I pull away. “You know, I fucking hate birthdays. I always have.”

It feels good to curse. To be a little like Hannah. To not be a good girl.

For goddamn once to just stop earning my place here.

“Mae … I didn’t mean it, the way it came out. You aren’t inconvenient. No! We love you.”

“Love. What does that even mean? Dad said that to Mom, didn’t he?”

She pushes back her hair, streaked with more gray than ever.

“Sweetie, that’s different. Sometimes marriages, they don’t … People change. But your kids—the love between a child and her father … That will never go away. Ever.”

The look on Uncle Tony’s face: It occurs to me that I’m a dad without a daughter, and you’re a daughter without a dad.

“He was going to leave us.”

“He was going to leave your mother. Not you.” She grips my hand. “Never you, Mae. Your father loved you so much. More than anything. Frankly, more than anyone. And I think you know that.”

I think Hannah knows that, too.

“I hate him.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yeah.” I grab a towel and wipe off my hands, then head for the stairs. “I really think I do.”

I have been lying in the dark for three hours.

The only light comes from a moon lamp that Nate bought me when Nah and I moved in. A small little globe that glows white, with craters and everything.

I wish I were there. The moon. It’d be nice, for a change, to be the one who leaves. My bio mom, my parents, Riley—every single one of them is gone. Mom couldn’t help it, but the end result is the same.

Everyone I love leaves me.

Maybe it’s time to be the one who goes.

I’ve spent months thinking about not going to Annapolis, cancelling my interviews, not doing that final step because of Hannah. Because I don’t want to leave her. Because I’m scared what will happen to her if no one is watching out for her.

But where is she now?

Not here, not with me, that’s for sure. It’s my birthday, which she ruined, and she couldn’t even bother to come home. Because it’s all about her. It’s always about her. I shouldn’t have kept Micah’s cheating from her, but I’m sorry, okay, I didn’t want to open my sister’s bedroom door and find her dead from an overdose.

She should have come home. Made soup.

It’s my birthday.

And she should have seen that I was trying to protect her like she was trying to protect me. She didn’t want me to know about Dad. I didn’t want her to know about Micah. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Sometimes it’s not best to know the answers.