I know that sometimes there are miracles that end up in the news or whispered around town and passed on by word of mouth. The kind of things that are extraordinary and always about defying death and other odds or about a twist in fortune beyond anyone's imagination.

But I like to think that there a million tiny miracles taking place all the time. Little tiny things that may not seem all that wild or divine but still feel inexplicably wonderful—like the gods have come down from their perch in the heavens and blessed a moment out of the goodness of their hearts.

I think Dalia is one of my miracles.

Simply put, I am fascinated by my newest acquaintance, and while I'm slightly embarrassed of the fact, I have to admit that I'm always excited to soak in her presence each visit. She is a frequent companion—much to Dante's surprise, who's chosen to take up most of my babysitting shifts out of what I assume is unnecessary guilt.

Becoming friends with her had been quick and painless, like puzzle pieces interlocking on the way to the end result. And, since my sleep schedule is messed up from the hospital and hers is entirely abnormal on its own, we're often up at odd hours together, exchanging texts and sending things on social media.

I am delighted at how Dalia always has a myriad of things to talk about.

Even her presence is soothing, though I cannot tell of it's from the way she is new to me and therefore expects nothing of my past, or if that's just simply the type of soul she is. There is a familiarity between us, conjured up despite the short time I've known her.

There is little care for the way she pushes me aside in the too-small hospital bed, climbs in, and plops a bowl of popcorn and several other snacks into our laps. Sometimes I catch her freezing at her actions, as if only suddenly remembering my injuries, and she'll glance at me from the corner of her eyes, always checking to see if I'm okay before she's propping her computer on our legs and telling me what we're watching.

It's refreshing, the way she does not expect the old life I cannot recall, and the way she doesn't treat me like a half-shattered porcelain doll.

It was only a mere four days ago that she'd slipped into my hospital room, pulled by a curiosity that had little to do with me. I'd asked her about it at some point, after we'd spent some time getting well acquainted. I wasn't quite sure about the idea of fate, either, but I liked the thought of it when it came to her.

She'd given her answer easily enough: "Curiosity," she'd told me, "about a boy who'd stayed in the room before you. I was wondering who had taken his place." Her tone had been masterfully calm, but I hadn't missed the way she'd slipped her ring off before she'd slip it onto another and then repeat, her own little game. A habit for when she needed a moment to distance herself from something mentally, if not physically.

I'd found her reasoning a peculiar thing, but Dalia didn't strike me as the type to be plain and ordinary. I hadn't questioned it, hadn't questioned much of the things she'd said that I'd found eccentric, but at the time she seemed to realize what she said seemed a little without sense, that normal may have been curious but wouldn't truly walk in in a room they knew would not hold someone that had already left.

"I know it's a weird thought," she'd hurried to explain, "but I have random thoughts and impulses sometimes and fighting them seems a lot more boring than taking them head-on." I must have been staring at her too long and too oddly to call for the end of the discussion, because she'd quietly added, "Fighting against chains leaves scars, you know."

Dalia, as I'd found out, had a tendency to speak in a sort of poetic way, like some character from a story sprung to life. She did it in the kind of way that meant she wasn't really trying, and that the lines she spewed so often were the product of that little effort, as if she spoke the things that sat constantly in her mind without second thought.

And what a wonder it truly was to think the way Dalia did.

I had the sneaking suspicion that she was perhaps the most unique and intriguing person I'd ever come across in all of my life, whether I remembered it or not. She was an odd type of person, eccentric in a sort of subdued way, subtle but still bold. There is something reserved in the way she speaks, careful and specific about a few choice things, as if her words are carefully honed weapons.

She is a swinging pendulum; a walking contradiction.

"What makes you so fond of the guy before me?" I'd asked, because I wasn't really sure how to respond to that other bit, and it hadn't been the first time either. Dalia didn't seem to mind; she continued easily enough, as if she'd been more than used to people not being able to keep up with her. "Did he sweep you off your feet?"

Dalia had scoffed at the idea, laughed quick and to the point so she could snipe back. "Hardly," she said, rolling her eyes in response to my smirk. "He was ten years old and had a dying kidney; he could barely hold himself sometimes." Her voice had gone different, as if her metzo-forte had decrescendoed into piano, and she was still playing that game with the ring.

I watched the action closely, observing the languid movements, slightly awed at how smooth she made the transitions; a magician reciting a trick they'd been practicing for years.

"But he liked stars, though," she said, her tone lighter once again. She slid her ring onto the middle finger of her right hand and reached to take a sour patch kid from the box she'd brought in. "He wanted me to teach him how to draw and in return he taught me about the stars." She paused, and her tone went from wistful to bright, as if she'd remembered herself and couldn't possibly allow herself to be anything but bright. It also wasn't the first time. "But he wanted to live among the stars, too," she said, and it sounded as if she might have matched the kid's tone spotlessly. "I hope he's okay now," she'd said absent-mindedly. "The world would suffer all the more to lose a person like that."

I wasn't sure to say to that, didn't know how to give anything worth my salt. How was I supposed to keep up with her when all I could think up was, "you're absolutely right," or a mere, "I agree," to reply with?

Was I honestly this bad at words that she had me drowning?

"You draw?" I'd asked instead, slightly afraid of the prospect of hurting her feelings instead of acknowledging the wisdom I couldn't compete with. But she'd only smiled and nodded, unaffected as far as I could tell.

"A little," she admitted. "I'm not that great, but I can do the basics well enough." Her Head has turned to my left, and all the sudden her arm was reaching across my body, pointing to something on that side of the room. "Don't think I didn't notice that you do, too."

I followed her gaze, and saw the sketchbooks she'd been talking about. There were three; my two most recent filled ones and the one I'd been midway through before the accident. Noah, best friend from childhood to now had brought them along for me as well as with some drawing pencils and what he claimed were 'fancy colored pencils that cost too damn much'.

My art had apparently been something important to me, though I'd never heard much talk about it from the rest of my family, which gave me enough of a hint that I didn't really want them talking about any of it anyway.

I grinned and turned back to her, pushing her hand down playfully. "You've caught me," I said, shrugging. "And I'm amazing at it, for your information." She'd laughed at the smugness of my tone, shaking her head before she'd raised a brow.

"Maybe you should let me see some of your masterpieces, then."

I shrank back a little then, out of embarassment, and her eyes narrowed in on it with barely any effort at all before she was backtracking and apologizing and for some reason that just made it worse.

"No, it's alright," I said, because it was. I didn't have any issue with showing them to her, and some part of me even wanted to. "Just not today, yeah? Today is just the movie." She'd eyed me carefully at that, obviously not too sure, but she'd looked away in the end, and I was immediately busy trying to get the mattress to swallow me whole.

Because if I showed her the books now, then I'd run the very high risk of her coming across my most recent works, and I don't know quite how I'd react when she stumbled upon her own face staring back at her