Even though I’m not there, I want to go stand in a corner and hide, or see if they have any good books on their bookshelves. I have been to three parties in my life, these kinds of parties, and I did not like them at all. Sometimes it’s very clear I do not belong on Earth.

The longer I wait, the more it occurs to me to wonder what it could be that Micah is so busy doing. What her laugh meant. A knowing kind of laugh.

Oh god.

“Hello?”

Micah is out of breath.

“It’s Mae.” I don’t feel like greeting him properly right now.

“Hey. Hey. Uh. Hold on.” The sound of the party fades a bit, like he’s gone into another room. “Sorry. Is everything okay?”

I am feeling weird.

Nah is the one who gets … vibes. She calls them that. Very unscientific. But I am feeling—Mom says it’s like someone’s walking over your grave. And I am feeling not good about that girl who answered the phone. Her laugh.

“Mae? Where’s Nah? Is she okay? She hasn’t been calling me back the past few days.”

I take a breath. This is Micah. My big brother. Who is like a moon that revolves around my sister, lighting her up, Nah the center of his world. Vibes are not hard science, and I am going to go with what I know. And what I know is that Micah loves my sister more than anyone in his world. At least, that’s my working hypothesis based on previous evidence.

“She’s in her room,” I say. “Listen, Micah, Nah would kill me if she knew I was calling you, but I need your help.”

I tell him everything. The pills, the night with the broken bottle of bourbon. The ditching.

“You’re wrong about the pills,” he says. “She only had a few left. And she said that was it, she just needed to take the edge off—”

“These are new ones. Percocet.”

He curses. “Did you check your aunt and uncle’s cabinet?”

“There’s nothing there. And I can’t ask if they’re missing anything.”

“She probably just asked your cousin to hook her up if she didn’t take it from them. I know you’re worried because of all that shit from before, but this is different. She’s had a rough time. Go easy on her, and if she starts screwing up at school, then worry. She just needs to chill, and this helps.”

I am not a person who throws things, but I’d really like to now. At him.

“How can you say this—you saw how it was before! This is exactly what it was like before she went to detox and all that.”