"You know, when I was a kid I thought I'd be half way 'round the world by now."

"Then why are you still here?"

Now that was an exceptionally good question.

Clara looked down at her fingers that were pinching each other nervously. She bit her lip and raised her gaze, looking anywhere but his eyes. She found it difficult to look him in the face, which was preposterous because she'd been doing it all evening. Something was bothering her, though. Maybe it was the unsettling observation that his eyes seemed so much older than his face, or maybe it was the fact that they were suddenly venturing into dangerous territory, and things were starting to feel rather unbalanced.

But she couldn't just say nothing. She had told herself that she was going to attempt to be more honest. Not with other people, Clara had no problem with that. She had promised that she was going to be more honest with herself. So she lifted her eyes from his checkered bowtie to his face and said, "26 R4 SG." She had written that sequence, typed it, recited it in her head over a million times but she had never once said it out loud. It made her anxious, although she couldn't figure out why.

The man in front of her tilted his head slightly and his right cheek pulled his mouth into a crooked smile.

"And what does that mean?" He asked. His voice was low and on the verge of gravelly, as if he knew she wasn't going to answer but enjoyed the game anyway.

Clara folded her arms in front of her chest in order to stop her hands from shaking. Her lips moved into a smirk.

"You're clever, I'm sure you'll figure it out." She said, and with that, she turned around and entered her apartment building.

The man-who was all limbs and surprisingly little balance-swayed in amused silence for several seconds after the door closed. He was still smiling.

"I do wish you would stop ending conversations that way," he told the door, "but I suppose you're right." He spun toward the street and straightened his bowtie, "I am extremely clever."

Six Days Earlier

"Honey, you don't need that much butter on your popcorn, I promise."

Clara looked over at a tired but smiling mother as she lifted a very large tub of butter-soaked popcorn out of her daughter's hands. Clara smiled in spite of herself.

"Miss?" The young man on the other side of the counter tried to get her attention.

"Clara!" Angie elbowed her not-too-softly in the side.

"Right! Sorry, got distracted," Clara could physically feel Angie's eyes roll upwards as she handed over money for the drinks. She was really only buying them because she had already stuffed her purse full with so many bags of chips and candy that any bottles of soda just wouldn't fit. She handed Angie and Artie their drinks as they headed for the theatre.

"You're welcome," she said.

"Thanks Clara," they said in unison. Clara grinned.

The theatre was unexpectedly full when they entered. After a few uncomfortable seconds of searching, Clara found three seats next to each other right beside the aisle.

"Clara, could you sit on the inside?" Artie whispered. Clara put her hand on his shoulder as an answer. She performed the awkward sideways shuffle that was required to get to the seat. When she sat down she was surprised to hear a voice hardly above a whisper come from her right.

"Hello," it said. Clara's eyebrows twitched toward each other in confusion until she realized the man sitting next to her had said it.

"Hello," she whispered back. Clara turned away from him as the lights dimmed for the previews and she found herself smiling. She loved kind strangers, absolutely adored them in fact.

The movie trailer filled the theatre with a chorus of violins and then erupted in a crescendo of brass as the shots quickly cut from scene to scene. Clara glanced over at the man sitting next to her. His lips were parted and a wide, childish grin stretched across his face. He was even leaning forward in his seat a little and despite only knowing this man for a total of fifty-three seconds, Clara had to admit she found the act a bit endearing.

The rest of the movie proceeded in a similar fashion. Even though the beginning was awfully slow and somewhat cheesy, once it hit its stride it never stopped. She was grabbing onto the armrest with such a grip that you would think she was drowning and hanging on for dear life. When the end credits started rolling it took her a few seconds to remember how to unclench her fingers.

Clara heard the enthusiastic man next to her whisper, "Absolutely fantastic," and she couldn't agree more.

Three minutes into the credits the kids decided it was time to leave and they started walking down the uneven sized steps of the theatre. The lights had brightened a bit so Clara turned back to glance at the stranger she was sitting next to. He was very… long. Legs, arms, chin, you name it. And his hair was styled in a way she had never seen before, she couldn't even begin to describe it. Wait, yes she could. It was a floof. It started at one side of his head and went 'floof' over to the other. She grinned at her thought process until she realized she was still staring at him so she quickly turned around and nearly knocked Artie off his feet.

"Sorry!" She grabbed his shoulder to stop him from falling down.

"Forget how to walk, did you?" He teased.

"Oh shut it," Clara smacked him lightly on the arm.

The rest of the day did not go as smoothly. It started, as it often did, with Clara requesting that Angie do something. In this case, it was to turn the television off and help her with the dishes. And Angie responded, as she often did, with an angry comment about how Clara was not her mother, only this time she seemed exceedingly hostile.

"I wasn't trying to-" Clara started.

"Just shut up Clara! Honestly, you've been here for almost a year and somehow you manage to get even more annoying every single day! You know, nobody asked me if I was okay with you bossing me around all the time. Do you have any idea how insanely obnoxious you can be? So no, I won't help with the dishes. You can do them because it's your job," Angie yelled. She pushed herself off the couch and bolted up the stairs so fast Clara thought she could see a cloud of dust rise behind her.

"Angie!" Clara called after her.

"Just leave me alone!"

Clara stood by the sink in stunned silence. She had experience with moody teenagers, but Angie had never said anything like that before. She was about to go upstairs and ask what was going on until her eyes found the calendar. She closed her lips and exhaled through her nose. Of course. Clara knew what Angie was doing, and she couldn't say she blamed her.

Clara gave Angie half an hour to herself before she figured she should go talk to her. She walked upstairs and used one knuckle to tap on Angie's door.

"Angie?" She tried.

"Clara, I already told you I'm not doing the dishes."

"No, it's not about that," Clara said. "I know what tomorrow is, and I understand why you yelled."

"No you don't," Angie said.

"Can I come in please?" Clara asked. She was met with silence, just enough to think that maybe Angie had fallen asleep until she answered.

"Whatever."

Clara pushed the door open and found Angie sitting on the floor with her back against her bed and her knees pulled up to her chest. Without a word, Clara sat down next to her.

"Are you gonna yell at me again if I start talking to you?" She asked.

"No."

A few seconds of silence.

"It's been a year since you lost her," Clara stated.

"Three hundred sixty-four days," Angie said. Clara looked at her hands in her lap.

"And every time I tell you to do something it makes you think that she should be here. That she should be the one telling you to do it instead," Clara said quietly. "And it breaks your heart." She looked over at Angie. "Am I right?"

Clara noticed Angie kept swallowing over and over again, as if to keep herself from crying. She was shivering too. She leaned over and rested her head on Clara's shoulder.

"I miss my mum, Clara," her voice shook and she started crying. "I miss her so much."

Clara took one of Angie's hands in her own and kissed the top of her head.

"I just don't know what to do," Angie whispered.

"Well, for starters, you're going to sit with me and you're going to cry because it hurts, and because it mattered. Because she mattered. Then when your exhaustion outweighs your sadness, you're going to go to bed. And then, for the rest of your life, you're going to live. You're going to learn. You're going to explore and discover and graduate and fall in love and stay up all night watching reruns of old TV shows and go to the shop at two in the morning to buy ice cream just because you can. Your mother gave you your life you know, so it's your responsibility to use every single day of it, and you're going to remember her forever and always. That's what you're going to do," Clara said. Her eyes started to sting and her throat had started to hurt but she swallowed it down.

"Will it ever get any easier?" Angie asked. What a difficult question. Clara thought about it for a moment.

"I think so, yeah. After a while, when the empty feeling starts to fill itself up again, it gets a bit easier. You might move on, you might not, but you know that little ache in your stomach that you get when you remember what her laugh sounded like? That never really goes away. And that's okay. It's just a reminder that she did her job well, maybe even a little too well." Clara answered. Angie sat quietly for a while, absorbing Clara's words like gospel.

"How is it that you always know exactly what to say?" She asked. Clara smiled.

"I took a class at University," she said. She decided not to bring her own mother into this. Angie already knew that Clara's mum died when Clara was sixteen, and neither of them needed reminding. But truthfully Clara knew exactly what to say because she'd been giving herself the same advice for nearly eight years.