“Right here, Mom. Where she always is.” She got Cloud for me during my last treatment. Ragdolls are the most adorable cats in the universe. Blue eyes, white fur, pug-type nose, and the best personalities ever. Cloud will stay next to me the whole day, even when I’m throwing up or lying on the floor for a change of surface. She sleeps on the fleece blanket I got for her because it’s the color of the sky. When I pick her up, she droops as if someone’s removed her bones; that’s the Ragdoll in her coming out.

When my mother left, I put Cloud on my stomach and went back to reading To Kill a Mockingbird. They’re having me work my way through the tenth-grade syllabus, but I only want to reread books I already love. If I had a father I would want one like Atticus. He always does the right thing even if he has to pay for it, which he almost does with the lives of his children. Whenever I read anything nowadays, I skip to the end to see how it comes out. This story, of course, I know how it ends. Scout and Jem get out alive, though Jem has his elbow broken, which he doesn’t care about as long as he can pass and punt. After the arm was put in a cast, Atticus sat by his bed, and he would be there when Jem woke up in the morning. I know it might not be fair, but I always wanted to ask my mother: Do you like having a father? Didn’t you think I might want one?

After I had my little cry about Atticus it was hard to go back to the courtroom scene. There are some words that make me feel physically sick. I could not get the line “Ruttin’ on my Mayella” out of my mind, like it was the title of some awful country song. The accused man, Tom, is so polite and soft-spoken I know he would not be capable of anything as cold as that.

Going to see Jack Bell tomorrow, I texted Fiona. For Science. Checked my watch. Fourth period just started. She might look at her phone in forty-five minutes. Fiona and Vicky come after school every other day; they feed me chicken nuggets if I’m eating, and all the gossip. Though I have to say, after five months, high school is starting to seem like some extraterrestrial place that I know about in perfect detail but could never actually visit.