“You’re sure your mom’s not home?” I whispered, and Anita laughed, as though the prospect was ridiculous. Inside, I put her in her bed and kept a trash can by the pillow, copying the gestures my mother adopted when someone fell sick. Anita’s nightstand was piled high with school things—composition notebooks, a chemistry textbook, a Folger edition of Macbeth. Above all that was the Harvard shrine that had papered her walls since middle school: a crimson pennant, a BEAT YALE sign someone’s cousin had donated, a page torn from a lookbook featuring a diverse array of students taking in the sun on the Yard. Anita sat up, unclasped her gold hoop earrings, and placed them atop Macbeth before flopping onto her stomach.

“Neil,” she said, more to the pillow than to me. “He doesn’t like me.”

“Who?”

“The guy, the guy, Sam. Sam.” She emitted a kind of horse whinny. “He likes Mary Claire Turner. Em-cee. She has no butt. It’s flat, just shwoop, back there. He doesn’t even see me, he looks shwoop, right through me.”

“Why did you go out with those kids? Your mom would kill you if you’d gotten caught. And where is your mom?”

She shrugged. “I dunno.” A hiccup, racking her whole frame. “She has places she goes places, I dunno, like, she’ll say, ‘I’m not like other moms, I leave you alone,’ but one day I’m gonna drown in all her lemonade.” A hiccup that turned into a gag.

“Do you need to puke again?”

“Never ever ever again.” She shook her head violently. “I hate Mary Claire Turner.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Say you do, too, Neil, say it.”

I considered not playing along, but gave in. “I hate Mary Claire Turner, too.”

“Em-cee,” Anita said, chewing on the inside of her cheeks. I thought she was going to spit Mary Claire Turner’s name right out on the carpet. “She’s spoiled.”

“You’re acting spoiled.”

“Huh?”

“No. Nothing.”

“No, no, like, say what you were gonna say.”

“I don’t know what to say to you, Anita.”

“You’re so pissy at me.”

“Yeah, a little.”

“You’re always so pissy at me.”

“Not always. Just now.”

Her loosened ponytail had fallen on her face. “I feel like I’m gonna explode.”

I had the urge to push up her hair, clear her skin, give her room to breathe.

“You get it?” she said.

Was that all she wanted me to do, get it? All I could do? “I think so.”