“Among other things, but yeah, that,” I say. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Do you hear me? Nothing. I’m not going to lie to you and say the same about Mom and Dad and me. But you did nothing wrong, no matter what you did or didn’t know or whatever the word know even means.”

I take a firm grip on her shoulders, force her to make eye contact. I don’t want her to carry guilt on top of everything else. We screwed up enough of her life already.

I volunteer as tribute, I want to shout.

She’s again in her llamacorn pajamas, and she looks delicate and small, the less-tough, more adorable version of my mother. I think about the rage I felt when I saw her reading Dostoyevsky. I feel shaken by my predictable pettiness.

“We never should have put you in this position in the first place. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says.

“You deserve better than us,” I say.

“Nah,” she says.

“You do.”

“Can I borrow your clothes when you go to prison?” she asks again.

“Isla!”

“Still not funny yet. Got it,” she says, and then tackle-hugs me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Then

“So tell me, how do you feel about Boston?” Levi asks. He bounds up to me in the hall, throws one arm around my shoulder. As usual, he’s glowing. His cheeks are pink and recently warmed, and I want to rest the backs of my hands against them. I want to kiss his ears at their jaunty jagged tips. I wish we could find a cozy corner somewhere to make out—the back of the library, a janitor’s closet—but this is real life, not a teen movie. We have exactly two minutes to get to English 4.

“Well, for one, I hate the Patriots. All that winning is boring. And then they had to go and cheat also? They suck,” I say. “Boo.”

“Okay, not team Brady. Got it.”

“But they have the Liberty Bell, which is cool, even with the crack. I’m a sucker for a perfect imperfection,” I say.

“That’s Philly, not Boston.”

“Duck tours. I love duck tours,” I say triumphantly, looking up into Levi’s perfect face. If it wasn’t weird, I’d take out my phone and snap a selfie with him. Capture the two of us in this moment—him aglow, me basking vicariously—so I can have it to relish later, when this is inevitably over. I want to hold on to our casual flow, remember it beat by beat. “I took one in Boston once, and it was awesome, because they are both a car and a boat. Like a real-life Transformer.”

“Okay, this got so off track. Let me start over: I got into Harvard!” he announces.

“What? Really? You got in? It’s official?”