"What's her nickname?" she asked. "What?" I asked, my voice still raspy and raw. "Her nickname," Shannon said. "You always find the perfect nicknames for the people you care about, so I'm just wondering what you chose for her." Gastro Girl. Shortstop. Honeybee. But that wasn't it. I couldn't force Alex into the narrow mold of a comic book heroine or fairy tale princess. She wasn't a handful of conveniently aligned characteristics. She was my Elektra, my Mystique, my Leia, my Katniss, my Daenerys, my Agent Carter, my Elizabeth Swann, my Arwen Evenstar, my Buffy, my Beatrice, my Catwoman, my
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