She touches her new brother at the elbow and he turns and he smiles and she smiles and she thinks about the day they first met and of hitting him in the face with a hand she’d bloodied up by struggling so much, by bashing against doorframes and brick walls and boys, by trying to get away. She’d hit him in the nose and that had bled too, the moment she touched it so she couldn’t tell, she wasn’t sure whose blood exactly was whose and it reminded her of a pact she’d  made years and years ago, with another boy whose name she couldn’t remember. They were nine, they’d cut their hands on shook on it; they would always be friends, for as long as they’d live. She thinks, now, that she can’t be considered at fault for breaking something like that, destiny was against it. They were nine; he’ll have withered by now but she’ll live forever. She thinks about his blood and her blood together, wonders if his is still pumping around inside her somewhere, because it’s entirely possible, it could be that’s all that’s left of him now. How long do people live these days, she wonders. She thinks of him dead, of his blood and her blood; of her blood and Toby’s blood and blood - which is like the sea - a means mostly, but sometimes an end.