Nolan has enough money to get to Canada. He's had a sufficient amount since the last pay period, but he hasn't left yet. He thinks about leaving sometimes, but not as much as he used to. Not since Clara showed up.

There's another reason he's still here and it's of a much more practical nature. Nolan doesn't have a passport. When he first left home in search of his Canadian mother, he never thought about needing such documentation to make it over the border. It was just Canada, after all. But apparently, you cannot slip past the check point with nothing more than a friendly nod.

Nolan goes to the post office and gets the form he needs. There he encounters another snare in his plans. The government requires a birth certificate before they will issue a passport. Nolan uses the computer in the hotel lobby to research how to obtain this document and has LA County send him an official copy. That's as far as he goes, though. His birth certificate arrives and he places it, unopened, in the bedside drawer next to Clara's birthday note. He folds the passport application in thirds and uses it as a bookmark. He spends his days following the manager's orders and his nights with Clara on the roof.

For a while, he is truly happy.

#

Clara dreams she is flying.

No, not flying. Floating. Levitating.

She wakes up from this dream and cries her soundless, breathless cry. Nolan has told her she hovers, but that's how he perceives her, not how she perceives herself. To her, she walks around grounded to the earth like everyone else. She can tell the difference between the buoyant give of the grass in the picnic area behind the hotel versus the hard ceramic tiles of the lobby. It's not the same as how Nolan's kind walk, perhaps, but it seems the same to Clara.

Not to Nolan, though. To Nolan, Clara floats. To have Nolan make such a claim is terrifying.

Clara doesn't float. Ghosts float. Clara doesn't float because Clara is not a ghost.

But Nolan says she does and Clara believes him. Where does that leave her?

Perhaps the only place she is completely tethered to the ground is at the bottom of the pool. Sometimes she would like to sink until she hits the cool cement basin and then stay there forever. But she can't do that. Or she could, theoretically, but she won't. The pool is not a place where Nolan can stay for very long, and besides, she'd miss the rooftop. She'd miss the stars. She'd miss watching Nolan steal Arby's keys every night. She'd miss stealing Arby's keys.

If she floats, she will have to face that truth. Better to be disconnected from the earth than from Nolan.

Clara has spent the past several weeks with Nolan. It's no longer strange to talk with him, or to hear him call out her name. It seems almost normal to be visible. She would like the talking and the smiling at each other to be enough, and most of the time it is. But sometimes, when Clara allows herself to be very selfish, or perhaps just because she's human, or at least human-like in many ways, Clara wants more. She would like to place her hand on Nolan's chest and feel it rise and fall with each breath. She'd like to press her lips to his.

Sometimes, she imagines touching him while he sleeps—not touching him literally, since that isn't possible, but putting her hand on top his own and keeping it there. She hasn't done this though. Clara can't forget Nolan's expression of horror the first day she appeared to him. Ever since then, she has promised not to invade his sense of privacy. What would he think if he woke up just as she was pretend-holding his hand? He may never speak to her again. She cannot take that risk.

She can imagine it, though. She can think about it, call herself selfish, and then think about it some more.

She lets Nolan sleep in peace. Even though most nights he falls asleep right next to her in their little rooftop nest, she stays in her spot and he stays in his. They are separately together, and that, Clara tells herself, will have to be enough.