Dr. Ein asked.What? Did you say something?“This is a pretty big step we’re taking.”What are you talking about? What big step?Casey felt herself slipping back and forth between the cracks of consciousness and sleep. She’d been dreaming about Janine, the years they’d spent rooming together at college. She wasn’t ready to wake up, to leave her younger, more carefree—careless?—self behind. She wasn’t ready for any big steps.“Once we disconnect this last wire, you’ll be officially breathing on your own,” the doctor announced.I’m sorry. Did you say something?Casey saw herself sitting on Janine’s bed in the small two-bedroom apartment they once shared. The apartment was on the top floor of a three-story brownstone, located half a mile off the Brown University campus, on a tree-lined street full of once-stately old homes that now functioned as extended university residences, housing a steady succession of undergraduate and graduate students.“What’s he saying?”
