“It’s true, though,” Deedee said. “Patricia, we never see you. You live here, but you’re never home. You never want to tell us anything about your life. You’ve been here nearly a year, but I feel like I don’t know you at all.”

Patricia tried to catch Kevin’s eye, but it was like lassoing a hummingbird. She was still holding the bread, and it was burning her hands. “I’m really trying. Look at me trying right this moment. I’m having a party.” She heard her timbre rising, until she sounded like her mother. Red haze, blinding her. “Why did you have to ruin this for me?” She threw chunks of bread at Taylor, who covered their face. “Do you want some bread? Do you want some bread? Have some fucking bread!” Now she sounded exactly like her mom.

She threw away the rest of the bread and bailed out of there, crying and spitting on the dry sidewalk.

Patricia had fallen in love with Danger Bookstore on her first ever visit, and whenever she climbed the wooden staircase, she usually felt a little of the packing tape around her soul unwind. But this time, she just felt the stabbing in her neck get worse as she reached the top floor with its unsafe railing and threadbare purple carpet.

Ernesto sat in his usual chair, eating a microwaved TV dinner. He was in love with the invention of the microwave, both because it fit in with his love of instant gratification (“the lineaments of gratified desire”) and because you couldn’t leave food near him for more than a few minutes before it grew spiky white mold. He wore a silk robe, emerald pajamas, and fuzzy slippers, with William Blake’s poems perched on one knee.

“What the hell,” Patricia said before Ernesto could greet her. “When were you going to tell me about this plan to send me to Portland?” She almost knocked over the bookcase of Ideas Too Good To Be True.

“Please sit.” Ernesto gestured at a clamshell armchair. Patricia tried to rebel for a moment, then gave up and sat. “We do not wish to send you away, but we have spoken about it. You make it difficult for us to watch over you. People want to care about you, and you will not let them.”

“I’ve been trying.” She shuffled in her chair. This was the worst day. “I’ve tried and tried. Everybody gives me grief about Aggrandizement, but I’ve tried so hard. I’ve been so careful.”

“You are hearing the wrong thing,” Ernesto rose and stood close to her, so she could feel his unnatural warmth. “People warn you about Aggrandizement, and you keep hearing the opposite of what they are saying.”