“For two weeks? Every night? Your job doesn’t work like that.”

“But it seems like a reasonable first step, doesn’t it? She’s not asking us to remake the world.”

Izabel shot him a look, and then said to Opa, “She’s been doing so much better since the move. Maybe we don’t need to be making more changes right now.”

“For her or for you?”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

“It’s a legitimate reason to not make these changes—if you’ve had too much change lately, Izabel.”

Izabel’s breathing quickened. She couldn’t answer.

Opa walked over to her desk, opened a drawer, grabbed a paper bag, and brought it to Izabel. “I want you to breathe into this for me,” she said.

Izabel leaned forward and did what Opa asked. She felt Opa put her hand on her back.

“She passed out at the hospital the other day,” Kaito said.

“Okay, that’s okay,” Opa said.

Izabel’s cheeks felt so hot that she thought her tears would feel cool running down them.

“Have you considered seeing a therapist, Izabel?”

She lied, shaking her head.

“Would you like to see one? I could recommend someone.”

She shook her head faster.

“Would you like to see me?”

That made Izabel stop. She took the bag away from her mouth. “I would see you,” she said.

“Okay, great. So here’s what I’ll say. Kaito, you take over bedtime and follow a schedule and monitor it. If there are nights you can’t do, that’s fine. Izabel, if it falls to you, you do whatever you want. All that matters is that everyone is sleeping. The next time you come in, I want to see Izabel and Cami together. And the time after that, I’ll see only you, Izabel. Does that all sound good?”

They both nodded.

“And what if it happens again, with Cami?” Kaito said. “Do we wake her up?”

“No,” Opa said as she wrote something on a pad and ripped it off. “Izabel, this is a medicine that I want you to carry around with you. You feel one of those panic attacks coming on again, you take it.”

“Okay,” Izabel said.

“It’s dissolvable so you don’t need water to take it.”

“Thank you,” Izabel said.

“If you find you need it more than twice a day, call me.”

“Thank you,” Kaito said.

“Can you two talk to each other about this anxiety?”

Neither of them even moved to nod.

“Try your best.” She smiled at them.

Back in the car, Kaito held Izabel tightly under his arm, but he didn’t say anything.

Since Izabel and Kaito first got together, as gentle as Kaito was, Izabel knew that he would hurt anyone who ever hurt her. He would be violent, fierce, and quick about it. He was a vengeful person, an honorable one.