The buzzing inside got louder, so I turned away from her to swim on my own—back and forth across the pool, hoping that each time I sank underneath, I would reemerge cleansed. I went deeper until I felt the rough bottom scrape my chin. When I came up for air, I saw that she had gotten out and was sitting on the bleacher next to the man I had watched swimming laps. She smiled at me and waved and I saw him turn and look at her. I dove down again, wanting to make the whirling inside my head stop.

But it didn’t.

Instead, it got sharper. Clearer. Pushing me down farther. When I closed my eyes, I saw the pretty little girls riding pretty pink bicycles from the park and then my chin started to throb and somewhere in the swirl and crash of the water, I understood that I could fight and protest as much as I wanted. I could hold my breath, stay underwater, and pretend that it wasn’t there, but none of it would make a bit of difference. Because, in the end, I never had any other choice.

I felt like a werewolf during the full moon. The pool didn’t help, so when we got home, Leah set up the Scrabble board. The fact that the letters wouldn’t sit straight on the board provoked me. I tried to nudge them into place, but my fingers felt big and puffy and after a while I just gave up.

I didn’t want to be like this.

“It’s the letters,” I whispered, but even the sound of my own voice felt loud and sharp inside my head.

“Hmm?” she asked in a sweet, absentminded way that on a normal day would have made me smile. But not today, because something was inside that left no room for anything else. Something big and bouncy and wild.

“It’s the letters. You need to make them line up the right way.”

She looked down at the board and then back up at me. I don’t think she understood how important her task was.

“Please!” I yelled. “Please, Leah.”

“Okay, Franny, I will.” She bent over the board, lining them up the best she could.

“No! Not like that. Not that way!” I covered my eyes as if the sight was too much to bear. “You’re doing it all wrong.” I could feel it growing inside of me, getting bigger, bouncing harder.

“This way?” She arranged the letters so that they ran across the board diagonally.

“No!” I shouted, because at that moment, all I wanted was for it to be right. For all of it to be right. “No. That’s not what I mean!”