“We appreciate what you did, Drew,” Aunt Nora says. “So very much. But I think it’s best for Hannah if you leave now.”

He looks at Nah through the window, then nods. “Yeah. I understand.”

Drew turns. Starts down the hall.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

He stops. Stares at me.

“Mae—” Aunt Nora starts, but I shake my head.

“If it weren’t for Drew, we wouldn’t be here right now. We’d be at the morgue, identifying her body.”

I look at Drew. His hair is wild, dark and sticking up from running his hands through it, over and over, worrying about my sister. I grab Drew’s hand, pull him back toward the window. “He stays.”

I feel the shift then. The moment when I truly step over into adulthood, when everything I say doesn’t get to be up for debate. They feel it, too.

This night, it has burned away whatever remained of my childhood. That’s done now. I am the commander of my own life.

“Okay, then,” Uncle Tony says.

They move Nah into the room she’ll be in for the next day or so. She’s not in here because of the overdose—the medicine worked, and she could go home right now, though she does have some hypothermia. This is a suicide watch.

I make sure Drew gets to see her before visiting hours end, since I can be here whenever I want, but he has to be out by eight p.m. I don’t know what happens in that room, but when he comes out, he’s a mess.

I surprise myself when I reach up and hug him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I … don’t think you will,” he says softly. “You’re a good sister, Mae. She’s lucky to have you.”

He walks away, shoulders slumped forward, head down, and I don’t have the heart to ask.

I walk into the room, and it is quiet except for the machines: beeps and whirs. Most of the lights are off except for a row above the bed, where Nah is sitting up. Her eyes are red, skin like tissue paper, an IV stuck in her hand. Mostly fluids, some medicine. I’m sure she’s nauseous. The withdrawal is already starting.

For a minute, we just look at each other. Then I hold up my phone.

“I found a website. Where you can name a star after someone for seventy-five bucks.” I try to smile. “Can we do it that way instead?”

My sister bursts into tears, and I surprise both of us by doing the same. When I get to the side of the bed, she scooches over and I lie next to her. I can’t smell her rose smell, Mom’s perfume she’s been wearing since the wave. She smells like starch and a little bit sour, and a lot like winter. Deep cold.