Dr. Hoang glanced at the clock strategically placed on the wall behind me. She leaned forward in her fancy chair. I stared at the sand pile I’d made in her Zen garden but could feel her eyes on me. “I hope we can talk more the next time I see you, Daya. In the meantime, we’re going to try something different. Talking about this stuff is hard for you—I understand that. But I want you to get it out somehow.”

I lifted my eyes as she pulled open a drawer in the table next to her and reached in. I knew what she was going to pull out before she actually did, and I had to quash my eye roll.

“I know, I know—you’re not going to like this either. But just humor me a little. Just try it out. A line a day, a couple sentences. Whatever. When you feel overwhelmed or like you’re having to force down your feelings, write what it is you want to say but don’t feel you can. I won’t read it. I won’t even know if you’ve done it or not. I’m just going to trust you to do it anyway.”

She pushed the small notebook across the table toward me.

The eye roll escaped anyway as I swept up the journal and shoved it in my bag.

Chapter Six

When I walked in the door after Fee dropped me off, Priam immediately swooped down on me, as if he’d been perched, lying in wait all day. Which might have been true. He was between shows at the moment and had way too much time on his hands.

“Daya! Come, come—I have a surprise for you!” He shuffled backward down the hallway toward the door to the garage, trying to entice me with his hands.

I clung to my skateboard, pressing the end of the deck into my palm. What now?

Priam flicked on the light switch in the garage, and the smells of rubber and fuel met me as I followed him in. I rarely came in here. It was a double garage, and Priam and Vicki’s car took up one half. Boxes and racks of costumes took up the other. So, no good reason for me to enter, ever. Loads of reasons to avoid it, though.

This time, however, the car wasn’t in the garage. Instead a punching bag hung from the ceiling.

My chest immediately tightened. Priam didn’t seem to notice that I’d frozen. He was too busy bouncing over to something on the other side of the garage. I still hadn’t left the doorway when he turned, his hands engulfed by brand-new boxing gloves. He danced around me, punching the air. My skateboard was still in my hand, and it took everything I had not to smack the gloves away from me with it.