Photo by Michelle Gregor on Unsplash

They grew us a new body. It was ready the morning we married. It wasn’t hers, and it wasn’t mine. This was the fairest way, they said, so no one would be favoured. Our old bodies went to the furnace by evening. I signed the merge as the last act of a solitary person and woke with hands and a heart belonging to both of us.

For nine days, I was happy.