“Am I— Is this not my fan club meeting?” He scratches his head. “Dammit, I always get lost on the way to my shrine.”

“So I was right about you being an emo-boy cliché.”

“I guess you were.” He steps closer, takes a tentative seat on the edge of my bed. “Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay,” I lie. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He sighs. “Can we skip that part where you keep lying and I keep asking and just get to it?”

I don’t know what’s worse—that Salem noticed I’m not okay or that Salem noticed I’m not okay. We were supposed to be on equal footing, each of us wanting a life we couldn’t quite achieve on our own. But now he’s so far overshot while I’ve failed at attempt after attempt to grow at all, and it hurts just to be in the same room.

Even more painful? How badly I just want a hug. I need someone to hold me and tell me things are gonna be okay like I need air. We may not be in the best place right now, but I would give anything for my mom to sit where Salem is sitting and give me one of the lazy back scratches she used to when I wormed into her bed for safety during thunderstorms. And looking at Salem, at the concern on his face, I know that if I asked him, he would give me at least a brief squeeze. And it would feel amazing.

But I am not about to ask that of another girl’s boyfriend, after everything. And I need him to leave so I can stop thinking about doing it anyway.

“I’m fine, Salem. You should go to bed.”

“You’re fine? That’s why you bolted out of the talent show?” He sighs. “Look, I get that you don’t want to talk to me, but you should talk to someone. Sometimes, like right now, you just get this vibe about you, like…”

“Like?”

His eyes glitter in the darkness of my room. “Like you should talk to someone.”

I don’t know if he means a friend or a therapist, but I don’t have either one—at least not a friend I can tell about everything—so I stay silent, staring up at my dark ceiling and wishing I at least had those glow-in-the-dark stars or something. Way too much of my life right now is staring out into nothingness.

Where do I even go from here?