Maybe, if she had the right tools, Olivia would come and speak to her. Ayanna wondered if apologizing would make her feel better. As Felix packed things up, Ayanna formed a plan in her head. She would steal the board, put out all of Olivia’s things, and wait as long as possible.

Then, she paused. As long as Olivia never came to her, there was the possibility that, somehow, she was still alive. Ayanna let out a breath. When had she decided her sister was dead? When had she stopped believing that if the doors came back, so, too, would Olivia? Ayanna stood up and walked out into the woods before Felix could notice.

Her body pulsed with the desire to punch one of the thick tree trunks until the bark made her knuckles bloody. Hit herself in the head with the sharpest, biggest rock she could find. She had given up. She might spend the next few days eating as little as possible as a form of penance. Ayanna had a piece of paper in her wallet on which she had written down what to do when she felt so angry that she wanted to harm herself. She didn’t look at it.

17

Jane was planning an elaborate Halloween party at a friend’s off-campus house, the Goal x Hunting x Association had won another two games, and Ayanna, despite everything, felt like to the rest of the world it seemed like she was thriving. Four goals, two perfect midterms, a hair day where two other Black women called out compliments to her on the street, and an interesting assignment from Professor Collins to meet with a faith healer who claimed to have received his powers from walking through the door. She wasn’t sleeping well at night. Sometimes in class, a small, clear voice would cut through her note-taking or her arguments with other students to ask, “Why are you still here?”

When she talked to her grandma on the phone about soccer, about going to movie nights at Stephen’s apartment, about eating vegan red-bean-and-corn-bread bakes with Jane every Wednesday night, about the work she and Felix were doing together, her grandmother said, “Hearing you sound like this, it makes me feel so good. I was worried about you for so long.”