I slept for what felt like a hundred years. The afternoon sun was bright and hot, bathing my room in yellow light. I’d tried to make some changes over the years, but my room still looked like a little girl’s—a print of a dancing ballerina mouse, the tea sets I used to collect. I had cleaned my room in a frenzy before leaving—there were still vacuum cleaner marks on the carpet, and the rest of my summer reading was stacked neatly on my desk, strategically left at home so it’d be fresh in my brain for school. I thought I knew exactly what I’d need the next time I’d be home. But none of this helped.

I took another shower, even though I’d taken one at Phoebe’s. I still felt like there was glass dust everywhere, making me twitchy, uncomfortable. The water pressure was so strong it nearly knocked me off my feet. The shower grew steamy, and slowly, everything grew comforting: the fruity smell of my shampoo, the ragged edge of the old monogrammed towel, the huge bucket of lotion I couldn’t justify bringing to Lovesick since it took up so much space. I sifted through the dregs of my closet, hopeful to find something that still fit, something that I didn’t hate too much. Some old running shorts were tighter than I remembered but worked fine, though a serviceable shirt was harder to come by. I’d left behind the ones I didn’t like, and then a handful of them were Ros’s, which meant that they were an immediate no. I finally found one buried way down deep with my pajamas: an old shirt I used to sleep in as a kid, slate gray that was faded from so many washings, printed with a diagram of the solar system. Sleep had turned it soft, almost threadbare in parts, but I was shocked to see that the fit was almost perfect—loose but not too loose, roomy in the shoulders. I remembered it coming down to my knees.

“There she is!” my dad called when I emerged downstairs. “And she smells like a walking fruit salad!”

“What time is it?”

“Almost two. You hungry? You’ll have to try some of this bread I made,” he said. “Then I was thinking if you’d be up for it, it might be nice to hit the court, it’s a beautiful day—”

“Celia’s going to walk the dogs with me,” my mom said. There was a firmness in her voice that made me strangely afraid.