The question comes on a Tuesday.

They are sitting on the roof of the school gym. It is not allowed. Students are not supposed to be here. But Lin Mei knows how to pick locks. She learned in the factory, from a woman who taught her that locks are just puzzles and puzzles can be solved if you are patient enough.

Little Mei is sitting beside her, legs dangling over the edge. The wind is cold. The sky is grey. The city spreads out below them like a map of everything they have never been allowed to want.

"Why are you helping me?"

The question hangs in the air. It is simple. It is direct. It is the question that Lin Mei has been dreading since the moment she woke up in this body, in this room, in this life that is not hers.

She doesn't answer. She looks at the city. At the smoke rising from the factory chimneys in the distance. At the apartment buildings where people live lives she will never know. At the roads that lead everywhere and nowhere.

"You don't have to answer," Little Mei says. Her voice is careful. Her voice is kind. "I just. I don't understand. No one has ever. No one has ever helped me before. Not without wanting something back."

"I don't want anything back," Lin Mei says. It is the truth. It is also a lie. She wants everything back. She wants her life back. She wants her mother back. She wants the years that were stolen from her, the years she spent working and sleeping and waiting to die.

"Everyone wants something," Little Mei says. "That's the first rule. The first rule of being poor. Everyone wants something. And if they say they don't, they're lying."

"I'm not lying," Lin Mei says. "But I also can't tell you the truth. Not yet. Not all of it."

Little Mei is quiet. The wind blows her hair across her face. She doesn't push it away. She has stopped hiding her face. She has stopped making herself smaller. It is a small change. But it is a real change. And Lin Mei notices it.

"Partial truth," Little Mei says. "I'll take that."

Lin Mei smiles. It is a sad smile. A tired smile. A smile that has traveled a long distance to get here.

"I knew someone like you," Lin Mei says. "A long time ago. Someone who was invisible. Someone who was afraid. Someone who wrote poetry in a notebook and believed no one would ever read it."

"What happened to her?" Little Mei asks.

"She died," Lin Mei says. The words come out before she can stop them. The truth, slipping through the cracks in her armor. "She died thinking she was nothing. She died never knowing that she mattered."

Little Mei is very still. The wind is very cold. The city is very far away.

"I'm sorry," Little Mei says.

"Don't be sorry," Lin Mei says. "Be angry. Be angry that the world made her believe she was nothing. Be angry that no one saw her. Be angry that she spent her whole life waiting for permission to exist and the permission never came."

"Is that why you're helping me?" Little Mei asks. "Because you couldn't help her?"

Lin Mei looks at her. At this girl who is too perceptive for her own good. At this girl who sees too much and says too little. At this girl who is her, in every way that matters.

"Yes," Lin Mei says. "That's exactly why."

Little Mei nods. She doesn't ask more questions. She understands. She understands in a way that only someone who has been invisible can understand. She understands that some debts can never be repaid, that some losses can never be healed, that some grief can only be carried.

"I'm not her," Little Mei says. "The girl you knew. I'm not her."

"I know," Lin Mei says. "But you could have been. And that's enough."

They sit in silence. The wind blows. The city breathes. The world turns.

"Will you tell me the whole truth someday?" Little Mei asks.

"Someday," Lin Mei says. "When you're ready. When I'm ready. When the world is ready to believe impossible things."

"I believe impossible things," Little Mei says. "I write poetry. Believing impossible things is the whole point."

Lin Mei laughs. It is a real laugh. A surprised laugh. A laugh that she didn't know her body could still produce.

"You're going to be okay," Lin Mei says. "You know that? You're going to be more than okay. You're going to be extraordinary."

Little Mei looks at her. Her eyes are brown. The same brown as the earth. The same brown as hope.

"Only if you stay," Little Mei says. "Promise me you'll stay."

Lin Mei doesn't answer. She can't answer. She doesn't know if she can stay. She doesn't know if this body will last. She doesn't know if she will wake up tomorrow in the same room, in the same life, or if she will disappear like smoke, like a dream, like something that was never real.

"I promise," she says. It is a lie. It is also the only truth she has left.