Dism -

The man tilted his head. For a moment she thought he would laugh, or politely change the subject. Instead, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn leather notebook. He flipped through it, licked his thumb, stopped on a page.

The man nodded slowly. “I’ve been collecting it for thirty years,” he said. “Thought I was the only one.” The man tilted his head

One Saturday, she asked him, “Do you think dism is just another word for depression?” He flipped through it, licked his thumb, stopped on a page

The first time the word appeared, Mila was seven. She’d been drawing a sunflower in the margins of her spelling test—a lopsided thing with too many petals—when her pencil skipped. The tip scratched out a shape that wasn’t a petal, wasn’t a stem, wasn’t anything she’d intended. Four letters, small and crooked: dism . “Thought I was the only one

The woman pressed a small leather notebook into Mila’s hands. Leo’s notebook. “He wanted you to have this,” she said. “He told me. Before.” Her voice broke, but she held herself steady. “He said you’d know what it was for.”

“I think I’m drowning in it,” she said. Her voice cracked. She hadn’t meant to let it.