The thing about happiness is you never know when you're living the last moment of it.I'm folding my favorite sweater, the gray one with the hole in the left sleeve that I refuse to throw away, when Mom bursts through my bedroom door like she's won the lottery. Maybe she has. Her cheeks are flushed, eyes bright with something I haven't seen in five years. Hope, maybe. Or delusion."Aria, sweetheart, you're not even packed yet?"I glance at the three boxes scattered across my floor, half-filled with books and clothes that smell like our tiny apartment. Like home. "I'm getting there."She crosses the room in four steps. That's how small this place is. You can measure everything in steps, in breaths, in the space between what we have and what we've lost. Her hands land on my shoulders, and I feel the tremor in her fingers. Excitement or fear. With Mom, it's hard to tell the difference anymore."This is going to change everything," she says, and her voice cracks on the last word. "Everyth
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