“What, this is my fault?” I can’t go there now. Not anymore. I cannot let anyone tell me I had a hand in this, not even Lottie.

“What? No, that’s not what I mean, Stevie, of course not.”

“Because I don’t like watching people get away with things? Because I care?”

“No!” She opens and closes her mouth. “Just—sometimes you took it too far. That shit you were doing was crazy. I just—I was so worried about you getting hurt.”

I am standing but don’t remember getting up.

“What was I supposed to do? And where were you, Lottie?” I am crying. “I needed you!”

She backs her chair up and stumbles a little.

“Will you just get the hell out of here?”

Her eyes are welling up, and part of me feels bad but it’s just a small part, and the rest of me is charging forward. The rest of me is Dee, taking control.

“Just go!”

And she does, and the door closes quietly behind her.

My anger is strong, energetic. There is a part of me, the Stevie part, that wants to crawl into a ball and cry so much I’ll puke. There is part of me that wants to stay in bed forever. But I push it down. I let Dee out.

I grab my canvas purse and book it out the front door. I see my bike, busted and bent, leaning against the garage like a dead thing, and I start to run.

I run to the other end of town, to the top, up the escarpment, to the Ridge. I can’t run once it gets steep, but I am hiking now, huffing and puffing, my legs aching and moving up, up, up. Up the Bruce Trail, up over rocks and fallen trees, further up, crunching branches underfoot. I get to the lookout point where I leaned over and sang the song from Heathers. Me, Stevie. All those conversations with Dee. I made her, she made me. But now I need her more than ever.

I look for the school, find it from up high, like a pin in the map of our town. I see a group of students doing high-knees and other exercises. I watch them until they are told to stop by cheerful Ms. Kwan, and they gather, hands on their knees, panting, and I can feel their relief from here.