Mia Torres knew she did not have much longer.
       She would've known even if the doctors hadn't told her. She could feel it.
       Six months ago, she'd been able to climb the four flights to her tiny walk-up without stopping. Now she could barely make it five steps without pausing to rest; her shoulder slumped against the wall as she gasped for breath.
       The other tenants in her building would turn and stare as they squeezed past her on the stairs, but none of them ever offered to help or stopped to ask what was wrong, which was fine with Mia. It stopped her having to be rude, telling them to keep walking and mind their own business.
       There was so little of her left. She didn't want to risk it on a stranger.

       Her mother had taken the largest part when Mia was only seven. The rest had been given away in bits--almost always to men who hadn't deserved them--until there was hardly anything left. Just a small, dark lump, barely larger than an almond.
       She'd watched on the echo's as it shrank, each time Dr. Chokshi urging her to be more careful, reminding Mia that a condition like hers had to be constantly managed.
       When he'd given her the latest scan, the doctor hadn't said anything. He just handed Mia the image of the small lump in her chest and looked down at his hands.
       "How much longer do I have?" she asked.
       Leaning against the edge of his desk, Dr. Chokshi looked down at the scan. "If you're careful? Nine months. Maybe less."
       That had been eight weeks ago. When he told her, it had seemed so short. Not even another year. Now, as she stood on the second floor, leaning against the wall for support, Mia doubted whether she would even make it another month.

       She was sitting cross-legged on the rug in her living room--halfway through the modified yoga routine that she did each night before dinner--when she heard a knock on her door.
       Mia reached over and tapped her phone, pausing the recorded voice of the instructor. She preferred to do yoga at home by herself. It eliminated the chances of her becoming friends with any of the other students in a class.
       The man standing outside her door was skinny and handsome with dark skin. "Mia, right?" he said, as soon as she had opened the door.
       "Yeah," she said, leaning against it.
       He held up a stack of letters. "I think I got some of your mail. I'm in 204 downstairs, but I keep getting stuff for 402. I think the mailman is a little dyslexic."
       "Oh, thanks." Mia took the thick stack of letters.
       "I'm Bashir, by the way. I don't think we've ever met."
       "Okay," she said and shut the door.

       The first time they realized something was wrong was when Mia fell off the slide at the park.
       It was a month after her mother left. Mia's dad had taken her to the park at the end of the block to cheer her up. She climbed up to the top of the slide, her dad waiting at the bottom to catch her, when her whole body suddenly went slack and she pitched, head first, over the side. She fell, heavily, onto the mulch, the whole world going dark.
       Her father drove her straight to the hospital, where the doctors ordered a CT scan of her skull, worried she might have suffered some kind of stroke. When all the images came back negative, they ordered scans of her chest.
       That was when they found it.
       At first, the doctors who looked at the images thought it was some kind of malfunction--a problem with their own equipment. Even when later scans came back identical, they referred her to another hospital. Only when three separate scans from three different machines showed the same thing did they finally believe it.
       In every respect, Mia's heart was perfectly healthy. Her arteries were free of obstructions and there were no perforations in her septum, as many of the doctors at the hospital had expected. Hers was a healthy, well-functioning heart--for a child approximately half Mia's age.
       Somehow, her heart had regressed, shrinking within its own pericardium.

       Mia was kneeling on the steps, out of breath, when she heard someone speak up behind her.
       "Are you all right?"
       She looked up. Bashir was standing one step below, a messenger bag slung over his arm.
       She took a quick breath to speak and nearly passed out. Bashir started forward, as if to grab her. Mia held out a hand to stop him.
       "I'm fine," she managed, after a moment. "I just fell."
       "Yeah, you look great," Bashir said, not moving.
       Mia couldn't help but smile. She let her chin drop to her chest, taking as deep a breath as she could.
       "Look, you don't have to talk to me," Bashir said, "but I'm not going to just leave you here. So how about I help you up to your apartment, and you can be rude to me after we get there?"
       Mia tried to say something and couldn't. After a few seconds, she nodded.
       Bashir stepped forward, pulling her up with lanky arms that felt surprisingly strong. He held her up by his side, one arm wrapped around her waist. Together they climbed the stairs, pausing after each step.
       When they reached the top, he let go, letting her shuffle the rest of the way to her door.
       "Thank you," Mia said, leaning against her door.
       "No problem," he said. "I hope you feel better." He turned and walked back down the steps. Mia watched him go.
       As soon as she was inside her apartment, she slumped onto the floor and cried.

       Every morning when she got out of the shower and looked at her reflection in the mirror, Mia lifted a hand to trace the long scar between her breasts. The shriveled line of raised skin started just below her clavicle and went all the way to the top of her abdomen.
       When she was twelve, the doctors had tried performing a heart transplant, thinking that might solve the problem. But when they'd taken an echocardiogram three weeks after the surgery, they found that her new heart had withered to match the size of the one they had just removed.
       The problem was not with Mia's heart. The problem was with Mia herself.

       It was the first warm day of March. For the first time in months, the whole city was out, everyone taking advantage of the chance to leave their apartments.
       Mia decided to go up to the roof to do her yoga before dinner. When she pushed through the door, her yoga mat tucked under one arm, she found Bashir and four other people sitting around a battered cooler. Mia didn't know whether they all lived in the building or if some of them had come over to visit. She didn't recognize anyone but Bashir, but that didn't mean much. She made a point of not getting to know most of her neighbors.
       Bashir was standing next to the cooler, talking to a girl with dark skin and long braids. The other three were sitting on old aluminum lawn chairs, arranged in a small semi-circle; one guy with dark brown hair, his shirt open almost to his belly button, and two more women, one wearing an old Mets hat, the other with tattoos up and down both arms. They were all smoking and drinking beers, large slabs of beef and chicken sizzling on a nearby grill. Music played softly from someone's phone that had been stuck halfway inside a red plastic cup to amplify the sound.
       She was about to turn around and head back down when Bashir saw her and smiled. She paused, one hand on the door, wanting to go back down to her apartment and wanting to stay at the same time.
       "Hey," he said. "You want a beer?"
       Mia let go of the door, letting it swing shut.
       She walked over to where he was standing, nodding hello to the woman with the braids. Bashir reached into the cooler, pulling out a fresh can. Mia cracked it and took a sip. It had been months since she'd had a beer, and sipping one felt good in the warm air.
       "So, how're you feeling?" he said.
       Mia frowned. "Come on. Don't do that."
       "Do what?" he said.
       "Ask me how I am," she said. "It's the first fucking question everyone always asks. You know what I tell them?"
       "No."
       "'I'm fine.' You know why?"
       Bashir shook his head. Between them, the girl with the braids was staring down into her cup, probably planning the best way to get out of this conversation. Mia didn't care; she pressed on. (That was one of the things about dying. You didn't have to waste a lot of time worrying about being polite or making people feel awkward.)
       "Because it's easy, and because people who ask that question don't really want to know the answer," Mia said. "They just think it's something they're supposed to ask when really they don't want to hear about it, and I don't want to talk about it. So, can we just pretend to be two normal people and have a normal conversation that's not about me being sick?"
       "Okay. What do you want to talk about?"
       "Anything," Mia said. "Sports, work. We don't even have to talk. We can just sit here and get shitfaced."
       "That one I like," Bashir said.
       "I'm down," said Braids, clearly glad to be moving on.
       "Good," Mia said, clinking her can against theirs.
       They stayed on the roof for hours, until the cooler ran out. At one point, the girl in the Mets cap lit up a joint and started passing it around. Bashir was about to wave her off when Mia grabbed it and took a long puff. She held the smoke in her lungs until she thought they might burst. Then she blew it high into the air, watching as it billowed out and vanished.
       Bashir walked her back down to her apartment. Mia could tell that he wanted to hold her hand. A few times, as they walked down the steps, she felt his fingers brush the back of hers. Each time they did, she felt a little tickle in her chest, right in the very center where her tiny heart sat.
       When they reached her door, she turned back and kissed him. He tasted like salt and cold beer. It was the taste of a warm day in winter. A little stolen piece of spring.
       "What was that for?" he asked.
       Mia looked down. "Just something I wanted to do. I haven't kissed anyone in a while. I might not get the chance again."
       She was worried he might pull back. That was what most people did whenever she spoke openly about dying, as if they were afraid they might break her, or even catch whatever it was she had. But Bashir put his hands on her waist, leaned in, and kissed her again.
       Mia smiled as she kissed him back, breathing in his smell.

       Mia had been an accident. Her mother, Miral, had never wanted to have a child. Somehow Mia's father had convinced her to go through with the pregnancy.
       The last time Mia saw her, they were in the kitchen of their apartment. Mia had been woken by some nightmare to find that it was still dark. She was walking down the hall to her parents' room to crawl into their bed when she saw a light on in the kitchen.
       Her mother was sitting at the table, wearing a pair of sweatpants and one of her father's old Maryland T-shirts, sipping a mug of coffee and looking out the tiny window. Mia stood by the door, waiting for her mother to turn around and see her. But she just kept looking out the window, holding her mug of coffee, barely moving.
       "Mom?" said Mia.
       Miral turned and looked at her. "Hey, baby. What are you doing up?"
       "I had a bad dream."
       "I'm sorry. Come here."
       Miral waved her over. Mia crawled up onto her lap, laying her head against her mother's chest. Her mother hugged her by the bottom and rocked her.
       "You want me to make you something to drink? How about some milk? You want me to put some cinnamon in it, like when Dad makes you horchata?"
       Mia nodded. Her mother smiled. "Yeah?"
       She got up and poured Mia some milk, pulling some ice cubes out of the freezer. She added a bit of sugar, cinnamon, a few drops of vanilla, stirring it all together before adding a few shakes of chocolate powder. Mia sat at the table, lifting the glass with both hands. Miral sat across from her, sipping her coffee, staring at her.
       The next morning she left, and Mia came into the kitchen to find her father, crying.
       Looking back, it was the warmest memory she had of her mother. One final act of kindness that Miral had given her.

       As soon as he figured out what was happening to his daughter's heart, Mia's father had tried to stop it.
       He'd taken her out of all of her playgroups and extracurricular activities: no sports or school plays or recitals or Girl Scout meetings. For a while, he had even tried to forbid Mia from dating.
       Mia hadn't listened. What 13-year-old would? Instead, she had gone right out and given herself away in bits.
       Some to a boy named Oscar, who kissed her on the stairs after lunch and told her that he wanted her to be his girlfriend, and then was holding hands with one of her friends three days later.
       Some to her friend, Ana, who came over to her apartment every day after school to do homework and read books and try on her mother's old clothes.
       Some to the first boy who went down on her, Mia clinging tightly to the cushions on the couch in his parents' basement while the movie they were supposed to be watching played behind him on the television.
       Some to Diego, the first boy she ever slept with, the two of them drunk at a party, slipping into a darkened bedroom where he climbed on top of her, and she almost started crying, it hurt so badly when he pushed into her. They did it a few more times, in Diego's car, in Mia's bedroom. Mia thought that she loved him, until he told her he was gay and didn't know how to tell his parents. Mia hugged him while he cried, his whole body shaking in her arms. He was so much taller than her, she had to get up on her tiptoes to hug him.
       Some to the boy from NYU that she met one night at a house party. They got drunk and fucked, and she woke up the next morning naked in his bedroom. They went out for pancakes and coffee, and Mia smiled, sitting in the booth, feeling like a real adult. It was the first time she'd ever had coffee, and she had to add a lot of sugar.
       Some to her friend from law school, who moved to California after they graduated. Mia texted her less and less until, finally, she stopped altogether.
       Some to the man she dated for six months, the one she thought she might move in with, until she found a dating app on his phone, the messages only a few hours old.
       Some to the old woman on the first floor whose daughter no longer spoke to her and who Mia checked in on every few weeks to make sure she was still doing all right.
       Those were just the largest parts, the ones that she could still remember. There were others, too, Mia was sure. People she had forgotten over the years.
       All those bits of her, gone. Whittled away in slivers and flakes.
       It wasn't just the ones who hurt her; it was anyone who had ever loved her. Anyone she loved herself. Each time they looked at her, Mia felt her chest tighten, felt her small heart grow smaller, as if they had taken a piece of it with them, right then and there.
       There was no word for what she had, no agreement amongst her doctors about what to call the thing that was killing her. The closest they had come was to call it ‘cardiac hypotrophy,' though even then, not all of them could agree that the term was medically accurate.
       Mia supposed they would name it after her, after she was gone. Mia's Shrinking Heart Syndrome. MSHS, for short.

       Mia called her father every Saturday after breakfast. Sitting alone at a small table outside her favorite coffee shop, she took out her phone and dialed, the sun bright, the city alive. He answered on the second ring.
       "Hola, mija."
       "Hola, papá."
       They spoke for a while in Spanish. Mia's father was having trouble with his shoulder, and after several months of complaining, she'd finally gotten him to go to physical therapy. He asked about her job and her friends. She told him that her job was busy, that all her friends were doing well. After a while, Mia decided that it was probably time to tell him about her latest appointment. Her father would never ask. He knew she hated it when he did.
       "I had an appointment with Dr. Chokshi last week."
       "What did he say?" her father asked. "Anything different from the last time you saw him?"
       "No," Mia said. "No change."
       For a moment, her father was quiet.
       "Mija, there's something I want to tell you. I should have said it a long time ago."
       "What?"
       "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have been a better father."
       "What are you talking about?" she said.
       Her father let out a long breath. "All your life, when you were little, I tried to keep you from making mistakes. I tried to keep you from getting hurt. I tried to keep you to myself. But I think I just made things worse. The more I tried, the more you were hurt.
       "I should've just left you alone. Let you be a stupid kid. I wanted so badly for you to be safe, I forgot to make sure you were happy. I've been a bad father, mija. I'm sorry."
       Mia swallowed.
       "Anyway, I just want you to know that you should be happy. That's the only thing I want. If you're holding on to something because you think it'll make me happy, or you're worried that I'll miss you, I just want to say, don't worry about that. Don't spend the rest of your life trying to make an old man happy. It's your life, mija. You spend it the way you want."
        Mia said nothing.
       "I love you, mija."
       "Love you, papá."

       Mia knew her mother loved her. If she hadn't, Mia's heart wouldn't have shrunk.
       How many children could say that? How many had the echocardiogram to prove it?
       In a way, she was actually rather lucky. She never had to wonder how people felt about her.
       She also knew that people could love you and still leave.

       That night she put on her favorite dress, the black one with the thin straps and the web of lace across the back. Then she went down two floors and knocked on Bashir's door. As soon as he saw her in the dress, his eyes went a little wide.
       Mia smiled.
       "You look great," he said.
       "I feel great," she said. "I want to go out. You want to come?"
       "Yeah, sure," he said. "Just let me put on a nicer shirt."
       They walked to a nearby restaurant, a place Mia had never tried. She clung tightly to Bashir's arm, the night air unseasonably warm.
       They ordered a bottle of wine with dinner and shared their entrees, Mia picking at Bashir's steak, Bashir nibbling at her fish. She spent the whole time laughing. Bashir was funny and smart, and he was good at making her laugh.
       After dinner, they went to a bar, the whole place crowded and dark, everyone around them laughing and shouting. They had a couple of drinks upstairs, and then Mia grabbed Bashir's hand, leading him down a set of steps into the basement.
       The basement was completely black, except for the strobe of colored lights that were swiveling on a stand next to the DJ. The whole place was crowded with people, all of them spinning around, dancing. She could see colored flashes of them as the lights swirled and twisted.
       She danced with Bashir, pressing as close to him as she could. Mia was a better dancer, and he let her lead. She threw her arms around his neck, pulling their faces together.
       She had to stop several times to catch her breath, leaning against the wall, gasping, one hand pressed flat against her chest, feeling the faint thump-thump of her tiny heart. The last time Bashir asked if she wanted to go home, and she told him no, she wanted to keep dancing. He pulled her back onto the floor, back into the crush of bodies, and didn't ask again.
       Mia loved him for that.
       When the bar finally closed at four, they walked back to their building, sweaty and breathless. Walking down the empty streets, the world felt wide open, as if they had the whole city to themselves, Mia filled with that singular feeling that only came at four in the morning after a night of dancing and drinking, a night of pressing close to someone she hardly knew; a feeling that she could do anything, be anyone, change anything about her life that she wanted.
       It was a feeling that only ever lasted until she woke up the next morning. But if she never woke up, then the feeling would never leave her.
       As soon as they got back to their building, Bashir offered to walk her up to her apartment.
       "No," she said. "I want to go to your place."
       Bashir's apartment was small and warm, tidier than she had expected. There were stacks of books by the window, and the kitchen smelled like coriander and pepper.
       "You want some water?" he asked.
       Mia shook her head. She took him by the hand and led him back into the bedroom.
       She took off all his clothes and pushed him down onto his back. Then she pulled her dress over her head and sat down on top of him.
       Mia put her hands on his chest. He felt solid beneath her fingers. She could feel his heart beating like a hammer, thumping harder as she moved faster. He lifted a hand to cup her face, and she bit down gently on his thumb. He smiled with surprise, and she bit down harder.
       Mia felt his body tense, felt him give a small shiver. For a moment, she sat on top of him, enjoying the way he looked at her. Then he lifted her in his hands, twisting around and tossing her gently onto her back. Mia bounced on top of the mattress and laughed. He leaned down and kissed her stomach, and she stopped laughing.
       When it happened, Mia held her breath, her sliver of a heart beating so fast it felt like it might burst through her chest. She shut her eyes so tight that for a moment, everything blurred white. Bashir looked up and smiled at her, kissing her stomach, her breasts, her neck. He kissed the scar on her chest, tracing it with his lips.
       They lay naked on top of the blankets, Mia twisting her fingers through his hair, his arm draped across her stomach, the weight of it warm and comforting. After a while, he got up and went across the hall into the bathroom. Mia could hear him humming to himself as he stood at the sink and ran the tap. He had a beautiful voice, warm and deep. She liked listening to it.
       Lying there in his bed, she remembered feeling his hands on her legs, his thumb in her mouth, the feeling of his chest. She turned her head to look out the window and smiled to herself.

       When Bashir came out of the bathroom, she was still lying in bed, one arm draped on the pillow next to her head, her eyes wide and staring.
       Even before he said her name, he knew she would not answer. He sat down on the edge of the bed and squeezed her hand. Her fingers were still warm. And she was smiling.

       Her father found it two weeks later when he was going through her apartment, packing up her things.
       It was leaning against the lamp on her nightstand; the envelope marked with a single word: Papá.
       He sat down at the table in the kitchen and held it in his hands for a long time before he opened it.

Papá,       I know that this will be hard for you, going through your dead daughter's apartment, deciding what to throw out and what to keep. So, I decided to write you this letter. Hopefully, it will make all of this a bit easier.        The last time we spoke, you told me a lot of things. I didn't know what to say to you then, but now I think I do.        My life might have been short, but you don't have to worry. It was as full a life as anyone has ever had.        I've been loved, and I've been hurt so many times that I've lost count. I've given pieces of my heart to a lot of people, some who deserved it, and some who didn't. All of them loved me, and some of them I loved back.        Every choice I made, I made for myself. A lot of them were mistakes, but most of them weren't. I think that's probably all anyone can ask, to do the right thing more often than not.        When we talked, you said you were a bad father, and I want you to know, that's not true. All you ever did was love me. You were the best papá I could have had.        I know you'll be sad for a while after I'm gone, and maybe even a little angry, but I don't want you to be. I made my choices, and I'm not sad for any of them. Don't spend the rest of your life missing me. Spend it eating and laughing and dancing. Spend it loving as many people as you can, loving every single person you meet.        I know you blame Mom for taking away part of my heart, but remember that you have part of it, too. And it will always be with you, even if I'm not.        Sitting here, writing this letter, I can hear my heart beating. It might be small, but I can still hear it. It's full of all the love that everyone I've met has ever given me, all the love I've ever given them.        I love you, always.        Your Mija

       For a while, he sat at the table, looking down at the neatly folded pages, reading the words again and again, until he had them memorized. He slid them back into the envelope, placing it carefully between the pages of one of her books to keep it from getting bent.

       He was walking down the stairs, carrying two bags of her clothes, when a young man who was on his way up saw him and stopped.
       "You need some help with those?" he asked.
       "Thank you," he said, handing over one of the bags.
       "No problem," the man said. "I'm Bashir."
       "Javier Torres," he said.
       The younger man looked at him. "You're Mia's father."
       He nodded. The younger man paused.
       "I knew her. I knew Mia."
       "You two were friends?"
       The man looked pained. "Uh, not exactly . . ."
       Javier nodded. "Ah. I see."
       The younger man looked down, embarrassed. "We didn't know each other for very long, but I liked your daughter a lot."
       "You loved her, didn't you?" Javier said.
       Bashir thought. "Yeah. I guess I did." He paused. "I was with her the night she died."
       Javier nodded. "That night, was she happy?"
       Bashir paused. "Yeah. I think she was."
       Javier nodded again.
       They took the bags down the steps, around the block to where his car was parked. "Thanks for your help," he said.
       "No problem," Bashir said. He stood by the curb, not moving. "Actually, I haven't eaten breakfast yet. Could I buy you a cup of coffee?"
       Javier looked back at the building. There were more things that had to be sorted, more bags that had to be packed. But it was nearly ten, and coffee did sound good.
       "Sure," Javier said.
       They went around the block to a small café, sitting on the sidewalk at a tiny table. Javier ordered a black coffee, and Bashir got a latte. "I'm glad I ran into you," he said, taking a careful sip from his cup. "It's nice to talk to someone who knew her."
       "Yes, it is," Javier said.
       "Actually, it's nice to talk to anyone. It's been kind of a weird week."
       Javier looked down. "Yes. I can imagine."
       Bashir shook his head. "No, it's not that. Something else. It happened the other day."
       Javier frowned at him. "What?"
       Bashir paused. "I was running along the river, and I heard these two guys talking. It took me a moment to realize they were talking in Spanish. The thing was, I could understand every word they were saying."
       "So?" Javier said.
       Bashir looked up at him. "So, I don't speak Spanish. I never have."
       Javier looked at him, his eyes narrowing. "¿Nunca estudiaste español en la escuela?"
       "Never," Bashir said. "All I ever took was two years of French. But, ever since . . . ever since that night, I can speak fluent Spanish. I don't know why." He paused. "I know that probably sounds crazy."
       Looking down at his coffee, Javier smiled. "When I was little, my mother used to tell me that, in the end, our lives are all measured by the number of people who loved us. If that's true, then my daughter lived a hundred lives. Don't you think?"
       Sitting across the table from him, Bashir smiled. "Yeah, I guess she did."
       For a while, they sat out on the sidewalk, watching the city stream by, both of them sipping at their coffees, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun.