Mostly, I was exhausted and frustrated with her. And everything else. The cardboard filmmaker armor that I tried to duct-tape to myself flopped to the floor. As much as I tried to clamp my mouth shut, the words just came blabbing out. All of them. I know she’d been suffering at the end and everyone should be able to end their pain if they need to. And it’s beyond unfair to ask a person to live just for someone else if they’re in pain. But also, how fucking dare she leave me alone if she really did kill herself? We could’ve figured out a way to make her better. Didn’t she know I really had no one else? That she was the one thing that had glued me back together after my mom died, and how did she expect me to go this alone?

Then came the beep-beep of the garbage truck in my head backing up to my mouth to dump another load of hot tears and rage. I didn’t know if I could ever get over how she died, and now my anger was reaching back through time with venom-tipped claws to slash up all the memories I had with her. How can you love someone but hate them at the same time?

I hadn’t let myself break down since Genesis died because I didn’t know if I’d be able to put myself back together again. It was easier to keep my own head at an arm’s distance, sometimes, coasting on detached snark. I really tried to slam the door on my tears, at first, for Yusuf’s sake. Until I knew I just had to buckle and live here for a while and feel everything. Whatever it was that we were building here, I had to let him in. I had to give him the choice of whether he wanted to be with me—or if he could, honestly—even if I had to explode in a shrapnel bomb of unresolved feelings, sometimes.

Sucking up snot and mumbling jesus christ as I wiped at my burning face, I looked at him. Begging with my eyes for him to say something. The muscles worked at the sides of his jaws, his wide eyes like a can of soda just exploded in his face.

And then he started talking about photons.