“It means that I am not like them.”

We are standing on the gravel pathway that runs along the lakefront. I look at her, this bold new friend. She grabs my hand and squeezes it. Like a best friend.

“It’s people like us against the world, Stevie.”

I roll my eyes and mutter, “You don’t even know me.”

“Sure I do. You and me? We’re the same.”

And looking back, after all of it, it might have been here, here in this moment, that I finally felt like I could rebuild myself.

Chapter 12

12

On Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I stay away if I see Reg’s car at our house. I don’t want to see him—or Mom with him. They’re building a two-person raft to sail away to their new life. There is no room for me. He’s almost totally moved in now. Every time I see him, he’s carrying a box and telling me, “It’s the last one, I swear, Stevie! Hahaha.” I go to my job. I hide in my room at night, claiming to have a mountain of homework. I make myself disappear. All those hours I used to spend at Lottie’s place—I realize now how much time that was, how much it took me out of this house. Mom used to kind of resent me being there so often, but now she doesn’t care that I’m around.

Dee came over for the first time the other day, and Reg almost fell over himself to prove how cool he was by complimenting her on her Stranger Things T-shirt: “Great show! You have good taste!” I scoffed, and we went into my room together. It was so completely different from Paige being there. Dee ran her hands over all my old movies with reverence, like they were part of some kind of shrine.

“The. Best,” she said, holding up Heathers.

“Classic.”

She threw herself on my bed like she’d been there a thousand times. She gazed at all my movie posters.

“Ahh. What a great room. A total sanctuary,” she said, grinning. She sat up then and looked at me, a glint in her eye. “It’s almost like a war room in a movie, you know? Like, you could plot some dangerous shit in here.” She paused, then looked serious, and I couldn’t even tell if she was kidding when she said, “I mean, if you ever wanted to, like, seize the town by force.”

I laughed and looked around my room, seeing it in a new light. There is hardly an inch of wall space not covered in some homage to movies; my desk is covered in scripts and notes for my videos; there are piles of DVDs and VHS tapes everywhere.

“Ha. Yeah. I guess.”