Milo joins me at the library, although he does so with far too many questions. I understand his concerns, but there isn’t anything inherently weird about wanting to use a public resource even if I have a perfectly good Internet connection at my condo.

I spy him waiting by the entrance as I approach. Well-fitting jeans and another sweater that makes him look like a clothes model in a catalog. His hair is somehow perfectly windswept by the icy breeze harassing the city streets, and I have half a mind to stop where I am so I can appreciate him for a few minutes before he notices.

But perhaps it’s best if I don’t linger for too long.

Milo waves when he spots me walking up, eyes filled with that bewildering excitement. I catch myself smiling as I wave back, completely unaware of mentally approving this involuntary reaction. He has a way of doing that to me.

“Morning,” I say.

He catches me off guard by leaning forward and giving me a swift kiss. Despite the cold air, a wave of warmth rolls through me.

“Hey there,” he says. “Didn’t realize I was going to find myself in ancient times today.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Going to the library,” he says, laughing. “I don’t think I’ve been here since my kindergarten fieldtrip.”

He winks at me, and my heart soars.

“More people should use the library,” I say vaguely, not wanting to admit that I just wanted an excuse to get out of my condo. I didn’t sleep a minute last night. Not after finding the knife under my pillow. I was tempted to get a room at a local motel, but my logically sound mind was convinced I couldn’t leave my bed—though, if I were rational, I would’ve realized the comfort of the covers was ill advised, given the location of the weapon I’d found. Instead, I clung to the knife all night like a psycho serial killer lying in wait.

“I’m just joking, by the way,” he says, his teeth all straight and white. “I think libraries are a great resource that deserve more attention—”

“Yeah, yeah.” I wave him away. He’s hazardously close to some earnest-sounding shit, and I don’t have the emotional intelligence to navigate those waters at the moment. Milo laughs while I lead the way inside. We’re assaulted by the aggressively comforting aroma of a million books. All the outdoor noises—the road, the wind, the people—are replaced by a thick silence that coats my ears like cough syrup.

“So, are you here to browse?” Milo asks.

I shake my head. “I’m gonna use one of the computers.”

“Should I come with?”

“No, you should look around a bit,” I say, trying to sound casual.

He cocks an eyebrow. “You invited me to come with you just so you could shoo me away?”

“Well—no, I just—I won’t take that long, and then we can do something else.”

“You’re a weird dude, Felix,” he says, squeezing my shoulder briefly. “Does that ‘something else’ involve making out?”

I stifle a giggle. “It can if you want it to.”

“Alright, deal. Let me know when you’re done. I’ll be, uhh, perusing the DVD section.”

“They don’t ha—”

The tip of his tongue pokes out between his lips.

I watch him head off into the stacks, momentarily distracted by his retreating figure. Damn, if I’ve never seen a man wear a pair of jeans like that. I savor the miracle of an Adonis like him spending a minute of his time with a flattened toadstool like me. He even looks like he knows where he’s going—no hesitation whatsoever.

When the last of his ass disappears around the corner, I shake myself out of my stupor. Despite the content of my distractions, I am here for a rather somber task.

Twelve computers are lined up back to back on a pair of tables in the library’s center. Even though I don’t plan on using them for anything recriminating, the way they’re displayed feels oddly vulnerable. One is occupied by a woman in a black cardigan, and I can see every recipe she’s perusing without meaning to.

I choose the computer on the corner nearest the historical references, reasoning that’s where I’m least likely to attract an audience.

Alright. Wow these units are ancient. Based on aesthetic alone, Felicia would never let these into the Corner House office—it’s one of the old flat LED monitors every company thought was a good look at one moment in time. The resolution’s probably not even 2K. As I sit on the pleather chair, it lets out a sigh, adequately mimicking my internal state. The computer takes a moment to read my library card.

Okay, time to do some research.

I glance over the top of my screen, scanning the library from my seat. There’s an old man staring at a wall of magazines, a young mother of two who gazes into the distance, and a woman deciding whether she needs all six of the massive tomes she’s struggling to carry. I suppose none of them have any interest in what I’m doing—they probably don’t even realize I’m here. I’m the one spying.

Focus. This isn’t embarrassing. Nobody cares.

I type in lacrimosus.

After a few seconds, the browser presents my search results: a list of articles all written within the past five years with varying degrees of startling headlines. I skim the first few words of each, frowning as I scroll past DEATHS and IS IT REAL and MADNESS and FAKED, knowing that none of those will lead to what I’m looking for.

I wouldn’t be searching these now if Dores had talked to me. Or maybe if Brian had—anyone. I could’ve just asked my sister about it. She’d probably done much of this same searching already, and after her diagnosis, her doctor had probably discussed the details with her.

Had our parents known?

I look back at the screen and add to my search terms.

Symptoms.

Immediately, the titles change so that less of them resemble clickbait and more of them look helpful. I choose the one three down from the top: How To Recognize Lacrimosus.

The link takes me to a clean-looking website with a calming pale pink background and neat text. It looks professional enough that I’m willing to trust it—the article is attributed to a medical doctor, after all, so that’s got to be worth something.

One last look around informs me that I still haven’t attracted any attention. The old man is nowhere to be seen, the mom has reengaged with her children, who are pointing at pictures in the book she holds, and the woman has decided to return two of the books she’s carrying to their spot on the shelves.

I begin to read:

In the past eight years, discussion of Lacrimosus has taken the world by storm. Despite its relatively low prevalence, viral awareness campaigns, along with allusions in popular media, ensured a permeating public discourse when it first left the medical sphere. Much of that discussion, however, has been mired in harmful rhetoric based on a mixture of confusion and a lack of information. As with most things, knowledge is the key to understanding, and thereby mitigating, the negative effects of something as rightfully worrisome as Lacrimosus.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

So, what is it?

The actual origin of Lacrimosus is believed to date back to the early 2020s, to a single case in coastal Washington state. Much of the confusion surrounding Lacrimosus, however, didn’t come until almost a decade later, when it gained public notoriety. Contrary to common rhetoric, it is not a disease but a mutation—akin to being born with heterochromia iridis. Therefore, it cannot be transmitted as many have come to fear; rather, it develops through a mixture of environmental factors and one’s own genetic makeup.

Fearmongering groups have also posited that Lacrimosus is a manifestation of the supernatural. But those in the medical sciences have been quick to dispel this sentiment.

“Many unfamiliar things can appear preternatural until understood,” Doctor Abigail Monson of the Harold Institute for Medical Research said, following last Sunday’s Revelation March on Washington. Tens of thousands of supporters gathered outside the capital to express their worries that the newly discovered condition confirms a need to return to organized religion. “While we may not fully understand Lacrimosus, there is no reason to assume that it relates to a higher power—or punishment by one.”

Regardless of whether or not you believe the appearance of the condition relates to a deity, the effects are concerning.

Those diagnosed with the condition suffer an additional awareness, like an extra sense. It’s been described by those afflicted as a manifestation of powerful negative stressors, which often take the shape of beings exacerbating the individual’s circumstances. One anonymous source counter-protesting at the Washington rally stated that “moments of work-related frustration often resulted in crumpled papers on my desk”—not by his own voluntary doing.

Another activist, Gus Zucker, said he suffered for years with his symptoms before the formal discovery of Lacrimosus. “After my wife passed away, I kept finding the doors into my house unlocked in the morning, but the security cameras I installed never caught anything—which of course they wouldn’t. It wasn’t until my condition progressed and I spoke to my doctor that I began to understand.”

Which can all come off a bit like evidence of demons, to be fair to fundamentalist religious groups. But Doctor Monson is adamant that these are not evidence of paranormal interference.

“What’s most important is to recognize the symptoms of Lacrimosus so they can be addressed early on,” she says with a very reassuring smile. “Heightened and prolonged periods of negative emotion, loss of interest in normal, pleasurable activities, loss of memory or false memory, and bouts of paranoia—these are all early signs of Lacrimosus.”

Seeing a specialist is a key factor in slowing the progression of the condition, and numerous breakthroughs have improved the medication used to treat Lacrimosus—though activist groups have criticized the price tag of—

The last time I saw Dores, she’d mentioned giving up photography—which I’d thought was weird given how much effort she’d put into the hobby over the years, acquiring special lenses and lights and software. She’d said the reasons were monetary and I’d fucking believed her. But that had been a surefire sign of her condition, according to this article. Were there others? Obvious things I’d missed about her behavior because of my ignorance? Had she been screaming for me to listen in a way that I’d missed? Sure, it was unlike her to not be vocal about something on her mind, but maybe her diagnosis had been an exception and not the rule.

And what about this medication? She and Brian hadn’t been loaded, but they’d been comfortable. When he’d revealed her diagnosis at the funeral, I think Brian mentioned that Dores had been medicating as instructed. Dores had always been militant about believing in science—any advice that came from a trusted doctor, really. And even if her condition had swayed her convictions, I couldn’t see Brian allowing her to skip. On the other hand, I hadn’t known as much about them as I thought I did. If she’d been medicating, would she still have taken her own life?

I should’ve recognized what was happening to her. I should’ve at least acknowledged that something was wrong.

Sitting back against the pleather chair, I close the computer window. One more sentence of that article might send me into a spiral. It’s a reminder that, even though the strange cultural obsession with the condition had been a flash in the pan, it’s still very much alive, and many people suffer in silence from it.

Feeling a tumultuous regret, I log out of the library computer. I’m not sure exactly what I gained, but I’m acutely aware of what I lost. I wander over to the aisle where Milo disappeared, listening to my shoes click on the linoleum floor. Despite restraining myself from reading the full article, what I did read churns through my thoughts like a highly unappetizing ice cream: stigma surrounding the condition cast by non-believers—something I had been previously aware of, but which was cast in a new light given my proximity to the illness—and fresh thoughts about all the signs I hadn’t interpreted in my sister.

The minute he notices me, Milo can tell something’s wrong. He puts the book in his hand back on the shelf and rushes to my side.

“Felix?” he asks, before wrapping his arms around me. Relief floods my entire being and I don’t want to talk about anything in the entire world. I don’t want to speak, I don’t want to move. I just want to stand there in his embrace. “Are you alright?”

I hold him tighter, grateful for the relative privacy of the aisle.

When I don’t respond, he tries again. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Maybe we should go outside.”

The library is shaped like a U, and in the center is a small, fenced-in area with trees and bushes and several benches for quiet reading. Though the chilly air is biting in the shade of the building, I find it more breathable than indoors. Milo is patient, though he does lead the way to one of the benches beneath a Japanese maple tree. He stares expectantly at me as he sits, waiting for me to either speak or join him.

I can’t decide which I want to do, but then my mouth decides for me.

“I should’ve known,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

He stares for a moment, trying to interpret my words before asking, “Should’ve known what?”

“That my sister had Lacrimosus.”

“Oh, Felix. I’m so sorry. Is she—”

“She died,” I say hurriedly. “A few weeks ago. That’s when I found out.”

“Felix.” He says my name again, and despite the comfort I get from hearing him say it out loud, in these circumstances it lacks the enthusiasm that usually delights me. “I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault. I’m the one who should’ve tried to do something about it.”

“If she didn’t tell you—”

“The signs were there. They were definitely there and I should’ve noticed them.” My heart is racing. I haven’t spoken with him yet about my sister’s death. He’s watching me, eyes wide and full of concern. I slump into the seat beside him, letting my head fall back so that I’m staring up at the lattice of naked branches above me. “I’m sure the signs were there.”

“But did she ever tell you?”

“No!” I sit up, turning to him. “And that’s the other thing. You know? She fucking told me everything—everything. But not this. Not the most important thing. The only thing she kept from me, and this shit drove her to kill herself.”

We’re both silent then. Milo continues to watch me while I stare at the ground, unable to hold eye contact. The air smells like winter—icy and sharp. Wooden skeletons after their colorful dressings have been swept away. Concrete that’s never quite dry. Rain clouds. Damp soil. None of it is particularly inviting.

“Felix…”

“Why didn’t she tell me? She told me everything.”

Milo reaches over and pulls me to him, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. It’s not as warm and comforting as the hug in the stacks. No. This one feels protective—like he’s pulling me away from a cliff.

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell someone else you’re suffering,” he whispers. “That doesn’t mean she didn’t trust you or that she wanted to hide it from you.”

“But that’s how it feels,” I say, equally softly.

“That’s understandable,” he says, “but that doesn’t also make it true.”

I stare up at him, his face inches from mine.

“It sounds like you two were incredibly close and that she confided in you.” He runs a hand across my hair. “But when it comes to illnesses—they don’t always play by the same rules.”

I nod. All the things he’s saying are things I know, and hearing him say them aloud is a comforting affirmation in its own right, but these are stubborn thoughts that won’t disappear quickly—maybe ever.

“They think it might be hereditary,” I say.

At this, he lifts my face in his hands, forcing me into eye contact. “Are you experiencing symptoms?” he asks. And this is the most serious I have ever seen him. “Tell me, Felix. Please. If you are having symptoms.”

Maybe?

“No,” I say, because it’s true. I haven’t had concrete symptoms. I know I’m just in my own head, worried because I was made aware what my sister went through. If I take away that fear and doubt, then nothing has actually happened to me.

“Are you sure?” he asks. Then he hesitates. “Sometimes you do seem a little—”

“My sister just died,” I say, cutting him off. “That’s all. Besides, it’s nothing. Everyone is sad.”

He frowns. “No, they aren’t.”

“Yes, they are. You can talk to anyone. We’re all just wading through our own sadness.”

“I can’t believe that. I won’t believe that.”

I scoff. I can’t help myself. “You can’t make things untrue just because you don’t want them to be.”

“That’s not the reason.”

“Why then?”

He shrugs. “There has to be someone out there who’s found it, someone out there who’s happy. If there isn’t, then what’s the point of any of this?”

I don’t have an answer.

He leans toward me until our foreheads are resting together.

“Look, I’ll believe you if you say you aren’t experiencing symptoms. But if anything does come up, please tell me—anything at all, not just Lacrimosus,” he says. “I want to be here for you. I want to be on your side no matter what.”

And I believe him.

I believe him.