“A few months ago, I noticed she had a gray hair and I gave her shit for it. Just kidding, you know, but I could tell she was upset.”

“Doesn’t seem like her.” Mae carefully places one of Dad’s used razors in her plastic bag. “She’s always said she can’t wait to be that old lady with flowing gray hair. Miss Rumphius.”

“I know. I thought it was weird. I mean, she’s all about au naturale.”

It hits me then, with the force of the wave itself.

“She’s never going to be an old lady,” I whisper.

We stand there, holding our bags. It’s like an upside-down version of when we got goldfish that one time, after Dad won them in a carnival game for us. We each took a goldfish home in a Ziploc. Mae reaches out and takes the bag from me.

“I’m gonna mail them. Want to come?”

I shake my head. In about an hour, once this next pill kicks in, I won’t be here anymore. I’ll be on Asteroid B-612, the Little Prince’s planet, with my thorny rose and the prince, too. Let the tigers come with their claws—I won’t give a flying fuck.

“Micah will be here soon,” I say.

“Oh.” She shrugs, looks like she might say something, then changes her mind.

I see Mom’s perfume, a special rose blend that Cynthia makes, and bring it up to my nose. Mom is pulling me in close for a hug, leaning over me to check my homework, twirling in a spray of scent before she heads out the door. I raise the bottle and spray it just above my head, then turn in a slow, slow circle as a shower of rose petals rains down on me.

Mae hesitates by the doorway. “I’m going by school to pick up homework and stuff. Later. Do you need me to grab your assignments?”

“Are you serious?” I hold Mom’s perfume close. “Our parents are dead and you’re worried about homework?”

I’m a mean junkie. Nice sober. I don’t know why.

Her fingers twitch. That stress thing she does. A tell. Dad said she would have been terrible at poker if she ever had her hands above the table. Otherwise, she’d kill it. Freaking sphinx, most of the time.

“Look, it might help, okay?” she says. “You can’t just sit in that room, Nah, taking pills and—”

“What is wrong with you?”

For once. For once I would like it if she could freak out. Acknowledge that this is really bad and I am not crazy for feeling like we just drove off a cliff.

“With me? You’re the one who’s high—”

“Our parents are dead, Mae. We are literally collecting fucking DNA samples and you want to go get your homework?”

I’m shouting. I don’t care.