I screamed like a little kid the entire way across, convinced every second of the way that I was going to die, and since the most god-awful thing I could imagine doing was looking down, I made myself look down. The stupid part of my brain could not believe the thinking part, which said that the cable and harness were time-tested and relatively safe, in spite of the liability release my father had to sign.

That stupid part of our brains used to be the most valuable thing we had. It kept our paleo-whatever ancestors from getting eaten by saber-toothed tigers and putting their hands in fire. Now it mostly just messes with us and gets us into trouble on a regular basis because it’s so damn stupid.

Well, before school started on Monday, my idiot brain kicked in and kept trying to convince me that I was going to die. That the universe was done with me, and it wouldn’t even wait until Friday’s game. Long before then, it would use my own school to kill me by splitting my skull with a falling air vent, or choking me with a cafeteria hot dog, or blowing me up in a science experiment gone terribly wrong. I was totally, irrationally, bracing for the worst—just like Leo had talked about in his basement that day.

But I did what I had to do. I pretended like I wasn’t screaming on the inside, and went to school, like it was an ordinary Monday.

And you know what? It was an ordinary Monday. It was almost disappointing how ordinary it was. I gave a weak excuse for a late English paper; I got a B on a math quiz, thanks to being tutored; and I ate lunch with the usual crowd, and did not choke. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think everything was fine.

And that night, I did what I do every Monday night in this world. Hint: it wasn’t watching Monday Night Football. It was dealing drugs. I was a drug dealer. Even now, saying those words, it just doesn’t sound real. Like a line from someone else’s miserable life.

Because of Monday Night Football, it was the only night I knew that my dad wouldn’t turn up at the store unexpected. Because when I wasn’t selling at parties and school hallways, I had my customers come to me, in our supplement store, once seven o’clock rolled around, and I was the only employee on duty.

My first customer was a kid my age, but not from my school, who came in at seven on the dot. “Hey, Ash,” he said, handing me a big wad of bills that was mostly singles. “The usual. Count it if you want.”