"Why do you want me?" came her plaintive question as she shivered in the air-conditioned room and wrapped her sweater tighter around her thin body. He didn't answer, but she felt the tips of his fingers brush across her back, almost too lightly to be felt. "You think I'm fragile, needy, lost."
"You are," he murmured.
"I wasn't. Even when I was alive the first time, I wasn't helpless, but now...I can feel myself dying, inch by inch. I can't stand it. How can you want such a pathetic creature?"
"You're beautiful."
"Beauty is an illusion."
"Your soul is beautiful."
She snorted. "Shredded, broken, corrupted, there's nothing beautiful about it."
Silence reigned for several minutes before he took her shoulder, turned her to face him. "Maybe that's why. We're alike. Corrupted souls in damaged bodies, struggling to survive in a world we didn't make and don't want."
"It's not enough."
End