Sam Bett

Just seeing you, though, I feel, I dunno, happamine.”

It was every face of Makiko I’d ever known—the one who laughed and cried with me, who ran up to greet me the second she saw me, who sat in the park in her uniform and rode off on her bike, who shut her eyes tight and cried through the entire wake, who took money straight out of her pay envelope to buy me new indoor shoes for school, who sat there, all alone, in her hospital bed after giving birth to her daughter, who was always there for me—every side of her was smiling now.

I almost never feel like everything’s okay, but just because most of my life feels wrong doesn’t mean that’s how I want it to be.