It was impossible to believe her mother, a woman who believed angels spoke to her, who had refused to let her attend Olivia’s memorial service, who had spent years now reaching out only to be cruel.

Yet Ayanna’s hand reached for the phone. She wanted to ask for the details, had there been pink light, what had “Olivia” looked like, what had her mother been doing before this visitation. Ayanna scrolled back up, reminded herself that this was all couched in an effort to get Ayanna to make her father talk to Opal. It was probably a lie. She had promised herself to stop trying to have any kind of relationship with this person.

Another buzz from her phone. It was Jane telling her they were downstairs and waiting for her. Ayanna slipped on a coat, looked another time at hair, and fought to put on her knee-high boots. Her face in the mirror had a slight yellow cast to it, as if she were recovering from a long illness. Eyes, bloodshot. Lips, chapped. There was homework and reading she could be doing.

Downstairs, it was a petty relief for Ayanna to see Jane looking just as bad. Her edges were dry, she was wearing big dramatic sunglasses that kept slipping down her nose to reveal puffy, red eyes. She was not wearing one of her white T-shirts, but a large black sweater with pilling beneath the armpits and on the wrists. Stephen greeted Ayanna with a hug and a soft “Are you doing better?” And Ayanna tried to ignore Felix as this happened because she knew that to hear him talk in his slow, kind voice or to see him look at her with eyes brimming with empathy and interest would result in her crying and sobbing in front of them. Jesus, if you’re willing to help a nonbeliever, she thought, please let me be cool. She imagined religious teens all over the world kneeling in front of crosses and thinking the same thing and felt almost like herself when her mouth twitched up into a smile.

Jane and Ayanna were silent on their walk, while Felix and Stephen argued over some book they were reading for class. Felix felt certain the way the last section was written was proof the main character had died because it switched over to letters rather than narration. Stephen was telling him he was overthinking it, the author was probably just bored writing everything the same way and wanted the freedom to be poetic and make the readers feel, you know, closer to the story. Both agreed, though, that Stephen’s argument would probably get him a B- on the upcoming paper, even if it felt intuitively right to him.