Part 4

The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be, #2)

EDEN

It’s been over a month since the nightmare, and things are finally getting back to normal. I’d taken an anxiety pill before Parker and I left the apartment. It’s extra slow to kick in tonight, though, as I sit in the stands by myself, chaos erupting around me.

Someone taps me on the shoulder and gestures to the seat next to me. “It’s taken, sorry!” I shout, but it’s so loud in here, I can barely even hear myself. I set my coat down and try to create a mental bubble while I wait for Parker to get back from the bathroom. But it doesn’t work; I can still feel the sweat on my palms. I can smell too many people in too small a place. I can see the wooden court shining like a lake that might swallow us all up.

The game won’t even start for a half hour and the energy in here is already insane. Everything is . . . too much. I guess the first home game of the season is a big deal. It’s so different from what I remember the last time I attended one of my brother’s high school games, when I was still in middle school and could tuck myself away into a corner and read, somehow managing to block everything else out.

When we were lying in bed this morning, Josh told me I didn’t have to come tonight—he knew I’d have trouble with a crowd this size. But when I said I wanted to, he laughed, reminding me that when we were in high school, I once told him that I’d never be the girl cheering him on at his games.

“Never,” he emphasized, teasing me.

“Oh my God,” I groaned into the pillow. “Why did you even like me back then?”

“Hey, I thought it was funny,” he told me. “It was mean.”

“No, really, I found your honesty . . .” He paused, looking at the ceiling for the word. “Refreshing.”

“Lucky for me,” I said.

He smiled at me so sweetly I wanted to stay in bed, but I had to get ready for my shift at the café. When I got out of the shower and came back into my room wrapped in a towel that only just covered me, I thought he’d fallen asleep again, so I tried to be quiet as I started gathering my clothes.

But then he sighed quietly through the word “God.” I turned around to see him watching me.

“What?” I asked, but just the sound of his voice, that way, had already stirred up all these butterflies floating around in my stomach.

“How has it been so long since I’ve seen you like this?” he asked, sitting up.

“We’ve been busy,” I told him, but that’s only part of the truth. The other part was the harder part to admit—that something happened that night neither of us has quite recovered from yet.

I walked over to the bed to kiss him, but he lingered there, taking my hands, pulling me closer. “You smell so good,” he mumbled against my neck. As I drew back, the side of his face was all wet from my hair. I laughed and wiped his cheek with the corner of my towel.

He touched my stomach and brought his hands to my hips, then up to the spot in the center of my chest where I tucked the edge of the towel in to hold it in place. Then he gazed up at me, a look in his eye I haven’t seen in a while. “Do you have a few minutes?”

“A few,” I answered.

He crept over, making space for me. “Come back to bed for a little bit?”

As I lay next him, he kissed me and then studied my face for a few moments, running his finger along the scar above my eyebrow, smiling as he leaned down to kiss it. Then he kissed my mouth again, my neck, moving down, taking his time even though we didn’t really have the time.

The towel peeled away from my body easily. I forgot about the clock.

Because his touch . . . his mouth on my skin, his hands. I couldn’t remember the last time it felt easy like this. To just give in and let go and get lost. I reached down to touch him too, wanted him to feel as good as he was making me feel. But he took my hand and brought my arm up over my head, held it there, gently, for only a second.

“I feel greedy,” I explained.

“Greedy?” he mumbled as he laughed with his mouth against my stomach. “Oh, if you had any idea how much I’m enjoying this, you would think I’m the greedy one. Besides, no pregaming for me.”

“Oh, is that a rule?” He nods. “Kinda.”

“And I know you’d never break a rule.”

“Well, there’s no rule about after a game, though.”

I got in trouble for being fifteen minutes late to work, but nothing could ruin my high. Not my asshole manager, not the rude businessmen or the distracted soccer moms, not even spilling an espresso all over a customer’s shirt. Because I could just close my eyes, feel my heart racing again, and remember how unimportant everything else is.

I hold out my phone now and take a few selfies with the crowd in the background: one with a thumbs-up, another with a wink, another with a huge cheesy smile, and one of me blowing him a kiss. He hearts them all immediately and writes:

I’ve been thinking about this morning all day long

“What are you smiling about?” Parker asks as she squeezes in next to me. “Just a little pregame encouragement. What do you say before a game?

Not break a leg?”

“God no, please don’t say that! How about a simple ‘good luck,’” she suggests, watching as I text him. “I’m glad you guys are doing better,” she says, and gives my shoulder a little shake—she’s been so supportive ever since I filled her in on everything, kind of like the sister I never had. I’m about to tell her that, when the cheerleaders come out and everyone around us gets on their feet, starts clapping and yelling.

They’re all so pretty in their sparkly makeup and hair all done up and their perfect bodies. I find myself wondering if any of Josh’s teammates saw the selfies I’d just sent him. Would they say, Huh, well, she doesn’t look like much? Not compared to these girls. Jocks can be ruthless. But then, all guys can be ruthless.

When the teams come out, everyone stands up again and cheers. I spot Josh. His jersey is number 12, just like it was in high school. How did I not know that?

I can’t take my eyes off him the whole time. It’s like I’m experiencing this entirely different version of him. He looks so graceful, moving quickly and jumping and passing the ball like it’s nothing. I’m sort of in awe, how he can just show himself like this, put himself out there, in front of all these people.

He looks up at me when they’re in the middle of a huddle and smiles. I feel flattered, then giddy. But there’s something else following right behind. It’s a sinking feeling that settles into my stomach in the place where those butterflies were fluttering earlier, like someone just threw a bunch of gravel on top of them, smothering out their fire, destroying their wings. And with that image, I name the feeling: unworthy. I’m strangely, suddenly, acutely unworthy.

I close my eyes, trying to summon that light, airy, throbbing, aching release I’d felt just this morning. But it’s gone now. I try to tell myself it’s probably just the anxiety meds kicking in.

Afterward, Parker and I hang out by the locker room, waiting for Josh and Dominic. And as they come out, there are girls—and guys—waiting here too, ready to gush all over them. I stand back and wait for him to come to me. He kisses me right there in front of everyone, jostling that heavy stone of unworthiness around in my stomach. Part of me wants to stop him, say, Josh, wait, what will they think of you—being with me? I’m nothing. And you’re . . .

I look down for a moment, and when I look back up, he’s got this amused sort of grin on his face. “What?” I ask.

“Shy girl night?” he asks quietly, knowing me so well. “We don’t have to go out with them. It’s okay.”

“No, let’s go. I’ll be fine.” “Yeah?”

“Yeah, besides, we should celebrate.”

He shakes his head and laughs. “We lost.”

“Oh, right.” I knew that, but I guess my brain sort of misplaced the importance of the whole winning-losing concept in its attempt to make me stay present through the whole thing. “Well, so what? All the more reason to celebrate.”

“Hey, I agree with your girlfriend, Miller,” says a guy I know must’ve been playing just now, but I didn’t really register anyone but Josh. He introduces himself and is friendly enough, but I forget his name immediately.

We walk to the restaurant, arm in arm, lagging behind the rest of the group. It’s the kind of perfectly chilled yet not too cold early-November night that makes me love that my birthday is coming in just a few days.

“You’re quiet,” he says. “Sorry.”

“No, you don’t have to be sorry. I just noticed, that’s all.”

“Oh. I was just thinking about the weather. It’s really nice out.”

He looks up at the sky, the clouds moving above us, faster than we’re walking.

“I mean, I was also thinking about the game,” I add. “I’ve never sat through an entire basketball game before, like actually paying close attention.”

“Even with your brother playing all those years?”

I shake my head. “I never cared very much. But, Josh,” I say, more seriously. “You were so good.”

He laughs. “Again, we lost.”

“Well, forgive me. I was just watching you the whole time—I wasn’t really keeping track of anything else.” The way you move your body—I feel my cheeks burning.

“Me?” he says with a laugh.

“Yes, you.” I pull him closer to me, and our feet shuffle along in slow motion as we gaze at each other. “I don’t know, I never thought I was one of those girls.”

“One of what girls?”

“You know what I’m talking about. One of the five hundred girls here tonight who are probably going to go home and fantasize about you.”

He smiles and narrows his eyes at me, head cocked just slightly like he doesn’t quite believe that this is a thing. God, he’s so cute when he doesn’t know how cute he is.

“I’m just saying if you got sick of me, you could have an upgrade in under a minute.”

He stops smiling now and rolls his eyes, resumes walking at a non- dreamy pace.

“No, I’m just saying . . . you have options.”

“Do you have to do that?” he asks. “I’m not interested in options.” “Okay, but I’m just saying there were like a dozen very pretty girls in my

immediate vicinity who would—” “Oh my God,” he groans. “Stop.”

“I’m just being honest—I thought you said earlier you liked that about me.”

“Well, now you’re being mean,” he whispers, leaning close to me. “To yourself.”

JOSH

We go out with some of the team after the game to a restaurant nearby. Parker joins, I think to make Eden more comfortable. Lucas drove up for the weekend to be with Dominic. I told them I’d clear out of the apartment

—stay with Eden and give them some space.

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to go out tonight; part of me was hoping she’d say no, but now that we’re here, it’s actually nice. I forget sometimes how I love seeing her out like this; I can admire her differently than when it’s just us. I notice new things or remember old ones. Like how she doesn’t seem to have any interest in small talk—something I forget until I see her in social situations like these—to the point of almost coming off as a little rude. But then she pays such close attention when she’s in a conversation with someone, talking about something real. She commits to it and doesn’t let herself get distracted. That was, after all, how she got me hooked on her to begin with. She forced me to be real because she had no use for the other version of me, the one who could make polite chitchat with anyone, all day long, without ever once saying anything that mattered.

She’s deep in conversation with Luke now—from what I can overhear, it sounds like they were in band together in high school. I’d forgotten Eden told me once that she’d played some kind of instrument. I start to ignore my own conversation to join in theirs instead.

I shout over the noisy restaurant, “What did you use to play again?” Luke points at Eden and says, “Clarinet, right?”

“Yes!” she shouts, delighted. “Good memory. And you were . . . flute, I think?”

“How’d you even remember that?” Luke asks her. “Didn’t you leave band after freshman year?”

I see it in her face—she turns pale, and her eyes sort of get this faraway stare for only a moment. I’ve come to recognize this look. It means she must’ve left after what happened, because of what happened. It passes quickly, and she nods and smiles but reaches for my hand under the table.

Thankfully Dominic joins in just then.

“Wait a second,” he says. “I thought flute and clarinet were the same thing?”

Eden and Luke exchange a look, as if that’s the craziest thing they’ve ever heard, and start laughing hysterically.

Luke shakes his head, leans over, and kisses Dominic’s cheek. Then says, “No, honey. They’re not the same thing.”

I bring her hand up onto the tabletop now and squeeze once before letting go. As she opens her hand, I can see that the pink scars from her burn are almost invisible now.

We’re the first to leave. On the walk home, I look over to see her smiling. Not at me, just smiling.

“It seemed like you had a good time tonight.”

“I actually did,” she says. “I like Luke. Do you know I literally never once spoke to him in school; isn’t it weird how things can change?”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Um, so listen, I wanted to float something by you,” I begin.

“Okay, this sounds serious,” she says, slowing her pace as she glances up at me.

“Serious? I don’t know.” I shrug. “Not really. My parents wanted me to invite you for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, wow,” she says. “Meeting the parents. That is serious.”

“Is it?” I ask—I thought it was too, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. “It seems like it’s the right time, doesn’t it?”

She looks down and smiles. “So, is that a yes?”

“Yes,” she answers, nodding. But then she lets out this small laugh. “What?”

“You do know that you once told me that you’d never let me meet your parents, don’t you?”

“ I said that?”

“Yeah. It was during that same conversation when I was being so honest and told you I didn’t want to be your cheerleader or your girlfriend or anything like that.”

I think back and do sort of remember saying that now. But I was particularly furious at my parents then; they were trying to hide my dad’s latest relapse from me. I felt like I couldn’t trust them, and I was so done with their shit by the time I met Eden, I didn’t want them involved in anything that could potentially become important to me.

“Like you said, things change.”

Back in her room, the towel is still lying twisted on the bed from earlier. We don’t even talk about it; we just start taking our clothes off. We don’t need to talk about it. It feels so right, like all the distance and sadness and fear of the past month was never even real.

She doesn’t stop kissing me the whole time. We’re so close, all harmony and rhythm and connection like it was all the time before that one horrible, terrifying night. Breathless, she says my name at one point. I think she’s just saying it at first, but then a few seconds later she says it again. “Josh, I .

. . ,” she starts, and she holds my face, looks so deep into my eyes but doesn’t say anything else.

“Yeah?” I ask her, pausing to listen.

But she shakes her head and smiles, whispers, “I love you.” I say it back. Over and over, I say it back.

I fall asleep so easily, with my head resting on her stomach, my hand on her hip, her arms wrapped around me. I can’t remember a time when I ever felt more at peace, more okay with my life than I do right now, my body rising and falling with her breath.

I wake up in the early hours of the morning and stretch, rolling out of her arms. She’s lying next to me, staring straight up at the ceiling. “Hey,” I whisper. But she doesn’t move or respond. I prop myself up and look at her more closely. Her eyes are wide open, unblinking. I have this intense flush of adrenaline punch through my whole body. Because there’s no life behind her eyes. She looks . . . dead. I grasp her arm now and say her name, louder. She blinks a few times, then turns to look at me. She’s back to life.

“Huh?” she mutters.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, and touches my face gently. “I was just thinking.” “What about?”

“Nothing, nothing. It’ll be okay.” “What will?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

She licks her lips before she speaks, like they’d dried out while she was lying lifeless for who knows how long. “It’s just—I missed some days, I think, with my birth control.”

A cold wave of panic passes over me. “Wait, you think or you know?” “I ran out the other day and I didn’t have a chance to pick up the refill.”

Now I’m sitting up, looking down at her. I don’t know what face I’m making, but she frowns slightly at me.

“Well, for how long?”

“I don’t know, just a few days, maybe.”

“Shit.” A few days is all it takes—I definitely did my homework on all of this months ago, when we decided to stop using condoms. I mean, it felt logical at the time. If the pill’s more effective, anyway, why do both? But that only makes sense as long as she’s taking it every day, which she swore she would.

“A week, maybe, at most.”

“Shit!” I repeat. “Are you serious?”

She pushes up on her elbows so she’s half sitting, too calm. “Yeah, well, it didn’t feel like a priority since we haven’t been all that . . . active lately.”

“Oh my God,” I sigh into my hands. “What, and you just realized this now?”

She opens her mouth but doesn’t say anything. “You realized this just now, right?”

“I mean, it’s fine,” she says, not answering the question. “I can get the morning-after pill. It’s easy.”

“Okay,” I say. At least we have a plan. But there’s this feeling in my chest like a screw tightening. “Wait, did you let me . . . when you knew?”

“I—”

“You did.” I realize as I watch her face. “That’s what you were gonna say to me. When you said ‘I love you.’ Jesus Christ, Eden! What were you thinking?”

“Don’t yell at me,” she says, her voice extra quiet. “Please.” “Why didn’t you stop me?” I yell anyway.

She reaches for me. “I’m sorry, I—”

I can’t help but back away from her. “Can you not touch me right now?”

She turns very still as she watches me climb out of bed; I start getting dressed, grabbing random clothes as I find them scattered on the floor.

“Josh, what are you doing?”

“I need some air,” I tell her. She moves to get up out of bed too. “Don’t follow me.”

But she’s with me on the roof a few minutes later. She comes and stands next to me at the railing where I’m looking out over campus, trying to process what has just happened. The wind blows, and she steps closer to me. When I look at her, I see that she’s wearing my gray T-shirt again, the one with the hole in the collar, and a pair of my boxers. She’s shivering as she places her hand on my arm.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “It’s just that it felt like things were going back to normal. I thought it would be okay. Or, I don’t know, I guess maybe I wasn’t thinking. But it’ll be fine, Josh. I’ve taken plan B before, and everything was fine.”

I turn to face her now. “With me?”

“N-no,” she stutters, and looks down. “You’re not really mad, are you?” “Yes, Eden. I really am mad.”

“It was an accident,” she argues. “No, it wasn’t!”

She pauses. I can see her thinking through something. . . . God, why couldn’t she have thought it through this carefully last night? Hot anger rises to the surface now, almost matching my fear. “Well, okay, then it was a mistake. But can I point out that if anyone should be freaking out right now, shouldn’t it really be me?”

“You know what?” I begin, trying to channel some of my dad’s calmness, borrowing one of his lines. “Can you please just give me a little space?”

“Are you serious right now?” she shouts. “Yeah, I’m serious.”

Her hair blows across her face, so I can’t tell what kind of look she’s giving me. But she turns and walks toward the door. “You’re coming back, though, right?” she calls to me.

I didn’t answer her and I didn’t come back. I went to my own bed instead. I tried to go to sleep but couldn’t. So now it’s 6:45 a.m., and I’m waiting

outside the pharmacy before it even opens. What’s amazing to me is how much angrier I’m getting as each minute goes by. I’m not calming down at all; I’m just getting more amped up.

We’ve always been so careful. I’m not the guy who’s careless or has accidents or makes mistakes. I trusted her with this—that was my mistake. Walking up to the register, I feel so ashamed, I grab a bottle of water just to have something else in my hands.

I go directly to her apartment and knock on the door. Parker answers with an eye mask pushed up on her forehead, face all scrunched, one eye closed. All she says is “I hate you.”

Eden is sitting up in her bed when I walk in, arms wrapped around her knees. She stands and rushes over to me as I close the door. When I turn around, she’s there with her arms open, but I can’t.

“Here.” I push the plastic bag into her hands instead.

“What’s this?” She peeks inside and brings the bag back over to her bed. “I would’ve taken care of this myself, you know.”

“No, I don’t actually know that. I don’t know anything.” I’m pacing back and forth in her tiny room. “Please just take the damn pill. I’m not fucking around.”

“Josh, I don’t understand why you’re so mad. It’s going to be fine.” “How do you not understand why I’m so mad?” I snap.

She scoffs as she takes the box and the bottle of water out of the bag. “So, what, you’re just going to stand there and watch me take it?”

“Please just do it.”

Her hands are shaking as she peels open the box and takes the pill out of the packaging. I reach over to open the water bottle for her. She sets the pill on her tongue and mumbles as she takes the water from me, “Well, you thought of everything.” She looks me in the eye while she swallows. Then she wipes the water from her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Thank you,” I say, and sit down on the edge of her bed, waiting for the relief to come. But it doesn’t.

“I almost didn’t even tell you,” she says. “But I wanted to be honest.”

“A little late for that.” My words are mean. I can taste the meanness in my mouth, but I can’t hold them back.

“Why are you being like this?”

“Why didn’t you stop me? Did you think I wouldn’t stop?” “No, I just—”

“Then what?”

“It . . . I don’t know, it felt good.”

“It felt good?” I repeat. “Oh, that’s mature.”

“Not felt good, like physically good—I mean it did—but I’m saying it felt good to be together again. To be in that place.” She pauses and tries to reach for my hand, but I pull away. “See? Things have been so off with us. I didn’t want to ruin it by stopping you because then I’d have to tell you I haven’t been keeping up with the pill and then you’d read into it all like you’re doing right now and think I’m even more screwed up than I am— and now here we are.” She throws her hands up and adds, “Here we are, anyway.”

I let my head fall forward into my hands, her explanation still echoing in my mind. I try to understand, but—

“I can’t,” I hear myself say out loud. “You can’t what?”

“I can’t . . . trust you,” I admit. “I can’t—I can’t do this.” I’m still leaning forward, seeing the floor through my fingers, my hands hot against my skin, I can’t look at her face.

“What are you saying?”

The words tumble out, landing heavy like boulders. “I don’t know, maybe we need to take a break or something.”

“Take a break.” She laughs. “Over this?” I look up, and she has this half grin on her face, full of disbelief, irritation. I guess I’m annoying her, which annoys the hell out of me, sparking something even deeper—she’s not taking this seriously. She’s not taking me seriously.

“Yes, over this!” I shout, and I’m on my feet again.

Now that I’m yelling, I see her getting that far-off look in her eyes, like last night in the restaurant, but now it just makes me angrier.

“No,” she says. “If we’re doing this, then at least tell me the truth. Give me your real reason.”

“You’re questioning my truth when you’re the one who lied?”

“I never lied. I just . . .” She crosses her arms now and says, “Admit it, you’ve been wanting out ever since that night.”

“What night?”

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, but her hands are still shaking, betraying her coolness. “Don’t play dumb,” she says, her voice sharp. “You know what night.”

“This has nothing to do with that night,” I tell her. “Eden, how am I supposed to trust you after this?”

“Because it’s me.”

“Yeah, exactly,” I blurt out. “This is you.”

The way she looks at me—like if I’d just slapped her, it would’ve hurt less—makes me want to die. I try to take it back. “Okay, don’t—don’t look at me like that. You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Yes, it was,” she says quietly, looking down at the pill box and the plastic bag and the water bottle sitting on her bed. She starts putting everything inside the bag. I reach for her, but she ducks away. “No. You want to go, just go.”

“Look, I don’t want to go,” I tell her. Take it back, take it all back right now. I step toward her again, and when she looks up, I can see that her eyes are filling with tears.

“Just go, Josh,” she says, her voice sounding strangled as she wipes her eyes roughly with the heels of her hands. “There’s the door. I’m not stopping you.”

“Eden, don’t—”

“Go!” she shouts, already losing her voice to the tears. She throws the water bottle, but it misses me. “Get out, God!” she yells. “Just fucking go.”

Parker appears in the doorway and looks at me, fully awake now. “Josh,” she says calmly, firmly, “you need to leave.”

I do. But I can’t force myself to go far. I sit down in the hall-way outside her door with my back to the wall. I’ll wait for her for however long it takes, I tell myself. In the meantime, I’m just trying to remember how to breathe. A break. I can’t remember ever saying anything so fucking stupid in my entire life.

EDEN

Parker makes me a green smoothie later that morning. But I can’t catch my breath long enough to even take a sip. She brings me a bowl of ice cream that night, but then I start crying all over again, thinking of fucking gelato.

Every time I manage to stop, all I see, all I hear, is him standing in my room, so angry, saying This is you. Over and over. This is you. I am this. I couldn’t have said it better myself, but he’s always been better with words than me.

I am this . . . disaster, I am this thing that is incapable of not fucking everything up, I am this curse on the people I love. I never thought anyone could hurt me worse than I hurt myself. But knowing that he thinks the same terrible things about me that I do—it’s too much to even process.

I wear his ripped gray T-shirt and lie in bed, sobbing, weeping, hyperventilating, for forty-eight hours straight. And even though all I want is him, I decline his calls, ignore his texts, tell Parker not to let him in. Because I am this, and someone needs to protect him from this, even if it has to be me.

I miss classes on Monday because I can’t physically get out of bed. That night she comes into my room with soup. I ask her to bring me my pills instead. I take all three.

And finally, I sleep, dreamless.

On Tuesday, my birthday, I go to class and work in the library and somehow manage to not talk to a single person all day long. I skip my afternoon therapy session and don’t even answer when the office calls to check in. Instead of calling them back, I pick up a shift at the café. Since I no longer have birthday dinner plans.

I mess up orders and drop a plate and I’m rude to the customers. Halfway through my shift, I say I’m taking a five-minute break, but I’m gone for

twenty. Because I start having a panic attack in the bathroom when I wash my hands and catch a glimpse of the plasticky pink scars on my palm and suddenly remember all over again that this has all really happened—he really loved me, he really left me. And then I’m crying on the dirty floor. I avoid eye contact with anyone as I come out and try to act like I’m okay. I exit through the back door and walk down to the convenience store the next block over and buy a pack of cigarettes—legally, for the first time, since I’m now officially eighteen.

The cashier checks my ID and tells me “happy birthday.” And in her next breath, as she slides the cigarettes across the counter: “You know those things’ll kill you.”

“Thanks, I know,” I mumble back, and flash her a big smile. I think for a tiny moment it wouldn’t be the worst thing.

“Need a lighter?” she asks, and I nod.

I consider just walking off and not going back to the café, but assuming I don’t actually die from this invisible knife lodged in the center of my heart, I’ll still need this job. When I get back, Captain Douchebag tells me he’s writing me up. Fine. I take at least three more breaks to smoke in the side alley by the dumpsters, where there’s a decommissioned table with uneven legs and a fading, scraped-up paint job. It’s been almost a year since I’ve smoked, I’m already feeling so light-headed and weak when the back door to the café slams shut.

“Oh, hey, Eden.” It’s Perry, and it occurs to me now that I still don’t know whether that’s his first or last name. He takes a vape pen out of his shirt pocket. “Slow tonight.”

I nod.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” he says.

“Yeah, I quit, but . . . not very well, I guess.”

He looks up at me, like he’s only just now seeing me—he’s never taken a second glance at me before. “So, listen, would you mind if I smoked something a little stronger than this?” he asks.

I shake my head and wave my hand.

“There it is!” He points at me and grins. “I knew you were a cool kid.” And then he takes a different vape out now—this one I can smell right away

—that earthy sweet sticky scent. I laugh out loud because the universe has got to be testing me, offering up all my vices in such an organized, obvious way.

“Hmm?” he mumbles as he holds the smoke in his lungs. “What’s funny?” he croaks before exhaling.

“Nothing,” I lie. “Just imagining what Captain Douchebag would say if he came out here right now.”

“Oh, that asshole left an hour ago,” Perry says.

I light up another cigarette. “Then I won’t rush getting back in.”

“So, Captain Douchebag, is that what you kids are calling him these days?”

I shrug.

He nods again, takes another hit.

“Hey, you want some of this?” I look over at him, and he takes a step closer. He’s easily ten years older than me. I must be giving off some kind of fucked-up sad-girl distress signal hormone that calls them to me like a beacon, a sonar frequency vibration, or something. Hey, here I am, alone, vulnerable, ready to be messed with! Come at me!

“Well, it is my birthday today,” I tell him, in spite of myself.

“Happy birthday!” I watch as his face lights up. “Hold on a minute.” He pops back inside for a few seconds and comes out with an open bottle of champagne and two flutes. He sets the glasses down on the wobbly table and fills them both. He passes one to me and holds his up, saying, “Cheers.” I hesitate, and he adds, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

The universe wants to test me? Fine. Bring it on. I’ll fail— that’s what I’m best at.

“Cheers,” I say, and we clink our glasses together. Josh would be so disappointed in me—more disappointed in me than he already is. Cigarettes, weed, alcohol, rando. Check, check, check, and check. This is you. It keeps playing in my head. This is me. It’s inevitable.

“So,” he says, passing the vape next. “Boyfriend taking you out later— the tall guy, right?” he asks, bringing his hand up above his head.

“Right,” I say, and take a couple of hits. “The tall guy.”

But the way he’s looking at me, grinning. He knows, somehow, it’s open season.

I lose track of the time while we sit there, lose track of what we were talking about. Don’t even notice when he goes inside. I clean the same table a hundred times, it seems. I sweep the floors, it feels like, forever. From the front window, I can see my building. I imagine my apartment with X-ray

vision, like I could even see into my bedroom, my unmade bed waiting there for me, calling to me.

After we close for the night, I’m shaky. Champagne on an empty stomach, cigarettes on a broken heart, weed on a shattered mind. Not a good combination, but I feel mostly lucid again by the time we’re shutting off the lights and turning over the OPEN-CLOSED sign on the door. Perry places his hand on my lower back and asks if I need help getting home. I hate that I know it would be so much easier to go along with it than to try to be strong and stand up for myself.

But as I look at him, this stranger, the expectant smile on his face as he moves closer to me, it suddenly doesn’t feel easy, like it used to. “No,” I say quietly. “Thanks.”

He keeps walking next to me anyway, though.

“What are you doing?” I ask him, stopping on the sidewalk, feeling my heart start pounding in that way that makes me afraid of what will happen next.

“I told you—I’m just making sure you get home okay.” “I literally just said I didn’t need help.”

“Yeah, but I—”

“Listen, thank you for the glass and a half of old, flat, left-over champagne that you stole from the kitchen. And thank you for exactly eight hits off your vape and . . . oh, let’s see, thank you for telling me happy birthday,” I say, gaining steam. “Really, thank you. So very much, okay? But I don’t owe you anything.”

“Whoa, simmer down. You’ve got the wrong idea,” he tries to argue—he tries to laugh.

“No,” I say. “No,” I shout. “No!” I’m yelling in the street, louder and louder. “No,” I scream at the top of my lungs.

Finally, he holds his hands up and starts backing away.

I cross the street and run up the steps to my building, close the front door behind me, and try to catch my breath. My legs feel boneless and weak as I make my way up the two flights of stairs. And as if I wasn’t already about to collapse, there’s a glass vase over-flowing with yellow flowers in it, sitting next to the door. A card attached, my name in his handwriting.

JOSH

I’ve tried to talk to her a hundred times. She won’t come to the door. She’s blocking my calls. I even left flowers for her birthday, and they’re still sitting there a week later, all wilted and shriveled.

Every morning, when Dominic and I come down to leave for morning practice, he says the same thing as we approach the door. “Keep walking, just keep walking.”

I go to practice, go to class, come home. Every day, the same.

We had an away game this week, and I thought maybe when I got back she’d be willing to talk to me. I told my parents she’d said yes to Thanksgiving, because I thought for sure by then we would’ve figured it out.

Tonight’s practice goes as usual. Fifteen minutes warming up, stretching. Twenty minutes shooting, skill work, jump shots, rebounds. Coach walks around, watching us, keeps shouting, “Game speed, gentlemen!” Our assistant coach studies my shooting, takes some notes on his tablet.

One hour on defense drills. A half hour of offense, going over plays and sets. The assistant coach is watching me closely again, I can feel it, probably trying to catch me screwing up. The live section ends with a half- court scrimmage that seems to go so much more smoothly than usual. Everyone’s playing well, calling the plays, cooperating. It doesn’t feel like such a struggle just to make it through like it usually does. Coach is even in good spirits for a change, which helps.

“That was decent today, guys—good communication,” he says, clapping his hands a few times. “You actually looked like a team out there for a change!” And then, to my disbelief, he adds, in front of everyone, “Nice work, Miller.”

As practice winds down, we all do some more shooting. With only a few minutes left on the clock, everyone’s loosening up, talking, chilling. “Too much laughing means you must not be tired yet!” Coach warns, and blows the whistle, adds ten more minutes. But I don’t even notice it’s over until a couple of the other guys stop at my basket on their way to the locker room.

“Damn, Miller,” one of them says to me as they walk by. “You’re a machine, man!” the other says.

I catch the ball and stop. “Huh?” I ask, breathing heavily as I wipe the sweat from my face. I look around, suddenly feeling off-balance without the rhythm of the ball to match my pulse. They were the last ones out here. Coach is standing to the side of me, watching.

“Like night and day,” he says, walking toward me, shaking his head. “Good to see you’re back.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Oh, don’t fish for praise, Miller. That’s obnoxious.” “No, I wasn’t, I—”

He interrupts me by holding his hand up, silencing me. “Whatever you’re doing, just keep it up.” He gives me a firm pat on the back and walks off the court, satisfied.

What am I doing?

I’m hating myself every minute of every day for hurting the last person in the world I ever wanted to hurt. I’m also sleeping too much and letting my classes slide. I’m lying to my parents about Eden. And pretty much my entire life is in the process of going down the toilet. But, dammit, I can play basketball. The one place I know what I’m supposed to do and I can do it well and make the people around me happy.

We win our next two games. I’ve honestly never played better. I’m magically redeemed in everyone’s eyes now—at least everyone on the team. Even Jon has stopped giving the stink eye every time he looks at me. All I needed to do was be perfect. Easy.

But somehow it used to feel better.

That’s what I’m thinking about when I’m walking out to meet Dominic at his car after this away game—in which we crushed the home team, embarrassingly so.

“Hey, Miller?” I hear Coach call out to me in the cold.

I stop and turn around. He’s huddled outside the entrance with the assistants, talking with the coaches on the other team.

“Yeah, Coach?” I answer.

He takes a step toward me, bowing out of his conversation for a moment, to pay extra-special attention to me. Then he smiles, a rare genuine smile, and under his breath says something meant only for my ears: “Glad to see you finally got your priorities straight, son.”

He’s expecting a response, I know. But I can’t seem to gather enough fucks to give him one, at least not one he’d approve of, so I just stand there, seeing my breath surrounding me in a fog.

“Go on,” he says. “Get some rest. You’ve earned it. Enjoy Thanksgiving with your family.”

“Thanks,” I manage.

EDEN

I’m freezing on the roof at midnight. Just one more cigarette. Then, I promised myself, I’d go to bed. I’ve pulled one of the lawn chairs up to the edge of the roof, where I lean against the railing, letting my arm dangle over the edge.

As I inhale the mixture of cold air and smoke, tiny pinpricks stud the insides of my lungs. On the exhale, the cloud just keeps going, switching at some point from smoke to breath. I keep pushing out until my lungs feel tight, squeezed. The corners of my vision darken, until my body starts to burn and no more breath can come out. For a second I think about waiting just a little longer, letting myself pass out, find some kind of peace. But my body takes over and sucks in air, stubborn thing that it is.

Just as I’m putting out the cigarette, I hear a car door shut. Then another. Voices travel through the cold up from the street. The day before Thanksgiving, there’s not much going on. I lean over to get a better view. They had to park across the street and around the corner.

I watch him from up here. I know his walk, know his voice by heart, even when I can’t make out his words, I know it. It’s been two and a half weeks. As I watch him now, all I want to do is race down the stairs to meet him, jump into his arms, and tell him to take me to his parents’ house tomorrow. Let’s pretend, I’d say. Let’s take a break from this ridiculous break. I want it so badly. But even as I have that fleeting thought, a kind of paralysis takes over the lower half of my body, forcing me to sit, to remain still. Wait, my body commands me. Stay. It always wins.

It’s completely silent outside by the time it allows me to move again.

When I look down, the pack of cigarettes is crushed in my hand.

As I promised myself I would, I go to bed.

When I come out of my room in the morning, Parker has a suitcase and carry-on by the door, ready to go home with her. She’s standing at the blender in her winter coat, filling two travel mugs with her classic green protein breakfast smoothie concoction, which she tries to foist on me every morning before she leaves for swim practice.

“You’re drinking this,” she orders. “You need the antioxidants with all the disgusting smoking you’ve been doing.”

“Actually,” I begin, but she stops me. “No arguments, roomie!”

“What I was gonna say is, I quit. Again.” “When?” she asks, side-eyeing me. “Last night.”

“Well, it’s about damn time,” she says, rolling her eyes at me as she snaps the lid on both travel mugs, setting mine in the fridge. “Okay, now that you’re not actively murdering yourself, I’ll remind you that my offer to come jogging with me still stands.”

“Maybe I’ll try when we get back. Maybe,” I add, feeling in no position to be making promises to anyone, least of all myself.

“All right, come here,” she says, and swishes toward me in her giant coat. Gives me a long hug. “Drive carefully, and take care of yourself, all right?” Then she scrunches her face up like she smells something bad and adds, “God, who the fuck am I turning into, my mother?”

My laugh muscles are out of practice from neglect, but they give a weak little huff. “Have a safe flight,” I tell her. “See you in a few days.”

She heads for the door but turns around and sort of half smiles, half frowns. “Honey, do me a favor and just think about changing out of that shirt, okay?”

“Oh.” I look down at myself—the gray T-shirt is sticking out from under the collar of my hoodie—I had no idea it was that obvious I’d been wearing his shirt under my clothes every day. “Okay.”

“Love you,” she sings as she maneuvers through the door with her bags and mug, managing to nimbly close it behind her.

I take a breath but barely have a chance to let it out again when I hear his voice in the hall. I go to the door and look out through the peephole. In the tiny wide-frame convex circle, I can see their distorted figures: Josh standing on one side and Parker on the other.

Their voices are quiet, muffled.

Parker says, “Josh, I don’t know what to tell you.” “At least tell me if she’s okay?”

Parker puts her hand on her hip and brings her other hand to her mouth— I think, making the “shh” gesture, because she points at the door next. If she says anything, I can’t hear it.

Josh brings his hand to his head. I hear him say something, followed by “. . . to tell her I’m sorry.”

Parker shakes her head. Something mumbled. Then, “Don’t. Just don’t.”

Josh throws his hands up and shakes his head. “But . . .” something indecipherable.

Parker reaches out and touches his arm for a second. “Let her come to you.”

He says something short and nods.

I watch as Parker walks away. Josh watches her go. After a few moments he turns back toward the door, takes a step forward. I hold my breath as I watch him place a hand on either side of the door-frame and look down at the ground. My heart starts racing at how close we’d be if the door weren’t between us. I can hear him sigh. Then he backs away and rubs his hands over his face—his stubble back now, nearly turning into a real beard this time. He looks at the door once more, and part of me is afraid that he might be able to tell somehow that I’m watching him. If he knocks right now, I’m not sure I’d be able to not let him in. I feel my fingers reaching for the knob

—to keep me in or him out, I don’t know which.

But then he walks away. And I finally exhale.

I bring the green smoothie into the bathroom with me and sip on it as I get ready to take a shower. The cold rushes against my skin as I peel the T- shirt off my body. I feel more naked than naked even, like I’ve just removed a layer of skin and am now exposed to any number of dangerous contaminants from the world around me. But I let the shirt fall from my hands into the laundry hamper. I pile my other clothes on top of it and smoosh it down as hard as I can.

When I get out of the shower, I have a text from DA Silverman waiting for me:

Happy Thanksgiving, Eden. I wanted to share this right away. We have a date.

Clear your calendar for the second week of January. As always, let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, CeCe

CeCe. How strange it is to see her name there. I guess going to trial puts us on a first-name basis. I’ve seen her full name on paperwork as Cecelia Silverman, but I’d never imagined in real life she would go by CeCe. Such a normal nickname, a cute name even. Is she cute in her real life? I find myself wondering. Like, not a stoic powerhouse in heels and suits with her hair pulled back tight and shiny. Does she do cute things like make jokes and eat popcorn in movie theaters and sing off-key in the car? I write back immediately, still dripping wet, leaving puddles on the bathroom floor—I didn’t realize I’d been needing this news so urgently until it came.

Okay, thank you for the update. Happy Thanksgiving to you too, CeCe.

JOSH

I pull up to the curb in front of our mailbox. I turn the car off and wipe my hands on my jeans. Even closed up inside my car, I can hear the screech of the front door opening. I get out. Take my bags out of the trunk. Walk up the driveway.

I watch my feet the whole time; I can’t look at them, standing there on the front porch. Dad comes down the steps to take one of the bags from me, and finally I meet his eyes—they’re full of all kinds of concern and questions.

I try to smile but can’t.

Mom stands on the top step, holding her hands up as she turns her head, the beginning of a word, “Wh . . .” hanging in the air. What’s wrong? or Where is she? I’m sure, will be coming next, but she stops herself.

I silently thank them for at least letting me into the house before they say anything.

Harley comes racing up to me, rubs her head against my legs, purring loudly. They let me bend down to pick her up, having her in my arms as a buffer. And Mom finally asks, “Well, don’t keep us in suspense. What’s going on?”

And then they stand there, waiting for an explanation.

“We broke up,” I admit, finally, after all these weeks of trying to deny it. “Oh, sweetheart,” Mom says. “Come here.” She hugs me, and Harley

leaps out of my arms. Dad pats me on the back.

When I look at him, he smiles sadly. “I’m sorry, bud.” I nod. Not as sorry as I am, I would say, if I could.

“Okay,” Mom begins. “Come in, take your coat off. Do you want to talk about it?”

I shake my head. “Not really.”

“You didn’t break up over coming here, right?” she asks, probably thinking it must’ve just happened since this is the first they’re hearing about it.

I laugh as I drop down onto the couch. “Yeah, I wish.”

“Over the trial?” Mom asks, coming to sit next to me as she sets her hand on my knee.

“Mom?” I place my hand on top of hers. “Thank you, really. But I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

She looks up at my dad, then back at me. “Okay, honey.” A timer goes off in the kitchen, and she stands.

“Need help?” Dad asks her.

“No, it’s all under control. We’re basically just waiting on the turkey at this point.” And then she gives a not-very-subtle shooing gesture toward my dad, as if to say, Do something about him.

Dad sighs and sits down in his armchair across from me. “Wanna watch a game?” he asks, turning his head toward me in this gentle way.

“Sure,” I tell him. “Anything but basketball.”

He laughs. “Deal.” He turns on a football game, and we both watch, not saying much, but it’s sort of exactly what I needed. I stretch out on the couch, and Harley comes back to curl up on top of my chest.

“Someone missed you,” my dad says, gesturing to the cat. I scritch under her chin, and the purring starts up like a tiny motor. “Joshie, you know I’m here, right? If you wanna talk.”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “Thanks.”

I drift off, not quite asleep, but remembering this one time Eden slept over here when we were still in high school. We never even went upstairs. We ate pizza and watched TV and then fell asleep down here, on the couch, after talking late into the morning hours. We’d known each other only a few weeks and already I knew I was starting to fall in love with her that night. I told her secrets, about me, about my family, my dad’s addiction. Things I’d never told anyone. Because I trusted her. I trusted that she would understand, and she did. She always did.

I open my eyes and look over at my dad. He’s been watching me.

“I really messed up,” I tell him.

He shakes his head briefly, then says, “Don’t we all?”

I nod in response, but what I really want to say is: no, we all don’t, I don’t

—at least, I’m not supposed to mess up—not this bad, anyway.

Before we can get any farther, my aunt and two younger cousins, ten- year-old twins, Sasha and Shane, are barreling in, lots of noise and energy coming with them. A welcome distraction from my thoughts about how I’d imagined this day would go.

“Josh?” my aunt says as I stand to give her a hug. “Where’s the girlfriend?”

Dad shakes his head to try to signal to her, drawing his finger across his throat, but it’s too late.

“Oh,” she says, putting her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.” “She’s not coming,” I tell her.

“Ohh,” she repeats, drawing the word out this time, with a frown and a sympathetic head tilt. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

I shrug, try my best to pretend I’m not devastated.

“Josh, Josh!” Shane is hopping up and down next to me, shoving a basketball in my face. That familiar rubbery chemical new ball scent flooding my brain with memories. “Josh, look. Look at my new basketball. I just got it for my birthday.”

“Nice,” I tell him.

Sasha walks by and mutters, “You mean our birthday.”

Shane rolls his eyes and sighs at her, and I laugh. I don’t often think I’ve missed out on anything by being an only child, but when I see them together, it makes me wonder.

“And what did you get, Sasha?” I ask her.

“Mom bought me a clarinet,” she announces, proud of herself. “Wait, you play the clarinet?” I ask. Of course she does.

“Duh-uh,” she says, full of attitude. “Only for two whole years now.

Which you would know if you ever came to any of my school concerts.”

“Sasha,” my aunt interrupts. “Geez, give the guy a break. You know his games always fall on your concert dates.”

“Sorry, Sash,” I tell her. “What if I try to make the next one?”

She shrugs and skips off into the kitchen. She probably doesn’t give a damn, but I feel terrible. I didn’t even realize this was yet another thing I’ve been missing out on because of basketball. It’s not like we have a big extended family; they can’t just let me not show up for shit and then not even tell me.

I turn to my aunt. “Hey, I actually do want to try to come to her next concert. Will you let me know when it is?”

“Sure,” she answers, seeming surprised. “If you really want to—but, honey, it’s fine, we all know you’re busy. Don’t let the kid give you a guilt trip over it.”

“Josh? Josh, Josh,” Shane starts in again. “Wanna play before dinner?” He dribbles the ball twice, and his mom gives him the look—widening her eyes and pursing her lips—it’s the same look my mom has given me so many times throughout my life.

“Not in the house, you little beast.” She points to the door. Then she turns to me. “Do you mind indulging him for a bit, honey? It’s literally all he’s been talking about all week,” she says under her breath. “My cousin Josh this, my cousin Josh that.”

“Of course,” I tell her quietly, happy to have an excuse to get out in the fresh air, where Eden’s absence isn’t taking up so much space. “Let’s go, little man,” I tell Shane. “Sasha, you wanna play too?” I call in the direction of the kitchen.

“I hate basketball!” she yells back.

I have to laugh at her candor; she makes it sound like such an easy thing to say.

“Thank you,” my aunt whispers.

I follow Shane out to our driveway, where he runs and jumps for a shot into the basketball hoop my dad attached to our garage back when I was even younger than him.

“Good shot,” I tell him. “You got some air on that jump, didn’t you?”

He glows as he passes me the ball. We take turns shooting and passing and dribbling. I give him a few pointers here and there, which he seems delighted to receive.

“Square your shoulders,” I say, and then I show him what I mean. “Like this, Josh?” he keeps asking.

“Bend your knees a little more—that’s it,” I tell him. “Feet a little wider apart. Elbows in. Now when you shoot, you gotta follow through with your fingers.”

And it’s not until my dad comes out with some water bottles and I look up at him, smiling at us, that I realize I’ve been smiling too. I pass the ball to Shane, and he passes it to my dad.

“All right,” Dad says, dribbling his way to the driveway. “Go easy on me, guys. I’m getting old.” But then he turns and steps fast, driving past us both to deliver the most perfect layup, holding Shane in awe. And maybe me too, a little.

“Old?” I repeat. “Yeah, right. You see that?” I ask Shane.

“Uncle Matt, I didn’t know you could jump that high,” he says. I nod in agreement.

Dad keeps playing with us, bringing a new energy in now, like he always used to when I was younger. Before long I realize my lungs are aching from breathing the cold air and laughing, shouting, joking with the two of them. It hasn’t been like this between us in so long, I almost forgot it could be like this. The whole reason I ever got involved with basketball was because of this feeling. The fun, the connection we had. I don’t know when that stopped.

I hold up my hand to signal I’m going to go grab a drink of water. Mom comes out then and stands beside me, puts her arm on my shoulder. “How you holding up, sweetheart?”

I nod. “Okay.”

She looks up at me and smiles. “Dinner’s ready, you guys,” she calls out. And as my dad walks by me, he holds his hand up. I give him a high five, and he pulls me in for a quick hug and kisses my forehead, in this way that makes me feel like I really am ten years old again. Shane passes me and then tosses the ball in the air over his shoulder. I catch it, and as I stand there in the walkway watching them go inside, I wish I could freeze this

moment.

As we sit down to dinner, my heart feels lighter than it has in weeks, months really. Ever since that night. Eden was partially right about that night. Not that I wanted out. I didn’t—I still don’t. But ever since then, it’s felt like someone’s had a hand inside my chest, squeezing my heart, tighter and tighter, anytime I would try to feel anything good. And now I wonder if this is how she must feel all the time. If it is, I think maybe I can kind of understand now. Why feeling good, forgetting about the bad, would be enough to risk so much, just to hold on to it for a little longer.

EDEN

“Have you lost weight?” my mom asks while I’m helping her in the kitchen, putting all the side dishes into separate serving bowls and trying to rummage around the drawers for matching silverware.

I look down at my body quickly. I have no idea if I’ve lost weight, gained weight, still have all my appendages. I’ve been avoiding looking into mirrors as much as possible. Because every time I do, I’m just looking into my own eyes, invariably thinking, This is you, this is you, this is you, and wishing I could disappear on command for once.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” I tell her so she won’t worry.

She asks about Josh, if he’s having dinner with his family tonight.

“Mm-hmm,” I tell her, not wanting to lie but also not able to tell the truth. My grandparents will be here soon, and if I burst into tears now, I won’t have time to de-puff my eyes and look normal again before they arrive. At least, that’s the reason I give myself for not telling her we broke up.

“Well, did you at least remember to ask him if he could join us a little later, for dessert?” she tries.

“Probably not,” I tell her. “I think they’re doing a whole big thing over there, so . . .” Still, not a lie, exactly.

“Oh, too bad,” she sighs. “Well, ask him if he has time over the weekend to stop by.”

I close myself in the bathroom and hold on to the sink. Try not to look in the mirror as I open the medicine cabinet for my pills. I’d already taken one earlier, but I guess it was no match for Josh talk. I take another now. And then I inhale and count to five, exhale to five, inhale, exhale, over and over. I don’t come out until I hear my grandparents arrive. At least they don’t

know anything about what’s going on with the trial, so that part should make things easier.

“Hi, Gma,” I say, taking turns giving them each a hug. “Hey, Gpa.”

My grandma holds my arm out and scans me, up and down, like she’s cataloging everything wrong with me in her mind. “Good Lord, Eden Anne,” she says, middle-naming me. “You look terrible.”

“Oh” is all I can say. I try to laugh, but I don’t do a very good job of pretending I’m not hurt by her bluntness.

Gpa just shrugs and shakes his head. “Well, you look lovely as ever to me, for what it’s worth.”

“Thanks,” I say, forcing a smile.

“Yes, lovely,” Gma agrees, batting her hand through the air. “But, honey, you’re clearly not well.”

I clear my throat. “I guess I’ve just been so busy, not really getting enough sleep.”

“Vanessa!” Gma yells. “Look at Eden.”

“Please, let’s not.” I turn to Caelin, who’s been lingering behind me. “Caelin,” I prompt, mumbling to him, “a little help?”

“Hey, Grandma.” He hugs her, and then our grandpa reaches out to shake his hand instead of accepting a hug. I check Caelin’s face, but he doesn’t seem surprised—I wonder when that changed. Like, what age was Caelin when Gpa decided it was no longer acceptable to hug him? I hadn’t noticed. “Oh my God,” Gma gasps, pulling on Caelin’s arm so that he’s in front of her again. “And look at you.” She places her hand against his cheek.

“What’s going on around here? You look awful, too.” We share a look and start laughing.

“No, it’s not funny,” she says to us. “Where are your parents, hiding from me, I assume?”

“We’re right here, Ma,” Dad says, coming into the room holding two wineglasses—one red for Gpa, one white for Gma. Mom behind him, fake smile plastered on her face.

We all sit at the table, and mine and Caelin’s appearances are the first order of conversation. “What are you feeding them, Vanessa?” she asks. “They need balanced diets. My God, they’re just . . .” She pauses and casts her hand across the table in our direction. “Languishing,” she finishes.

I can’t quite locate the precise definition of the word “languishing” in my vocabulary at the moment, but I make a mental note to look it up, because

something tells me it’s an appropriate word to describe our current state.

Mom says under her breath, “I knew it was going to be my fault somehow.”

“I didn’t say that,” Gma insists. “Conner, what are you feeding them?” she directs, pointedly, at my dad now, always the equal-opportunist insulter. “Will you let it go?” Dad finally says. “They’re college students, for

God’s sake; they’re just worn out.”

So I guess the trial isn’t the only secret we’re keeping from them. The part about Caelin not going back for his last semester must’ve never entered one of Dad’s weekly Sunday-evening phone calls with Gma over the past year.

I look at Caelin, and he sighs. “Actually,” he begins, but Dad tosses him a stern look that shuts him right down. Caelin shakes his head and pours himself a generous glass of wine, takes a big sip, then fills it up again. No one seems to notice. He sets it between us and tips his head toward me, gives me a small nod. I gladly take a giant sip, which, also, no one seems to notice.

Gpa asks about Dad’s work, and that takes the focus off us for now. Mom busies herself with bringing dishes to the kitchen and refilling them with food. I pick at my mashed potatoes just so I’m not drinking on an empty stomach, but nothing really appeals to me with all these lies filling in the gaps between us.

“Oh,” Gma says, holding her index finger up as if she just remembered something. “Caelin, we were reading in the paper about Kevin Armstrong. Tell me this isn’t that little boy who was always hanging around here?” she says, shaking her head, already in disbelief. “Your roommate?”

Caelin wipes his mouth on his napkin before answering. “It is, actually,” he answers. “The same one.”

“Oh my,” Gma breathes. “He’s in a world of trouble from what I gather.” Caelin nods and takes a sip of wine. “Yeah, I hope so.”

And then, out of nowhere, Dad slams his hand down on the table. Everyone flinches, the silverware jumps off the plates. “Dammit,” he yells. “Can we just have a decent family dinner for once and not dredge up all this garbage?”

I take in a sharp breath of air and hold it, unable to let it go. “Conner!” my mom shouts.

“What’s all this about?” Gma asks, looking around the table. “What did I say?”

Then everyone’s suddenly yelling at each other. I don’t even know what they’re saying anymore or who’s on what side of which problem. Gma is still looking around, waiting for someone to tell her what’s going on. I stand from the table and walk around to give her a kiss on the cheek. I do the same to Gpa. And then I continue through the kitchen, grab my coat from the hook by the back door, slide on my shoes, and go outside. The cold damp night air rushes into my lungs, and it’s such a relief to breathe again that I laugh.

I sit down on the wooden seat of our ancient swing set and let my feet dangle beneath me, let my body rock back and forth in the wind. I lean all the way back and look at the stars, studying the white clouds of my breath, counting again, slowly this time. From one to five, in and out, over and over.

I hear the back door open and close. I sit upright and see my brother walking toward me, carrying the remainder of a bottle of wine.

“Well, they left,” he says as he sits down in the seat next to me, offering me the bottle.

I shake my head. “Thanks, I think I’ve had enough.” “You okay?”

I shrug. “Ish.”

“Okay-ish?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “You?”

“Well, other than apparently looking like shit, I’m okayish too.” I start laughing, and so does he.

“Dude,” he says, taking a sip from the bottle. “We really put the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional, don’t we?”

“Pretty much,” I agree. “Also, did you just call me ‘dude’?”

“I’ve had a lot to drink,” he says with a laugh, shaking his head.

“Hey, should you maybe slow down a little with that?” I ask, nodding toward the bottle between his hands. It’s like we swapped places at some point. Now he’s the screwup, and I’m supposed to be the good one, but I don’t think he realizes I’m not done being the screwup yet. Our parents must be so proud.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, brushing me off. “I will.” “When?”

“When that motherfucker’s behind bars,” he answers, and takes another mouthful.

“Well, but what if that doesn’t happen?” I ask. “Then what?”

“Don’t even say that,” he tells me. “Don’t even put that out there.” He swings his arm toward the sky, out there, at the universe, and the wine spills all over both of us. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I tell him, shaking the wine off the sleeve of my coat.

He sets the bottle down on the ground against the leg of the swing set and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. Lights one up and offers it to me.

“Tempting,” I admit. “But no thanks.”

“Good,” he says. “That’s really good.” He inhales, and the red tip of the cigarette burns bright in the darkness. He leans backward and exhales the smoke away from me. Then he holds the cigarette out in front of him and stares at it for a moment before depositing it into the wine bottle, where it sizzles and hisses. He looks at me for approval, and I hold my hand out for a little fist bump, which he returns.

“Hey, I bet you’re sorry Josh couldn’t make it for our lovely family gathering tonight?” he says, grinning. “Does he know we’re crazy?”

“Oh, yeah.” I can’t help but laugh. “He definitely knows I’m crazy, anyway. Um, we broke up, actually,” I say out loud for the first time.

“Oh no,” he says, his voice softening with genuine concern. “Why?”

“Guess my craziness got to be a little much for the poor guy,” I try to joke, but it’s not funny, not even to me.

“You need me to go kick his ass again?” he asks. “I will.”

“No, it’s my fault.” I look down and drag my foot through the patch of dirt under the swing. “I did something pretty messed up that really hurt him, and . . .” I shrug and sniffle, trying to hold back the tears. “I just don’t know how we move on, really.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, but thankfully, he doesn’t press for details about what I did that was so messed up.

“Yeah, me too.”

Now if only I could figure out how to tell Josh that I’m sorry.

The next day, I’m with Mara in her car, eating drive-through tacos. She tells me about Thanksgiving with her dad and his fiancée and how they had the meal catered.

“It was really yummy,” she admits. “But I didn’t tell them that. It’s still cheating to cater, even if it tastes better than the nasty turkey my mom always made. That dryness spells family.” She tears open a packet of hot sauce and squeezes it into the cheese dip we’re about to share, then asks me the question I’ve been dreading: “So, how are things going with you?”

I tell her what happened with Josh, but she interrupts me before I can tell her the worst part. “Oh my God, Edy, are you telling me you’re pregnant, is that why you—”

“What? No! God, no. I got the morning-after pill—well, actually, Josh got it for me—wait, is that why I what?” I ask. “What were you gonna say?”

“Oh. Nothing. You just look a little . . .” She pauses, squinting as she stares at me. “A little rough. That’s all.”

“Yeah, that seems to be the consensus.”

“Sorry, keep going,” she says, dipping a tortilla chip into the queso and offering it to me. “How did this lead to you breaking up?”

“I knew I’d missed too many days, like I knew it was risky. But I let him

. . . you know, come, anyway.”

“Oh,” she murmurs. “Um. Why?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know anymore; I just did. And he’s really pissed. I’ve never seen him so angry. And then I got angry that he was angry, and the next thing I know, he’s telling me what a fuckup I am, and then we’re taking a break and I’m throwing a water bottle at him.” I pause, trying to recall whether I left anything out. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened.”

“You threw a water bottle at him?” “It missed.”

She nods, seeming to think about this detail for longer than feels necessary. “But wait, he really called you a fuckup? That doesn’t sound like him.”

“Well, okay, he didn’t use the word ‘fuckup,’ but that’s what he meant.

And he was right,” I continue. “I am a fuckup.” “Edy, don’t say that.”

“No, I am. What I did? That was fucked up—you think so too.” “Okay, but one fuckup doesn’t make you a fuckup,” she argues.

“I just keep thinking, if I hadn’t told him and just dealt with it on my own

. . .” I venture back into the loop my thoughts have kept getting stuck on

these past few weeks. “But I guess that’s not the point,” I say, more to myself.

“Yeah,” Mara agrees. “Can I say something to try to make you feel better that I also happen to believe is true?”

“Okay.”

“I think you did the right thing telling him. I think that’s actually you fucking up less, because you were honest. And I think you guys can work it out.” She takes my hand. “Actually, I know you can.”

I squeeze her hand in thanks, but it just reminds me of how that was our thing—me and Josh—the hand-squeeze private Morse code thing.

“Oh,” I add. “And, of course, there’s that whole little trial thing happening in January. So, I basically have a month to pull myself together and get ready to go through that whole fucking mess all over again.”

She squeezes my hands even harder now. “You can do it.”

I breathe in deeply through my nose and try to absorb some of the tears back into my body before they can make it out of me. “All right, I can’t start crying again—I’ve been crying for three weeks straight. I can’t physically cry again right now or I’m afraid I’m going to cause permanent damage to my body.”

Mara’s eyes light up. “Okay, that gives me an idea.” She wraps up all our food and sticks it back in the carryout bag by my feet, then starts the car— all with this wild smirk across her face.

“Okay, why am I scared right now?” I ask her as she shifts the car into drive.

“Buckle up,” she orders.

She takes us down the familiar roads of our tiny town until, twenty minutes later, we’re pulling into the parking lot of a mostly abandoned strip mall that looks vaguely familiar. And then I see the sign: SKIN DEEP.

“No,” I tell her.

“Hear me out,” she begins. “I was just thinking that we need to do something that’ll remind you of what a badass you are, and seriously, nothing makes me feel like more of a badass than getting a new piercing.”

Mara has been collecting them. First her nose—I was there for that one— then her eyebrow, then her lip, then her tongue, then her navel, and who knows where else these days.

“Haven’t you wanted to get your cartilage pierced since, like, forever?” she asks, reaching out to touch my ear. “It’s very tasteful and cute.”

I shrug. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well? Why not do it now?”

“I’m not sure the middle of an emotional crisis is really the best time to commit to permanent body alteration.”

“Oh, please,” she says, unbuckling her seat belt. “Emotional crises are literally the only time to do this kind of thing! And a piercing is hardly permanent. A tattoo—now, that’s a lifetime commitment. No, you’re getting your cartilage pierced, and if you hate it, you can take it out. Come on. Cameron’s working today. He’ll get us in right away.”

“He still works here?”

“Yeah. After graduation he moved from piercer to apprentice tattoo artist.”

I follow her inside and recognize the small waiting room from last time

—somehow it seems less shady now, though, cleaner. The music playing through the speakers seems gentler, everything softer now than it was before. Cameron comes out from the back and actually looks happy to see me here with Mara.

“Hey, Eden. Wow, it’s been a while,” he says, all smiles. “Edy’s getting a piercing,” she tells him.

“Actually,” I say as I look around at all the artwork on the walls, “I was thinking I might get a tattoo.” Because maybe I do need something permanent, something drastic. Something to bring me back to reality when I get in my head.

“What?” Mara shrieks. “Yes!”

Cameron sets me down with a bunch of books and says, “Here, look through these portfolios for ideas. I’m gonna finish up with this guy in the back and then we’ll do it.”

I look through the books, turning page after page, waiting for something to jump out at me, while Mara talks with the older tatted-up guy behind the front desk like they’re old friends—and they might be. I’ve missed a lot.

And then I turn the page, and in the middle of all these different elaborate, pretty, floral designs, I see it. “Found it,” I call out to Mara.

She skips over to me and looks. “A dandelion? That’s sweet.

Understated. Very you.”

The guy from behind the counter comes over to look too, seeming excited for me. “Nice,” he says. “Where are you getting it?”

I look down at my arms and push my sleeve up. “Maybe here?” I say, drawing a circle with my finger around the inside of my wrist.

“Yeah,” he says with a smile, “that’s gonna look good.”

Mara hops and squeals. “Now you’re making me want to get one too. But I’ll wait. This is your day.”

“No, it’s not. It’s . . .” I start to say, but then I freeze when I see who’s coming out from the back room, Cameron following along behind him up to the counter. I can see he has the sleeve of his T-shirt rolled up, a fresh tattoo on his shoulder, covered with plastic wrap, but I can still make it out. A number. His number from basketball. Forever branded on his body.

It’s Jock Guy. Again, haunting me like some kind of unresolved recurring nightmare.

I watch him as he pays Cameron; he doesn’t even notice me sitting here. He may have chased me down before, but now it’s my turn. Suddenly I’m on my feet, following him out, the chimes on the door dinging twice in quick succession.

“Hey,” I call after him. “Hey!” He turns around. “Yeah?”

“Do you remember me?” I ask him.

He starts to shake his head, but then I see something register on his face, “Oh. Yeah, you’re Caelin’s . . .” But he pauses. “I mean, your Josh’s . . .” He starts again but stops.

“I’m Caelin’s, I’m Josh’s,” I mimic, savoring the sharpness in my tone. “Eden, my name’s Eden.”

“Right, yeah,” he says, glancing around, maybe looking for Caelin, for Josh—to see if they’re here to defend me. “So, what’s up?”

“Just so you know, I remember what you did that day. When you and your buddy wanted to scare me after school that time. And I know you spread lies about me too.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but he can’t look me in the eye.

“Yes, you do.”

“What do you want?” he asks. “An apology?”

I shake my head and continue. “I never told Josh you did that. But I just want you to know that it was really fucked up—pathetic, actually.”

“Fine,” he mutters. “That it?” I shrug. “Yeah, that’s it.”

He nods and starts to turn away.

“You know, I don’t even know your name,” I call after him. He turns back around and opens his mouth. “It’s Za—” “No, I don’t want to know it,” I tell him.

“Whatever,” he mumbles, then turns back around, picks up his pace as he walks to his car.

When I go back inside, everyone’s watching me from the window.

Cameron keeps asking if I’m okay, pausing as he dips the tip of the needle of the tattoo pen in the black ink. And I keep telling him I’m fine.

“It hurts, but not in the way I thought it would.” “Tough girl, huh?” he says admiringly.

I laugh, but he tells me to hold still.

“By the way, I never thanked you,” he says. “For what?”

“Finally cutting Steve loose,” he answers, and looks up at me like he’s trying to make sure I know he’s genuinely thanking me. “I know I gave you a lot of shit about how you treated him in the beginning, but I didn’t like how he started treating you, either. I’m just glad you ended it when you did, how you did. Before it got too . . .” He doesn’t finish, but I think I know what he means: too volatile, painful, destructive. “For both of you, I mean.”

I just nod in return.

My time with Steve feels like it was so long ago. I don’t even feel like I’m the same person anymore. Back then I felt like I had no choice but to accept whatever kind of affection was offered to me even if it wasn’t what I wanted or needed. But maybe we can only accept the love we think we deserve.

“I know I don’t say it or show it very often,” he adds, not looking up from my arm as he gently wipes the ink and blood off my skin. “But I do think of you as a friend, too, you know.”

“Thank you,” I tell him. “For saying that. And for being good to Mara all these years—she deserves to be loved that way.”

He smiles but doesn’t say anything.

“What do you think?” he asks after he finishes.

I look at my wrist, at my own personal dandelion, little seeds floating off toward the palm of my hand. Wishes, hopes. Mine.

JOSH

It’s my last night home, and we’re sitting around watching TV in the living room after eating leftover Thanksgiving dinner for the second night in a row. Mom stands abruptly, looks at her watch, and says, “I’m gonna run to the grocery for a bit. Any requests?”

“We have a house full of food,” Dad points out, gesturing toward the kitchen.

“Well, sue me! I want something else,” she claps back.

He holds his hands up. “Okay, okay,” he says softly. “I was just saying.”

I have a sudden flashback to when I’m twelve, hearing my mom give my dad this same excuse—except she’d say “we.” We were going to the store or out for ice cream. Or we were going in search of something special I needed for a last-minute school assignment—me and her. Only we never went to the store or for ice cream or off to find that one missing item. She was taking me to a meeting. I remember she always had a bunch of go-to excuses at the ready, to pull out of her back pocket whenever she needed one. And as I look up at her now, I wonder if it’s still that way, because Dad’s right, after all, we have a ton of food in this house.

“Mom, can I come with you?” I ask, already getting off the couch.

She scrunches her eyebrows together and says, “To the store, really?” “Yeah,” I tell her.

She shakes her head and says, “Don’t be silly. I’ll be home soon. Text me if you think of anything you want. Or anything you want to bring back to school with you.”

“No, Mom, I want to come,” I try to say more firmly as I make my way over to the door and tug my sneakers on.

She looks at me, almost getting annoyed, but then I nod, widen my eyes, try to secretly tell her I know we’re not actually going to the store.

“Oh,” she says, pushing her arms through her coat. “All right.” She walks over to kiss my dad and says, “Be home soon.”

He looks up at her, then at me. “Well, now I wanna come too,” he jokes.

My mom swats his arm and shakes her head. “Goodbye,” she calls over her shoulder.

Outside, she pulls on her gloves and looks over at me but doesn’t say anything yet.

Once we’re in the car, I ask, “You’re going to a meeting, right?” “Yes,” she answers. “You really want to come?”

“Yeah, I’ve sorta been thinking about it lately. Thinking maybe I should give it another try. As long as you don’t mind me tagging along with you?”

She shakes her head. “Not at all.”

We pull into the parking lot of a church and go inside, past all the stained glass and pews, down into the basement, to a room with a sign on the door that says AL-ANON MEETING TONIGHT 8PM.

The room is small and looks like it could be the basement of any home nearby, not much here to signal we’re even in a church. There’s a table set up with refreshments, white powdered doughnuts, and coffee. Pamphlets about Al-Anon and Alateen and AA and NA laid out for the taking. More and more people arrive, young and old, and my mom talks with everyone, lets me hang out in the back by the doughnuts. As everyone begins to find a seat around the circle, my mom gestures for me to come. I take the empty spot next to her.

“Well,” I hear my mom say next to me, but when I turn to look at her, I realize she’s not talking to me, she’s talking to everyone. “It’s a few minutes after eight, so why don’t we go ahead and get started.”

I look around the circle, trying to figure out who the facilitator is, the old man with the cane and the gray beard, the middle-aged woman in the fancy shoes who looks like she just came from a business meeting. Or maybe it’s the—

“Welcome, everyone,” my mom begins. “I’m Rosie, and my husband is an addict.” My mom is running this meeting. I just watch her, admire her, while she tells our story—her story—kind of in awe of how she can just put herself out here like this. “I know how hard the holidays can be for all of us, not just our loved ones. I certainly do a lot more worrying around this time of year,” she continues, and finally, she opens the floor. “Who would like to share?”

I just listen.

To the bearded man whose wife is an alcoholic. To the lady with the fancy shoes whose teenage daughter is relapsing right now. The girl who’s probably not much older than me, talking about her fiancé. The man whose brother is getting out of rehab this week. When there’s a lull in the conversation, my mom asks if anyone else would like to share and looks over at me.

“I’m Josh. My dad is . . . is an alcoholic, an addict,” I say, finding it so hard to get those words out. “This is my first time doing this since I was a kid. I’m just observing today—listening, I mean—if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine,” Mom says, and heads nod up and down in agreement around the circle. “Often, it helps to just know there are other people out there who can relate.”

Another person introduces themselves—a middle-aged man who could be anyone you pass on the street. “I’m struggling,” he says, clasping his hands together in front of him. “I try so hard to let go of that compulsion to want to control everything she does.” I’m not sure if his she is a wife or a child or what, but it doesn’t matter because I watch him lean forward over his lap and start crying. “But it’s so hard to trust her—hell, who am I kidding? It’s hard to trust anyone,” he finishes. Around the circle, heads nod in understanding and I realize I’m nodding along with them. The younger girl with the fiancé gets up and grabs the box of tissues that’s sitting on the refreshment table and brings it over to the man.

The meeting ends with the Serenity Prayer, and the woman next to me grabs my hand, holds on tightly. My mom reaches for my other hand, and even though it’s small in mine, it feels so strong, solid.

“I’m proud of you,” she says, looking over at me while we’re driving home.

“I didn’t do anything. You were great, though, Mom,” I tell her. “How long have you been doing that—leading the meetings, I mean?”

“A while.” She shrugs, then smiles and reaches over to mess up my hair. “So, what did you think? Will you be going again—I’m sure you can find a meeting near campus pretty easily.”

I nod. “Yeah, I think I might.”

“That would be good for you, with everything that’s been going on,” she says. “I’m always here—you know that—but a mother isn’t always what you need.”

I’m not exactly sure what she means by that, not sure if she’s talking about Dad or Eden or school or what, but I take this moment to ask her the question I’ve been too afraid to say out loud: “He seems different this time, right?”

She waits to look at me until we pull up to the red light. “He was really shaken when you didn’t come home over winter break last year. It hurt him.”

“I’m sorry,” I begin. “I didn’t mean to—”

“No, stop,” she interrupts. “That’s the point, you took a stand—you’ve never done that before.”

“Oh,” I mutter.

“And it didn’t just hurt him, it scared him. He realized he could lose you.

That’s what’s different this time. As far as I can tell, anyway.” “You’ve stood up to him lots of times,” I point out.

“Well, it’s different. He knows I’m not going anywhere. We’re in this thing together. For better or worse, right? That’s what I vowed, and I’ll be damned, it looks like I’m sticking to it. But you?” She pokes my arm. “You made no such promise. I think he finally gets that.”

“Do you regret it?” I ask her, though I’m not sure I’m ready for the answer. “Sticking to your promise, I mean.”

“No,” she responds. “Especially not lately.”

When we get home, equipped with a few bags of random groceries for good measure, Dad is outside in the driveway, illuminated by the motion lights on the side of the garage. He’s slowly dribbling one of my old basketballs I hadn’t seen since middle school, and when he sees us pull up on the side of the street, he tosses his cigarette on the ground, steps on it quickly.

“Does he really think I don’t know he’s smoking?” Mom says, shaking her head as she unbuckles her seat belt and starts getting out of the car.

I reach into the back seat for the bags, but Mom comes up behind me and touches my arm.

“I’ll get these,” she tells me. “Why don’t you go hang out with your father awhile, huh?”

“Yeah,” I agree, “okay.”

Dad starts walking down the driveway toward us, with the ball perched between his arm and his hip. “I was about to file a missing persons report on you two,” he jokes.

“Mother-son bonding knows no time constraints,” Mom says, always quick on her feet, in a different way than Dad is.

“Need help with those?” he asks.

“I’ve got it,” Mom says, hurrying up the driveway, stopping for just a second as Dad gives her a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t stay out here too late, boys,” she calls over her shoulder. “And, Joshua, don’t go too easy on him.” I stay behind. Not sure what to say, I hold my hands up. He passes me the ball. I pass it back. He goes for a shot, but I block him. I take the shot

instead.

He claps his hands and waits for the pass.

He tries to get past me, but I block him again. And again. And again.

“Wow, all right,” Dad says, laughing. “You’re really not gonna go easy on your old man, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Good,” he says, and I think we both know we’re not talking about basketball anymore.

I pivot and jab, drive forward, stay a step ahead of him, make the basket. Over and over. I’m tiring him out, I can tell, but I don’t stop. Not until he’s standing there in the middle of our driveway, hands on hips, breathing heavy, smiling only a little when he says, “All right, all right.” He raises his hands in the shape of a T and shakes his head. “Time-out, okay? Time-out.”

“You done?” I call over to him.

“You got me.” He breathes out forcefully, bends over with his hands on his knees for a second before standing upright again. “You got me, Joshie.”

We go sit on the front steps, where Mom managed to stealthily leave two water bottles for us. He cracks open the first bottle and hands it to me, takes the second one for himself. We sit there side by side, drinking in long sips, both of us still catching our breath.

“Josh, do you know how proud I am of you?” he says, out of nowhere. “Because of basketball.”

“Well, no,” he says. “I’m proud of you regardless of basketball.” “You are?”

“How can you even ask me that?” he says, letting out this short puff of air. “Of course. Of course I am. It’s just a game.”

I nod, letting his words sink in, trying to figure out why that doesn’t feel true to me. It’s a game, sure. A game I’ve grown to hate. A game that’s

taken so much from me, yet I can’t seem to let go of it, even though I know it’s just a game.

“It’s not, though. It’s not just a game to me,” I hear myself telling him. “It’s all I had.”

“What do you mean?” He’s shaking his head, squinting, not understanding. “Don’t say that. You have so much going for you.”

“No, I mean I clung to it. When you weren’t there. When you weren’t available.”

“When I was using, you mean?” he says. “Yeah.”

“Josh, I—” he starts, but I’m not finished.

“I have held on to this game for so long, even when it’s unhealthy, even when I hate how it makes me feel, even when I hate myself for being a part of this team right now.” I have to stop and catch my breath, give my brain a chance to catch up with my words. “This fucking game has hijacked my life

—and I hate it. God, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore!”

“Josh,” he begins again, “no one is forcing you to stick with this if that’s not—”

“No, you are!”

“Me? I have never—”

“Yes, Dad. I have been forced to keep this up because I don’t trust that you’re going to be there for me. But this?” I pick up the ball that’s sitting between my feet. “This thing that’s just a game—it might only be a game, but it’s always there. It’s been the constant, when that’s what you should’ve been for me.”

He’s covering his mouth while he watches me, really listening to me. “I—I’m a mess. I’m actively destroying my life over this,” I continue,

and I can feel hot tears on my face already, but I don’t care. “Do you know I broke up with Eden? It was me. I broke up with her, even though I love her so much, because I thought I couldn’t trust her. But it’s you—you’re the one I don’t trust.”

He shakes his head, and I see the tears in his eyes, hear the sheer sadness in his voice when he says, “I never—” But he stops and lets out this heart- shattering sob. “I never knew you felt this way.” He gasps. “About any of it, I swear, I didn’t know. I thought . . .” He pauses. “You had your mother, and she is so great, so good,” he says, his voice trembling on that last word, as

he jabs his fingers into the center of his chest, “so much better than me. I just thought—”

“Mom’s great. Yes, she’s a good person. She’s an amazing mother, but I need you, too—I can’t believe I have to tell you that.”

He takes the ball from my hands and drops it, letting it roll down the steps into the grass, and he pulls me in with both arms, just holding on, both of us holding on.

“Thank you,” he says when we part. “Thank you for trusting me enough, right now, to tell me all of this. I can take it, I promise you. I’m here, all right? I’m not going anywhere this time.”

“Okay,” I tell him. “Okay?” he repeats.

We stand, and as we start toward the door, I feel like I have a weight—a physical weight—lifted off me, the heaviness I’ve been carrying around inside me for so long, gone.

“Dad, wait,” I say. “I’m proud of you too, you know that, right?”

When I get back to school Sunday night, I send Coach an email letting him know I’m going to miss practice the next day. I tell him I have a personal matter to take care of, even though I know he said having a personal life isn’t allowed.

I’m waiting outside my adviser’s office first thing in the morning—I get there even before the department’s office assistants show up. Because I finally have my priorities straight.

EDEN

On Monday after class, I walk into the café and buy two bags of the nice dark-roast coffee with my employee discount. Then I go into the back to find Captain Douchebag at his desk.

“I have to quit,” I tell him.

He looks at me, stone-faced, like I’m supposed to care that I’m making him mad. “I assume you’re not giving two weeks’ notice, either; you’re just leaving.”

“Yes,” I tell him.

“Well.” He breathes in, plucks the pen from behind his ear and tosses it onto his desk, and says, “I don’t know what we’ll do without you. You were such an asset.”

I have the thought immediately and hold back for a moment, but then decide, why not? He really doesn’t matter. There’s nothing he can do to me. So I smile sweetly, then tell him, “And you were such an asshole.”

I stand there for just a second so I can watch as his mouth drops open.

Then I set my cleaned and folded apron on his desk and walk away. “Don’t expect a reference!” he yells after me.

I avoid eye contact with Perry on my way out, because he doesn’t matter either.

I keep my next appointment with my therapist, and she even laughs when I relay my quitting story before going on to point out, more seriously, why this is a sign that I’m making progress.

I go to every class for the last two weeks of the semester and do not put Josh’s shirt back on again even after I wash it. I’m sure this is somehow progress too, even though it doesn’t feel like it. I let Parker drag me out for

a jog a few times, and she tries not to laugh too hard when I can’t make it more than thirty seconds without needing a break.

But I get better every time, especially when I realized that the breathing is not so different from when I used to play clarinet. Using the diaphragm, deep breaths all the way to the bottom of my lungs—it comes back to me so easily, somehow.

We have one week between the last day of classes and the first day of finals. The only obligation either of us has, other than swim practice for Parker and working in the library for me, is to study for our exams.

Parker is the only reason I know what to do with myself at all and don’t get swallowed up by the overwhelming task of trying to figure out how to study. Everything was daunting and had me on the verge of multiple panic attacks until she initiated me into her Study-a-Thon ritual. She brings me smoothies in the mornings and we order in food for Kim McCrorey each night. I make us a pot of dark roast to share in the afternoons, while we camp out in the living room with our books and notes and laptops. We stay up until midnight every night and wake up at seven to go jogging.

It feels good to use my brain for something other than worrying and hating myself. And it feels good to treat my body well for a change. For so long it seemed like the only time my body felt good was when Josh was making it feel that way. But this is different. I’m doing this. Working my muscles, getting stronger, feeding my body, actually taking care of myself for once.

I jog out on my own the Sunday before finals start because I’m so pumped with this new energy, Parker told me to go away and leave her alone so she could take a nap. So I run around the block at first, then back again, and it’s not until I double back past the gelato place that I begin to feel how cold it’s getting with the sun going down, my fingers and toes starting to go numb. I need something to warm me up before I head home. There’s a handwritten WE’RE HIRING sign near the register this time. Chelsea pops up from her seat behind the counter, where she’s got a book open in front of her.

“My name is Chelsea,” she says, her voice flat and bored like last time. “I’ll be your barista today.”

“Oh, hi,” I say, happy to see her for no reason. “I came in here once before when you were working. You probably don’t remember me.”

She just stares.

“You studying?” I ask her, gesturing to her open book.

“Yeah, well, it’s been pretty dead all day. Guess no one wants gelato when it’s doing”—her eyes shift to the drizzle hitting the window—“ that outside.”

I laugh, she doesn’t. “So?” she says.

“Oh, yeah. Can I get a hot chocolate to go?” I ask.

She starts making my drink and pushes her glasses up. While I stand there, I look around behind the counter, wondering if maybe this would be a safe place to work, if I could imagine myself slinging gelato and coffee here. But then I catch a glimpse of something familiar sitting next to Chelsea’s seat. She comes back over and snaps a lid on the cup, slides it across the counter toward me, and says, “Here you are. One hot chocolate. To go.”

“Hey, can I ask, what instrument do you play?” I gesture to her case— one that looks a lot more beat-up than mine, covered with stickers and scratches and scuff marks, having seen more of the world than mine has.

She glances down at her case too, and when she looks back up at me, she’s actually smiling. “The sax,” she answers. “Well, and piano, and guitar. You play?”

“Oh, I don’t—I used to play clarinet in high school, but not anymore.” “Too bad, we actually need a clarinetist.”

“Like for an orchestra or something?” I ask, puzzled by the strange flutter in my voice.

“Well, it’s not quite that formal. I mean, I am in the university orchestra

—I’m a music major, so . . . first year,” she adds with a shrug. “But there’s this other group that’s open to all students. It’s the Tuck Hill Campus Band.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling my body inching closer, curious. “You haven’t heard of it?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Well, it’s kind of an ensemble. But anyone can audition. We don’t really do official concerts; we just perform at different campus events. I guess it’s more about having fun.” She looks around quickly, like she’s caught off guard by her own talkativeness. “It’s nice. We practice together once a week. Low pressure—no pressure, really—compared to everything else, I mean.”

I feel my head nodding, because I know exactly what she means, this fellow first-year student, by pressure. It’s different from high school. Everything’s different here. It’s only at this moment I realize that pressure, that difference, isn’t something I’ve been able to talk about with anyone— not Josh or Parker or Dominic— because they’re all already past the newness of it. But I’m not; I’m in it. Right now I’m directly in the middle of it.

“You interested, or . . . ?”

She lets the question dangle there.

“Me?” I double-check. “Seriously?”

“I’m always serious,” she replies, monotone, but then flashes a brief smile. She’s kind of strange, this girl, but I kind of like it.

“Oh God, I don’t know, I’m really rusty. I haven’t even taken my clarinet out of its case in—” I stop myself, because I was going to say years, but that’s not true. I’d almost forgotten about my clarinet sitting there, waiting, on the top shelf of my closet. “I did play for like six years, though, before I stopped,” I add, wondering who I’m trying to convince of my worthiness, myself or Chelsea.

“Six years isn’t nothing,” she says. “Rusty’s okay. It’s not like it’s the symphony or anything.”

“Um, all right.”

“I can text you before the next practice if you wanna check it out. It won’t be until after exam week, though. Will you be around over winter break?”

“Yes,” I hear myself saying, making the decision right there on the spot, that I don’t want to go home for winter break. “I’ll be here.”

She hands me her phone to put my number in.

“Okay,” she says, looking at my contact info and adding, “Eden.”

I walk home, sipping on my hot chocolate, realizing I completely forgot about asking for a job application. But I’m feeling pretty good about myself anyway, as the snow starts to fall, glistening as it collects on the ground and sticks to my hair and clothes.

An informal ensemble band, not for grades or credits. I smile to myself as I cross the street, remembering the feeling of being in a loud music room, the part right at the end of every rehearsal, when everyone would just sort

of let loose and wail their instruments at the same time, to no particular tune or song or rhythm—just an all-at-once cacophony of sound—for fun.

When I come in the door, he’s standing there at the bank of mailboxes. He’s committed to the beard now. And he’s wearing his green plaid flannel shirt that he once let me wear when I stayed over, and all I can think about is how soft and warm it was.

“Hi-hey,” he says, seeming startled to be standing here face-to-face with me for the first time in a month.

“Hi,” I manage to say back.

He searches my eyes, and I’m pretty sure I’m searching his right back, for some clue of what we’re supposed to do. But I’m unable to look away, unable to speak, unable to move.

“Um,” he utters. “You . . . look . . .” “Cold?” I offer.

He smiles, and it’s so beautiful I can’t help but smile back. He licks his lips and swallows as he steps closer to me. He reaches for my hand, and I let him. “I miss you,” he says quietly.

I nod and squeeze his hand once before forcing myself to let go and take a step away from him. “I miss you too,” I tell him, because that’s the truth. “But I’m not ready.”

“Okay,” he says. And he simply stands there holding his mail close to his chest while I walk up the stairs.

JOSH

There was so much I wanted to say; I’d been saving up all the things I needed to tell her. So much has happened in this month we’ve been apart. I wanted to tell her how I quit the team. How I’ve been going back and forth between my adviser and Dr. Gupta for weeks now, making a plan to switch my major to psychology. I think she’d really be happy for me about that one. I’d tell her how I managed to work with the financial aid office to cobble together a bunch of smaller scholarships and grants—and even a loan—to replace the stupid basketball scholarship that’s been holding me hostage all this time.

I wanted to tell her how I’ve been going to these meetings, talking, listening, and doing all this thinking. And how strange it is to have so much time, suddenly, without basketball stealing it away from me. How all I wanted to do with it was to spend it with her, even just as friends—I wish I’d thought to at least tell her that. I miss you, I should’ve said, not just as my girlfriend, but as my friend too—my best friend. Because I’m pretty sure that’s what she is.

But she’s not ready. That’s okay.

I was half expecting her to just keep walking without acknowledging me at all. The fact that she spoke to me to tell me she’s not ready is more than I was even hoping for.

When I get back to the apartment, Dominic is sitting at the table hunched over one of his textbooks, and when he glances up at me, he does a double take. “What the hell happened to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You went downstairs as one person and came back as someone else.

Like the opposite of going out and getting punched in the face.”

“She talked to me,” I answer. “What’d she say?”

“That she didn’t want to talk to me.”

He squints and holds his hand in the air, teetering between a thumbs-up and a thumbs-down. “So . . . score?” he says uncertainly.

“Yes, because at least she talked to me,” I repeat.

“Straight people really are different, aren’t they?” he says to himself. “Oh, speaking of—do you mind if Luke comes up this weekend after finals?”

“No, sounds good,” I tell him. “So, is it getting serious?” I ask.

He closes his textbook and looks up at me, trying not to smile. But then he nods slowly and says, “It’s very serious. He’s moving here. He just found out he can transfer next semester.”

“That’s amazing. I’m happy for you, man.”

“Thank you, that really means a lot.” He pauses and says, “And all joking aside, I’m happy she talked to you.”

Exam week goes by in a caffeinated blur, as it always does. But that Saturday there’s a gathering on the roof to celebrate the end of the semester. With all the students living in this building, it’s sort of a given that someone’s going to be throwing a party.

I head up before Dominic and Luke—wanted to give them some time alone. Part of me is wondering if she’ll show up or not. These kinds of things were always hit or miss with her. I’m talking with a girl who was in my Intro to Forensic Psychology class last semester—she doesn’t live here, but one of her roommates’ friends does, apparently—when I spot Luke and Eden talking by the edge of the roof. Dominic and Parker are here now too. The girl from my class wanders off to find her roommate, and I go stand by the electric Crock-Pot of hot cider, because that seems like the best place to be either available if she wants to talk to me or to be easily avoidable if she doesn’t want to talk to me.

“Hey.” I turn around to see Parker standing there. She gives me an unprompted hug, which I find oddly comforting coming from her. “It’s been a while since we got to hang out,” she says.

“Yeah,” I agree. “How have you been?”

“Okay. It’s been a weird semester, but I think I’m growing fond of this new roommate-slash-friend role you thrust upon me by bringing her into

my life.”

“Good,” I tell her. “I think, anyway.” She stares at me for longer than feels comfortable. “What?” I finally ask.

“I was just waiting to see how long it would take you before you started pumping me for info about her.”

“I wasn’t—”

“No, I know,” she interrupts, smiling. “That’s progress.” She looks behind me and sort of hitches her chin in the direction of something. When I look over my shoulder, I see that it’s Eden standing there. And when I turn back around, Parker’s gone.

“You guarding the cider?” she asks with a laugh. “Um, I guess,” I answer. “Want some?”

She nods, and I scoop a ladleful into one of the mismatched mugs sitting out on the table. “Thank you,” she tells me as she cradles the mug between her hands and brings it to her face to smell.

“I can leave if you want,” I offer.

“No, don’t,” she says. “We can’t keep avoiding each other forever.”

She drifts a few steps away and then looks over at me like I should be following, so I do.

I’m quick to tell her, “I was never avoiding you.”

“Right.” She nods. “Okay, then I can’t keep avoiding you.”

She leads us over to the wicker love seat with the flattened cushions, where we’ve sat so many other times together. Except this time it’s not with her on my lap or me leaning on her shoulder. We just sit side by side like two normal people and look at each other.

“I like the beard,” she tells me, adding, “It’s not stubble this time, by the way.”

I laugh—God, it feels good to laugh in her presence.

“So what else is new with you?” she asks. “Besides the beard, not stubble.”

“I quit the team,” I tell her.

“Oh my God, Josh. Okay, that’s big.” She smiles at me like she really does know just how big this is for me. “I knew you could do it.”

“What, be a quitter?” I joke.

She pushes my arm a little, and it’s the best feeling in the world. Then she looks off into the distance for a moment and smiles again, softer now,

and says, “I seem to remember a wise young man once told me that just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it makes you happy.”

I look down at my mug—that was one of the secrets I told her that night at my house, lying on my couch, while we talked all night. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“Why not? I remember everything you say to me.”

My heart, flying high, suddenly drops to the ground with a splat. “I am so sorry about what I said to you, Eden.”

“Oh,” she breathes. “No, I didn’t mean—fuck, sorry—I wasn’t talking about that. Really, I was just saying . . . I know basketball has been a huge drain on you for a long time. I wasn’t trying to—we don’t have to get into all that now.”

“Okay. We can, though, if you want. Whenever you want, we can.”

She looks at me in that way she does, that super-serious way that makes my heart pound in my throat. “I mean, I guess we can. If you want?” she asks uncertainly as she looks around us.

“Yeah, I would like to,” I tell her. “A lot.”

She inhales deeply and looks me in the eye. “Well, I finally realized why you were so mad at me,” she begins.

“We don’t have to do this here,” I tell her. “You could come downstairs.”

She laughs, my favorite of her laughs: the quick, semi-loud spontaneous one that she always means. “Let’s just stay right here, okay? I somehow don’t think going to your place is the best idea.”

“Wait, you know that’s not what I meant, right?” “I know, but come on, Josh. It’s us, after all.”

Now I laugh, but in my head I’m replaying that word—us— over and over. Us. There’s still an us to her. “Okay. Point taken. You were saying . . .

?”

She inhales deeply and starts again. “I just want you to know that I get it now. Why you were so mad. I know that sometimes I don’t respect myself very much, and somehow, that night, it turned into me not respecting you, too, and I never meant for that to happen. I never wanted to hurt you—I never want to hurt you ever again.” She pauses and reaches out to run her hand along my face. “I really am so sorry.”

I take her hand in mine now. “Thank you for understanding. You always understand. It’s your superpower,” I tell her, and she looks down at our hands, that shy smile. “I think I understand, too, a little better anyway,

about why it all happened the way it did. And I never meant to hurt you with what I said to you that night.”

“This is you,” she says, looking up at me. “What?”

“That’s what you said. This is you. This—the whole messed-up situation

—is me.”

God, it sounds even worse when she says it like that. “That’s what I said, but you have to know that’s not true. I mean, I didn’t even believe it when I was saying it, and I don’t believe it now, either. I swear to you, I never thought that. I would never think that about you. Not ever. I need you to know this.”

She looks down at our hands again, and I can see her starting to breathe heavily, sniffing through her nose. Then she sets her mug on the ground, and I start to get afraid that she’s going to leave, but then she takes my mug too and sets it down next to hers. She puts her arms around me, and I can feel her body shuddering, her head tucked under my chin. And I just hold her like that, everyone else around us disappearing.

“Thank you,” she finally says as she pulls away from me. Her hair gets stuck on my beard-not-stubble, and I tuck it back behind her ear. “I guess I didn’t even know how badly I needed to hear that.”

She brings her hands up to her face to wipe her eyes, and I see something there on her arm, poking out from under her jacket. She brings her hand up again to run her fingers through her hair, and I know for sure I see something.

“What is this?” I ask her as I take her hand again and turn it over.

“Oh.” She pulls her sleeve up. “Yeah, I got a tattoo,” she says with a sniffle and a laugh.

“A dandelion?” My heart starts racing. Because. Dandelions. That was

our thing. “It’s beautiful.” “Thank you.”

“Does it mean something?” I dare myself to ask.

She breathes in through her nose, gazes out, beyond all the people that are gathered here on the roof, and says, “Well, I guess it’s about being free. And strong.”

“I like that—it’s perfect.”

“And you too,” she adds, quieter. “What do you mean?”

“It’s sort of about you, too,” she says, making my pulse quicken again. “Just a reminder to”—she breathes in deeply again and exhales before continuing—“to try to be the kind of person you think I am.”

“What kind of person is that?”

“I don’t know, someone who’s resilient instead of destructive. Hopeful instead of . . . you know, feeling doomed or powerless or whatever. Brave,” she adds.

“That’s not the kind of person I think you are. That’s the way you really are, Eden.”

“I’m trying to be.”

I bring her wrist to my mouth and kiss that spot where the dandelion is. She touches my face again. And I can’t resist the urge; I turn my head to kiss her palm now, that spot where she burned herself. Her fingers go to my lips.

“I really want to kiss you,” she says, “but I’m not going to, okay?” “Oh, okay,” I answer.

“I want us to keep talking.” She takes hold of both my hands. “I want us to be friends again.”

I nod. “I want that too.”

“But just friends for now. Because I’m still not ready to—” “No, I understand. Really, I do.”

“So, you’d be all right with that?” she asks. “You can do that?” “Yeah,” I agree. “I can definitely do that.”

EDEN

Parker leaves the following Monday to go home to her family for the holidays. The first thing I do is go to the closet and pull down my clarinet case. I’ve been using this as an incentive to get through exams.

Chelsea texted that the band would be meeting at the end of this week and that it would be a smaller contingent—that was the word she texted, “contingent”—since a lot of the members have already left for winter break. I like that even though Chelsea and I have only had two very awkward conversations, she somehow gets that a smaller group to audition in front of is what I need.

As I take the pieces of my clarinet out of the case and begin putting them all together again, it feels like maybe some other pieces of my life are beginning to fall into place too. Like, maybe I can get back some of who I used to be—the good parts I thought were lost forever.

I promised Parker I’d keep up with jogging so we could continue after she gets back. And I keep my promise; I go for a jog almost every morning. Then practice my audition piece every afternoon, getting a little less rusty each time.

And on Thursday, after nearly a week of polite, friendly texts with Josh, I pull my hair into a messy bun, put on my sports bra, leggings and sweatpants, hoodie and a puffy vest, and thick socks and sneakers. I walk up the stairs, take a breath, and knock on Josh’s door.

“Do you want to go jogging with me?” I ask him, forgetting to even say hello first.

He stares at me in the doorway for a moment, studying my face and looking down at my clothes. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious or joking.”

“No, I’m really asking you,” I tell him. “Jogging is something I do now.”

“Since when?” he asks, this sort of half grin on his face.

I don’t want to say since you dumped me, so I opt for: “I’ve been hanging around you jocks for so long, it was bound to rub off on me.”

“Well, I’m not a jock anymore, remember?” He laughs and adds, “But I’ll still go jogging with you.”

We fill each other in on the gaps of time we’ve missed. I tell him about the books I’ve read for my classes, and I try not to stare at him too much while we run side by side. I think he goes slow for me, but I mostly hold my own as we work our way up and down the streets of our neighborhood. While we run, he tells me about all this stuff he’s been doing—going to meetings and confronting his dad and changing his major to something he actually cares about. I can’t believe how much has changed with him in such a short time. He’s like this shiny new version of himself. I tell him about my clarinet breathing technique, about the audition tomorrow, and he stops running then.

“Seriously, Eden, that’s awesome,” he says, this huge beautiful smile on his face. “I’m so glad you’re getting back into that. It always seemed like something you really missed.”

“Yeah,” I agree, stopping now too, my breath coming in heavy white puffs of air. “I have missed it.”

JOSH

I go to knock on Eden’s door the next morning, and as I get closer, I hear music. Not music playing from a speaker but actual music. When she answers the door, she’s in pajamas and her favorite hoodie, holding her clarinet.

“Hi,” she says with a smile, seeming genuinely happy to see me standing here.

“Morning,” I say. “Was that you playing?”

“Depends,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me. “Were you coming down here to complain about the noise?”

“No, it sounded really good.”

“In that case, come in. Want some coffee?”

“No, I can’t stay. I’ve gotta take care of some financial aid stuff before I leave. But speaking of which. Dominic left for home already—he’s helping Luke move out of his dorm.”

“Yeah, I heard. Luke’s moving here. That’s really great.”

“Yeah, it is,” I agree. “So, I just wanted to see if you want to ride home with me for the break. I know you have your audition later today, but when were you planning on leaving?”

“Oh,” she says. “Thanks, but I’m actually staying here.” “By yourself for the holidays, why?”

“Ugh, it’s a long story,” she sighs. “When I was home for Thanksgiving, it was just—there’s some toxic stuff working itself out there right now and I really need my head clear going into this trial.”

“Makes sense,” I tell her, especially considering how wrecked she was after the last hearing, how it nearly wrecked us for good. “You’ve got to take care of yourself.”

“Yeah,” she says sadly. “And besides, this time of year is always triggering anyway.”

“You mean because of family stuff?”

“Oh,” she breathes. “Sometimes I forget you can’t actually read my mind. Um, no, it’s—the holidays, that’s when it happened. When Kevin— the assault,” she says, and I somehow get the feeling she’s trying to spare me from hearing the word “rape.”

“You never told me that.”

She sort of shrugs one shoulder.

“Um, just putting this out there. You could stay at my parents’ house, with us, if you want. Strictly friends, I promise.”

She smiles for a moment. “Thanks, but I think it’s best if I just stay here.” I feel like I should offer to stay with her, but the fact is, I need to be home with my family this year. And for her reasons, she needs to be here. She doesn’t need me to fix this or make it better or protect her. For once I feel

like it’ll be all right. Me. Her. This fledgling us.

“Okay,” I tell her. “Well, in that case, I think I’m probably heading out after this financial aid appointment, so . . .”

She sets her clarinet down on the kitchen counter. Then walks over to me, hugs me tight, breathes in and out, her head, like always, fitting under my chin.

“If you need anything,” I begin to say as we pull apart, my hands automatically on her face as I look down at her. And as she looks up at me, I think, for a moment, she wants to kiss me. So I let my hands go to her shoulders instead, back up a step.

“If I need anything,” she finishes for me, “I’ll call you.”

EDEN

The second week of January comes faster than I thought it would. It’s the same courtroom as before, except it feels even smaller now because they’re so many more bodies in it. More people sitting in the gallery on each side. Extra reporters in the back. A jury now.

I take a sip of water and look out at Mara and Lane. Then my eyes set on CeCe, who’s looking down at her notes.

Kevin is there at his table with his lawyers. The white-haired lawyer who loves to raise his hand and object and talk in circles until he makes us all dizzy asks me the same questions as last time, except in more confusing ways, trying to trip me up.

I’d been preparing myself for the past two weeks to be able to face the last question again. I studied the transcripts from the first hearing as if they were for another exam I was destined to ace. I practiced in my apartment, like I practiced the clarinet. Out loud, I practiced saying no in as many ways as I could imagine. I compared each one and ended up picking out my version of no just like I picked out my outfit. Business. Casual. Modest. No, I would say, simple and straightforward. Unemotional. Because anyone with half a brain or half a heart would understand that me verbally saying the word no was beside the point.

Last night, at two in the morning, I went into the kitchen to get some water, and when I leaned up against the sink, I remembered something. Something I thought should definitely be on this exam. I texted CeCe about how he assaulted me the next Christmas in our kitchen—I’ve had to practice using that word too, “assault.” I never even mentioned it to anyone, not the detective or Lane or CeCe. It was something I thought didn’t even matter before, wasn’t bad enough to be worth mentioning. I sent her a text that took up the entire length of the screen on my phone. I told her how I’d

remembered when I was in the kitchen just now getting water that he came in when no one was there and pinned me up against the sink from behind while he put his hands all over me, up my shirt and down my pants and wasn’t it important to let them know how he kept managing to find these little pockets of terror? To remind me that he was there, to remind me that I’d promised not to tell? That he was holding me hostage for so long after that one night. Because I’d read that article—and even though Josh told me not to read the comments, I did—and I saw the one about five minutes. Only five minutes. And they needed to know it wasn’t only five minutes that he had me.

CeCe texted back right away:

Thank you, Eden. This is helpful. But please make sure you get some sleep

before tomorrow.

But now that’s what I’m thinking about as I sit here— wondering if I made my point earlier when CeCe had seamlessly slipped it into her questions that she somehow wove together to tell a story. And now I’ve missed the question White Hair has just asked me.

“Do you need me to repeat the question?” he asks. “Yes,” I say clearly into the microphone.

Except now I’m remembering that I forgot to say the part about how he smiled at me. I was supposed to tell them this time how he smiled at me before he left. Kissed. Smiled. Boxers. Door. How could I have forgotten? Stupid. We studied this!

“Can you please instruct the witness to answer the question?” White Hair is saying now.

The judge leans toward me and says, “Eden, please answer the question.” But wait, I missed it again. Fuck.

“Um,” I begin, and the mic lets out a high-pitched note in place of my voice. “Can you repeat the question again?” I say, too far away from the microphone.

White Hair scoffs and says, “Again, at any point during this encounter, did you verbally say no?”

This is it. The last question. I have to get it right. I search my brain, but I can’t find the no I’d memorized. It was supposed to be right there, waiting for me to scoop it up and throw it in his face, all business and casual. But what the fuck. I open my mouth and literally nothing comes out.

“Your Honor,” he says.

“The witness will answer the question,” the judge says.

I look down at my hands in my lap, and I see my dandelion sticking out from under the cuff of my shirt. “There was no question,” I hear myself say, quietly, into the microphone.

“Please speak up,” the judge says. “There was no question,” I repeat.

White Hair sighs and says, slowly, enunciating his words: “The question was, did you, at any point during the encounter, say no?”

“And my answer is, there was never a question.” I hear my voice shaking. “He never asked.”

The lawyer repeats himself, this time adding, “Just yes or no.”

“There wasn’t a question to answer,” I say again, and I can see how mad I’m making him, his face turning red and his mouth going all rigid as he speaks.

“Yes or no,” he says. “Did you tell him no?”

“I couldn’t answer a question that was never asked.”

“Did you ever say the word no?” he almost yells at me now.

I look down at my tattoo again. Then back up, except this time, instead of looking at White Hair or CeCe or Mara or Lane, I look at Kevin. He’s watching me closely, that same knifelike stare he used to control me, all this time, up until now.

I lean into the microphone, even as my whole body is trembling, even as I feel the tears rushing to my face, and say with precision now, not breaking eye contact with him: “He. Never. Asked. The. Question.” I bypass White Hair and look up at the judge, sitting there perched above my shoulder. “That’s my answer.”

The next thing I know, I’m busting out through the doors, racing down the hall, trying to remember if I’m headed in the right direction for the bathroom. Mara’s running behind me, calling my name. But I don’t stop until I make it. And then I push the door open and throw up. Everything.

Mara holds my hair back and keeps telling me how amazing I was.

I hear Lane’s heels against the tiles. She says something like “Oh! Eden. Okay. It’s okay.” And then I’m sweating and freezing and laughing and crying all at the same time as I kneel on the floor next to the toilet. Mara flushes it for me, and Lane brings me some wet paper towels to wipe my mouth, and then even she kneels down on the floor next to me and Mara.

“You did it,” Lane tells me with a big smile. “She was awesome, right?” Mara asks Lane. She nods, echoing, “Awesome.”

When we finally get out to the car, Mara checks her phone. “It’s Josh,” she tells me as she reads the text.

“He’s texting you?” I double-check.

She nods. “He didn’t want to bother you. He’s asking how it went. Is it okay if I tell him you kicked ass?”

I laugh but then say, “Okay.”

Her phone dings immediately. “He says: ‘I knew she would.’”

We sit there for a moment, and I can feel the effects of the midwinter heat wave that hit this week. Sunbeams catching dust motes in the stuffy car. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, and it breaks when Mara leans forward to start the engine and rolls down all the windows, letting in the fresh air.

I realize there’s a calmness inside me, for once nothing warring in my head. No fears or guilt or regret or even sadness, just a plain open quietness. I’ve done what I came to do, and I did it the very best way I knew how. I look at the courthouse, the massiveness of the building striking me as cruel and cold, as I think about Mandy and Gen still in there, waiting. And I wish I could somehow share just a little bit of this feeling with them.

I pull out my phone and find Amanda’s number, adding Gen to a new group text. My fingers hover over the letters unsure of what words I can, or should, say. So instead, I send a heart. Just one. Purple. Amanda sends one back immediately, then Gen.

I look at our three hearts for a moment and remember, whatever happens, we did this for us.

“So, where to, Edy?” Mara revs the engine. “Food? Coffee? More tattoos?”

I put my phone away and look over at my friend who has become even more my friend over the past few months, who, after all these years, I finally feel like I understand. I’d always made it too complicated, but it was simple. She’s Team Edy, as she calls it—and I don’t doubt that anymore. I

also think she might be the only person in the world I will let keep calling me by that name.

“I know exactly where I want to be.”

JOSH

We’ve been on the roof all day, drinking sun tea Parker made in a big glass jar. “If it’s gonna pretend to be spring in the winter, then I’m making some goddamned homestyle tea,” she’d said before lugging it up to the roof yesterday.

Dominic and Luke had been doing a good job of keeping me distracted with stories about Luke’s many band camp adventures while Parker added jabs and sarcastic comments here and there to keep things exciting. I’d barely been listening, my mind going back to Eden and the trial and what was happening hours away. The not knowing is eating a pit in my stomach, and the not being there was almost painful. I’d spent a good fifteen minutes on it last night at Al-Anon. Ida, a retired professor and our group’s designated leader, went over how important it was to have self-care, reminding me to put my oxygen mask on first, even if the plane might be going down, and I try to keep doing that.

I run downstairs to grab sunscreen when Parker complains she’s lobstering, and as I open the door to the roof, I see her and Dominic huddled over my phone.

“What is it?” I ask, hearing the tremble of fear in my voice. “Is it guilty?

Is it . . .?” I can’t even say the other option.

“We’ve got good news and bad news,” Parker starts.

“Parker—” Dominic cuts her off. “Don’t say it like that.”

Bad news. And good. There’s no equation that works here for me, no way those two things can come together. It’s either guilty and good or not guilty and bad. What happens if it’s bad? How bad will it get if it’s bad news?

“The jury’s gonna be out for a while,” Dominic explains, reading off my phone, likely noticing my freaked-out expression. “Eden’s lawyer said it

could be days.”

“And that’s the bad news?” I ask. It’s not great but not that bad. I can deal with this. “What’s the good?”

“Eden’s on her way back right now,” Parker says, a sly smile on her face as she hands me my phone. “And she wants to meet you at the fountain— whatever sinful place that is—at six tonight.”

I get there early, and while I wait for her, I think about that day in the grass with the dandelions. I was watching her for a few minutes before I ever walked over, sitting there all quiet and intense. It was like she was the only thing in color to me, everything else in my life felt so gray. I don’t know how I convinced myself to go sit down next to her. She was unlike anyone I’d ever known, and I was so intimidated by her—but I liked her. I wanted to know her, wanted her to know me. It was that simple. I was sure. She was worth whatever risk came with trying. Then and now.

EDEN

I get out of the shower and wipe the steam from the mirror. I look at myself for the first time in a long time. I’m almost surprised to see that it’s still my face, my eyes, looking back at me. My hair, my body, my tattoo, my scars. “This is you,” I whisper to myself.

I barely even pay attention as I get dressed; I’m so focused on getting there. I don’t want to wait any longer.

I take the path he brought me on that night—our first real date—and I follow it past all the plants with names and the willow tree, and I pick up my pace when I see the clearing up ahead. This time, though, there’s no water splashing, no lights, no sounds. Because it’s still supposed to be winter, despite the unseasonably warm weather of the evening.

When I get there, I think I’ve arrived first. But then I see him sitting on the bench inside the alcove of the apple fountain, looking ahead. As I step closer, I see that he has something in his hand. I try to stay light on my feet. And it’s only when I’m right behind him that I see what he has. It’s a dandelion, and he’s blowing on it, watching the little seeds fly off high into the air. I look around and see that dandelions have sprouted up all around the perimeter of the fountain, just over the past few days of sunny weather, just for us, it seems.

For this.

I walk up behind him, slide both of my hands onto his shoulders, and lean forward to kiss his cheek. “I hope you’re making wishes when you do that.”

He turns his head to look at me, already smiling. “I was,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

He takes my hand from his shoulder and brings my wrist to his mouth to kiss my tattoo. Then he leads me around to the front of the bench, where I

take a seat next to him.

“Well, just one wish, actually,” he adds. “Do you think it’ll come true?” I ask. “It did. You appeared.”

I have appeared, I think to myself, and smile as I interlace my arm with his, pulling him closer to me.

“This is a good place,” I tell him. “For what?”

“To be ready,” I answer. And then I take his hand in mine. I squeeze once. He looks down at me and squeezes back, two light pulses. I repeat myself, clearly this time, no questions, no doubts. “I’m ready.”