I hear shuffling and whispering below me. The sound of a map being folded. I turn over and Ellie’s head pops up to the ledge of my loft.

“Can I join you?” she asks. “I better check out the loft at some point, right?”

We both grin, and I scoot myself over to one side to make room. Soon we’re both lying on our backs, looking through the window at the stars while the road continues to pass below us.

“Now this is cool,” she says.

“Right?” I smooth my blanket and it’s like my loft is a house I’m proudly displaying.

We’re silent for a while. My eyelids are finally starting to droop. The light from passing cars washes across the roof like a tide.

“It was cool to meet your friend today,” I say. “If you get a chance, tell her thanks again for the book.”

“I’ll tell her,” Ellie says. I glance over at her. Her eyes are shut. There’s something in her voice, a quiver.

“So she was your therapist?” I say. Then I quickly add, “Not that you have to talk to me about it, if you don’t want.”

Ellie smiles and tucks a gray strand of hair behind her ears. She doesn’t speak for a few seconds, but then says, “She’s a child psychologist. A therapist with social services. She helps kids when hard things happen to them. Some of those kids are dealing with horrific—I don’t know how she does it.”

I nod, even though her eyes are closed. I don’t want to say anything and risk breaking the flow, risk reminding her who she’s actually talking to. How young I am.

She helps kids when hard things happen to them. How old did Ellie say she’d been the last time they spoke? I’ve known Ellie my whole life, so sometimes I forget I don’t know that much about her childhood, about her life before she married into our family.

“For me it wasn’t … nobody hurt me physically, and I’m grateful for that.” She opens her eyes now and looks at me, her face half-hidden in shadow. “I’ve told you before, I grew up mostly with my grandma, right? I was just a bit older than you when my … my mom left me there. I … I didn’t handle it well. I kept having these … these thoughts about just disappearing. Disappearing from myself. My poor grandma was too old to be raising a teenager anyway, but she knew enough to find me someone to talk to. I really needed help when I went and saw Sofia.”