Grace smiles and slides the remote over. She pauses for a moment, as she does every time she leaves. Should she hug him? Should she rest her hand on the thin gown that covers him up and reassure him she’ll be back tomorrow?

I love you, Dad, she pictures herself saying. Get some rest, Dad. It’ll be okay, Dad.

She sighs and lugs her backpack over her shoulder. If she hurries, she can eat in the hospital cafeteria before class. Maybe she has time to look over her research notes. She hovers in the doorway. She will leave, and Colonel will still fight his shadows. There are no words of reassurance for that.

“Good night, Porter,” he says finally, and she ducks her head and hurries out. She hears him huff and shift in the bed. “Turn this TV up, my ass,” he mutters, but as Grace leaves, the volume goes up. Slowly, but it does.

She looks for a table in the cafeteria. She has work to review for class, and research for Professor MacMillan’s lab, and an opening shift at the tea room tomorrow. There will likely be no sleep, so she takes solace in the quiet now. Not a substitute, but all she has come to expect.

Ximena is sitting at a corner table. She has a book on her knees, something small and worn, and she smiles at Grace when she walks over.

“Hello, army brat,” she says. “You can sit down if you want. You’re better company than the tech that keeps trying to touch my hair. It’s like she wants to die or something.”

Grace sits. Ximena is in those lavender scrubs, and she smells like sharp, chemical soap and something soft and calming, like jasmine. She wears her hair in two haphazard buns, some of the textured curls framing her face. She looks warm and kind under the constellation of freckles. Grace can see why Colonel likes her.

“Reading anything good?” Grace asks. She holds her bag across her chest like a shield.

Ximena sets the book down. “Trying to read more Afro-Dominican women authors. Gotta support my culture, you know,” she says. “You speak Spanish?”

“Sorry, no,” Grace says, and then, to fill the silence that makes her skin prickle, “I’m Grace, by the way. Or Porter. Whichever.”

Ximena nods, but she takes her book and sits back. “I know,” she says. “Colonel talks about you all the time.”

Grace blinks. “He talks to you?”

Ximena shrugs, playing with her food. “Not much,” she says. “But he says you’re busy with school. Says you’re gonna be a big-time doctor soon. I figured maybe I should shoot my shot and see if you’re single and rich.”

Grace huffs. “Not quite.” She turns her textbook around. “I’m getting my master’s in astronomy. Then starting my doctorate in the fall.” In a fit of courage, she plucks a fry from Ximena’s plate. “I think he’s still in the denial phase.”

“That’s too bad,” Ximena says. “He talked you up real good. Are you at least single? I can work with a doctorate.”

Grace feels her face heat up. Ximena watches her, openly teasing. “I don’t have time for—girls.” She gestures at Ximena’s plate. “I barely have time to eat.”

Ximena pushes her food over. “Eat, then,” she says. “And maybe you can tell me about—” she tilts her head to look at Grace’s notes “—vector light fields. Talk dirty to me, baby.”

She lets Grace eat her cold fries and the other half of her sandwich. Grace talks astronomy to her, and Ximena listens. This is how it begins.

Ximena waits for her when she leaves Colonel’s hospital room. They eat lunch or dinner at their table in the cafeteria. She sits on the same side as Grace and asks, “What, do you work at Starbucks or something? Why do you always smell like Canelita tea?”

They get comfortable with the weight of each other. Ximena invites Grace to her apartment after she gets out of class, and they stay up late watching straight people on Hallmark.

Ximena practices her tarot readings on Grace, her face lit up by the blue light of the TV.

“My tia taught me this,” she says, carefully setting up the deck. “She’s a real badass witch, like does hexes and shit.” Grace watches, fascinated. “Okay, what I think it’s saying is you’re going to meet important people.” She stares at the cards. “They’re going to change you.”

Grace, who is going over her notes after class as usual, fights back a smile, huddled on Ximena’s ratty couch.

“Important people, huh,” she says, and Ximena looks up and meets her eyes. “I could see that, yeah.”

Meanwhile, Colonel’s leg starts to heal. He gets fitted for a titanium contraption that he hates. He grips her hand as it sets into place, showing pain that Grace wonders if she will ever see from him again. There is sweat on his forehead, dripping down his temples, when he attempts to stand on it for the first time. Afterward, Ximena sits next to Grace until she stops shaking, and Raj comes to pick her up.

Ximena and Grace move in together, pooling their meager funds to rent a two bedroom with a shitty balcony and an ugly cactus. Grace comes home to face masks in the kitchen over cheap wine. She comes home to review her notes cross-legged on the toilet seat while Ximena soaks her aching feet in the tub and makes Grace read the passages out loud. Grace builds her own contented universe away from Colonel and Sharone and that big, quiet house.

And then, they meet Agnes.