“How do you do it?”

He looked startled. “Do what?”

“Just…create. Something out of nothing. There aren’t many people who can do that, you know. Gods, parents, and artists.”

“Poetic” Alex laughed quietly, and he joined her. But it slowly faded into a frown. “I’ve always thought it had to do with feeling. Empathy, you know? And an unhealthy love for story.” Ty winced. “Sorry, you don’t want to hear about all this.”

“I asked,” Alex said. “And I like it.”

Ty shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t write anymore.” Alex started at that, trying to sit up. Her arm gave out and she fell back into bed, stifling a groan. Ty leaned forward immediately. “What can I—” 

“Just talk,” Alex said. “Why did you stop writing?”

He swallowed. It pained Alex to know that she was hurting him—a silly paradox, since it was her pain that hurt him—but there was nothing to be done. Everyone was helpless against disease. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “It just sort of happened. One day I could write, and the next day it was gone.”

“Gone?”

Ty shrugged. “I didn’t—I mean, I used to write short stories. Poems. That sort of thing. And they were good. Not perfect or anything, but good.” He smiled faintly, his eyes focused on something distant and strange. Alex’s heart lightened to see him smile. “I had friends who loved them. People who’d read everything I wrote and tell me how amazing it was, how it made them feel. You hear about writer’s block, but I don’t think that’s what it was.”

Alex leaned back, her eyes fluttering closed as her exhaustion took hold. “I’m still listening,” she murmured. “Keep talking. What was it?” Ty’s voice floated above her. She focused on it, forcing it to be more important than her headache. 

“I haven’t thought about it as much as I should have. I still love story in all its forms, but I never have time for it anymore. So that’s probably part of it. But the main thing, I think, is that I lost that empathy.” Alex heard Ty take a deep breath. “You remember that my grandma died last year.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I never cried for her. It wasn’t even me being tough or anything; I just…never felt sad.” 

Alex’s eyes fluttered open. “Didn’t you love her?”

“Of course!” Ty glanced away. “I’ve never told anyone this. It’s so hard to explain. I loved her so much—still do—but she was always so distant. I mean, she lived a full six hours away. Her dying didn’t really change my life that much. And—well, I know you aren’t religious. But I’ve always known that I’d see her again, and it didn’t really matter. I don’t know if that’s cruel, but it’s what I felt. What I still feel.” Ty broke off sharply, his mortification filling the silence. “I—sorry—that was stupid—”

Alex glared up at him. “It wasn’t,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to die.” Ty nodded, but he still looked heartbroken. “I’m _not. _Just you wait. And as soon as I’m better, I’ll hit you around for thinking that.”

“Right,” Ty said.

Alex let out a breath. “So you weren’t sad. It’s a strange religion, one that doesn’t let you mourn your family.”

Ty winced. “No, it’s…” he let out a huff of air. “I’m explaining it all wrong. It isn’t that my God won’t let me mourn. It’s more that…He lets me not have to. That’s not it either. I think it’s less about Him and more about me. I have this disconnect with my emotions, Alex. I can talk myself out of—or into—most feelings.”

“How do you talk yourself into a feeling?” Alex laughed, then immediately regretted it. 

“I know my triggers,” Ty said. “I know what will make me miserable, and I focus on it. It used to be that I could do that for other people too. I’d tell myself their stories in my head, imagine all of it, and then it would just…bleed out of me and onto the page.”

Alex nodded, allowing the silence to spread. The fan above her rattled, and she could hear cars outside the window. Cars with people, and people with stories. Where had they come from, and where were they going? Which ones were hurting, and which ones were celebrating? Alex found herself hit with a wave of nausea as she tried to picture it all. Every person in the entire world, each with a story of their own. 

“It desensitizes you,” she realized. “Feeling for every person burns you out.”

“That’s a good way of putting it.”

Alex frowned. “Is it better, feeling nothing? No more hurt, right?” She watched Ty closely, but the light above him cast his face into shadow. She could barely make out his eyes. 

“No.” The word was nearly a whisper. “The tears are worth it, because they give you stories to tell. Stories you couldn’t tell, if you’d never felt that pain.”

Alex blinked up at him. She’d never seen him this vulnerable before. “There’s a power in that,” she said thoughtfully. “In staying outside the emotion, but still feeling it.”

Ty smiled, and a kind of understanding passed between them. “I’ll let you rest,” he said. “You’ll be better before we know it.”

Alex nodded tiredly. “Thank you,” she said as she drifted off. “For talking.”