This was the flaw in my plan that I’d been fretting over: In spite of all my best efforts, I hadn’t come up with a way for us to be totally together. Touchstone had been a shoo-in as a member of the Young Company at Arden & Co., the theater festival. I’d had similar luck finding employment there: I’d managed to trick my way into an internship at the costume shop based on a few sketches I’d done, photographs of some old Halloween costumes I’d made, and an interview that I’d more or less blacked out during. Costumes weren’t necessarily my passion—I would’ve preferred making chore wheels or elaborate proposals—but since no such internships existed, costumes would do for the summer. But Ros hadn’t found work yet. They’d applied for a couple of jobs but gotten rejected from all of them—even from working concessions for the theater, which we could hardly believe. “I’m cursed,” said Ros. It did kind of seem that way, though putting stock in curses was more my mother’s bag than my own. Even though getting a job was in our Modest Proposal contract, the three of us decided that maybe Ros would have more luck on the ground. We decided that until they found something, they would be our Hestia, tending the hearth of the Lily Pad and keeping the metaphorical home fires burning. It was a big job, to take care of the house, especially for Ros, who didn’t share my obsession with cleanliness—but Ros assured me and Touch and our parents that they were up to the challenge. The arrangement wasn’t perfect, but it worked: Touch and I had jobs at the theater festival, and we’d have our stay-at-home friend until something changed.

“You worry too much,” Touchstone said.

“Obviously. But the question stands.”

Touchstone sighed. “You can’t babysit them forever.”

“I’m not babysitting. I’m looking out for them. After the year they’ve had, I think that’s the least we can do, don’t you?” He didn’t answer, so I just kept talking—trying to convince him, or me, or maybe both of us that all this worrying was in Ros’s best interest and not evidence of some other feelings that I had for them. “They’re my friend.”

“I’m your friend,” said Touchstone. “You didn’t do my physics homework for the entire year.”

“It was a handful of times, thank you very much, just the refraction unit and then a few times on oscillations,” I said. “And your dad didn’t leave.”

“He’s been gone over a year at this point,” said Touchstone. “Ros is doing much better. They smile. They laugh. They made us bad coffee. They seem like a version of a person they used to be. And you seem…”

Obsessive. Fixated. Fanatical.