We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman

her smile, to wipe away for a second or two that look of deep sadness she carries around with her. It’s like her outside reflects my insides, somehow. Making her smile makes me feel less immature and selfish, more like the grown woman I am supposed to be.
    Growing up with Ben by my side meant that my friendships with other girls my own age have always been sort of distant – friendly, fun, but never deep. There’s never been a girlfriend that I’ve swapped secrets with, or talked about how I feel, like I just have with Stella. It feels nice.
    â€˜So you think it’s a good idea, then?’ I ask her. ‘Because I said yes. I said I’d sing with him in public, and now I’m freaking out.’
    â€˜Yes, it was the right thing to do,’ she says. ‘You are very brave – I could never do that. The idea of all those people looking at me, noticing me. I used to like it, being seen. Being noticed, turning heads. But these days … I think life is easier if you’re invisible. At least it is for someone who isn’t as brave as you. I was brave once but, somehow, I think I’ve forgotten how to be.’
    â€˜I’m not brave,’ I say. ‘Ben keeps trying to make me as brave and as stupid and as certain as he is, but I’m not. I’m not like that.’ She waits for me to say more, and suddenly the words just rush out, tumbling chaotically, barely sentences at all. ‘It’s like there is this unwritten law that if you’re dying, or you have a “life limiting” disease – which, let’s face it, is a polite way of saying that you are dying – then you have to be all chipper about it. You have to be brave and upbeat, you have to be inspiring and strong, you have to be defiant and embracing … and I’m not, Stella, I’m not like that; I’m not brave. I’m afraid all the time – terrified and sad, and
angry
, and I don’t want to be inspirational. I want to be invisible, like you said. I don’t want life to notice me, because if life does, then so will Death.’
    There’s a moment of silence, and then as I stand there watching her, her great big orange eyes fill up with tears.
    â€˜I know,’ she says. ‘I know exactly how you feel.’
    I don’t know what else to do, so I hug her, putting my arms around her slight body, and she hugs me back, presses me against her. And we both cry, there in the tiny kitchen, with the kettle bubbling and boiling away in the background. The button clicks off and Stella releases me, smoothing away tears with the tips of her fingers.
    â€˜What makes you so sad?’ I ask her, as she turns her back to me and busies herself tearing open sachets of tea and hot chocolate.
    â€˜Honestly?’ she says. ‘I don’t think my husband loves me any more. In fact, I think I make him hate himself.’
    â€˜Really? How do you know?’
    â€˜He can’t bear to look at me,’ she says simply, passing me first one mug of hot chocolate and then the tea for Issy’s mum. ‘And when the person you love stops loving you, stops seeing you, even, you might as well be a ghost anyway.’

Dear Reverend Peterson,
    I am not a religious person, you should know that up front. I don’t believe in God. I think it’s a load of twaddle, but my husband likes the idea of a church service. He says it’s more dignified than that humanist lot, and he’s not in favour of a cremation while some bloody song by Barbara Streisand is playing in the background. He says he won’t feel like I’m properly dead unless someone says a prayer over me, which you might think sounds a bit tactless, but that’s the way we’ve always been, me and him. Say it how it is. No one gets hurt, or confused; no one expects anything other than exactly what they are going to get. Which wasn’t a lot, to be honest, but it was enough for