Colonize

After breakfast, Eliza hurried off to the Center without a goodbye; it hurts me, but I hurt her first. I was the one who assembled her at twenty-three and subjected her to my lifelong love. If I waited until my eighties or nineties like everyone else, her life would’ve been easier; not only would my death have granted her the right to modification, she’d have been spared the dread of losing a parent and friend of seventy-seven years. If I’d waited as long as possible like everyone else, I’d be a metaphorical bandage for her to rip off and discard. Now, I have to hope she’ll decide to get the memory amputation I’ve been begging her to do after I’m gone.