be facing in the coming months: First a surgery to reset the bone in her left leg with metal rods.