She couldn’t sleep. That first night, her mom’s new husband, Gerard, picked her up at the ER and brought her home to the trailer. Her mom had been too upset to think straight, so she’d taken a pill and gone to bed before they arrived. Amy turned on every single light and closed all the curtains. She told Gerard an edited version of what had happened, a version without the penitents, or the tunnels, or being nailed in wardrobes, but even then it still sounded unreal, and she could tell he thought she was lying. After a while, he went to bed and she was left alone. Exhausted but still too scared to be on her own, she dragged a pillow and blanket into her mom’s bedroom and lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, unable to close her eyes.

The next day, Amy kept dozing off at random moments: in the middle of lunch, while trying to talk to her mom, while talking to her old roommates on the phone. They called her four times before she answered and put her on three-way calling to tell her how brave she was, and what a hero she was for surviving, and asking her what it was really like. After a few minutes, they realized she wasn’t going to give them the juicy answers they wanted, and then it was just a matter of figuring out how to end the call in the least awkward way possible.

A few days later, Gerard drove to her apartment and picked up her stuff. Amy never knew it, but he wound up writing a check to cover the rent she owed. He helped Amy move her boxes back into her old bedroom, but she never unpacked. She wore the same sweatpants every day and spent most of her time sleeping.

Her mom made a fuss at first and even Gerard seemed to be having an Amy renaissance, but eventually their general disappointment crept back in. It didn’t take long. Gerard delicately raised the subject of her going back to community college or getting another job. Any job. It didn’t have to be retail. She could be a dog walker. She just needed to do something. She couldn’t sit in her bedroom watching TV for the rest of her life.

But that was exactly what Amy wanted to do. She watched a lot of Real Housewives of Wherever until she realized that she had seen every episode of every season at least twice. Then she started buying movies on iTunes, racking up $147 in charges in one week. Basil e-mailed her five times, but she deleted his messages without reading them. Reading took too much concentration. She tried a few grief and trauma books, she even picked up the Bible and ordered a Koran from Amazon, but after reading a couple of sentences her mind would wander and eventually she’d give up.