After that, I become my mother.

Which means for four days I stop brushing my hair and live in my housecoat and shuffle around the house, mute and sad, and I don’t answer my phone.

Milo sends me four text messages. One a day.

STATION’S BORING WITHOUT YOU. MISSY’S NOT HERE ALL THE TIME, WHATEVER YOU THINK.

COME OVER TODAY.

OR CALL ME.

ARE YOU OKAY?

The truth is, I’m fine. I’m kind of tired of everything, I guess, but I haven’t given up—I’m only pretending to, so I can drive Beth insane.

It might be working. She says one hundred words for every three she manages to force out of my mom and every two she forces out of me and her eyes develop this panicked glint.

That’s sort of cool.

Day four starts like: Beth bursts into my room and tries to wake me up. I keep my eyes closed, but I pick at the mattress, so she knows I’m awake—I’m just not responding to her.

“Eddie! Up!” She sits down on the edge of my bed and shakes my leg. “Up! Up! Up!”

She waits about five minutes for me to acknowledge her and when I don’t, she gives up, gets off the bed, and leaves the room. That’s nice. I stretch out and stare at the ceiling.

“Eddie!”

When I finally come downstairs, Mom is curled up on the couch with a book. When she sees me, she puts the book down and holds her arms out. I go to her and I let her hug me.

She kisses the side of my face and says, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom.”

Just that—it exhausts her. By the time I’m halfway out of the room, she’s leaning back and her eyes are closed. Her chest rises and falls so purposefully it’s like she’s telling herself to breathe because she can’t remember how to do it without thinking about it.

I shuffle into the kitchen, where Beth’s washing dishes. There’s a tall glass of orange juice at my seat, plus two vitamins. I’m vitamin-worthy now. Incredible. I sit down and stare at them and then I pick up one of the vitamins. Hold it up and study it. It’s round and orange. Wouldn’t it be amazing if it could fix everything? You put it on your tongue and let it dissolve. All your emotional trauma will end and that broken, cold dead soul will be alive again! And all your physical problems will be cured too. Cancer, illness. Vitamins made out of Nanobots or something, I don’t know.

“You need a boost,” Beth says of the vitamins. She turns the water off and faces me. “I want you out of the house today.”

“What?”

“Get dressed, get out of the house,” she says. “I let you laze about for three days, but don’t think you’ll be spending the summer like that because you won’t be.”

“What?”

“You’re not spending the rest of summer vacation sleeping in late, hanging around inside, breathing recycled air and—” Her eyes travel over me and I can’t believe she’s mistaken my fucking grief for laziness. “Not brushing your hair. I don’t know if you spend every summer like this, but it doesn’t matter. I need you out of the way while I help your mom. Besides, this isn’t the kind of time you should be wasting. Go! Live!”

I imagine so many horrible things happening to her.