“Will you come with me?” My voice went up an octave as I ended the monologue I’d rehearsed. Reciting it for Bran made me feel like popcorn was exploding behind my sternum.

It’s nerve-racking to buy tickets on the presumption that you’ll have someone to go to an event with. But when I got those concert tickets, I had a best friend and a boyfriend. I had people in my life that weren’t blood-related that voluntarily hung out with me. Two people that could potentially be my plus-one.

George’s son, Gill, was technically around too, but he was away at college. We never bonded to the point where we did things together outside the house. We’re mutually antisocial so if you put the two of us alone in a room together, the result is resounding silence.

Bran and I were in the dressing room. He slid his arm into a black windbreaker and looked down at me with a neutral expression. I tried to swallow down my anxiety. Why wouldn’t he come with me? He’s my boyfriend. If he invited me to a concert to see his new favorite band, I’d obviously go!

Bran smiled as he hoisted his bag up on his shoulder. I grinned back, the popcorn in my chest easing. Then he said, “It’s not my thing. Ask Celia, I’m sure she’ll go.”

That was it, that was the pivot point.

Those tickets ruined my life. If I hadn’t bought those tickets, maybe he would never have seen me as some devil music–worshiping freak and things wouldn’t have changed and everything wouldn’t have fallen apart.

Once you start seeing someone in a new light that you’re not a fan of, it’s hard to go back to seeing them in the bright shiny light you started out with.

It’s hard to know which parts of me will dim that light for people. I know now that my new music taste is one of them.

“Siri Martine?” Donya asks.

I blink back to the present, refocusing on the dirt under my feet. Excrement. I’ve been zoning out. I’ve spent the majority of the last twenty-four hours zoning out.

Yesterday I made it to the retreat. Yesterday. It’s already been almost a day. I signed up for activities. I was assigned a cabin. I ate food. Slept. Woke. I went to group yoga this morning, and I’m currently in a group therapy session that thinks it’s being inconspicuous by calling itself Group Chat.

Yoga increased my pain level earlier. Yoga! The healing activity for damaged people!

I’m sitting in my chair like there’s a sword tied up against my spine because any sort of slouching is painful. It’s been this way for months, but it’s more prominent now post–disastrous yoga session.

“It’s Siri,” I correct quietly.