I’m outside BTI, breathing hard, my leg muscles twitching because I sprinted down twelve flights of stairs. I want to run as far and as fast as I can. I want to forget Mom, and mostly I want to forget her words. He’s the one who didn’t want you, you know. She’s lying; I know this but my teenage heart clamps on to it, holds it close, and already I can feel it spreading like a disease.

I run until my lungs burn, my legs ache, and my face is dry and sticky. I lean forward, hands on my knees, wait for my breathing to slow down.

I look up. Behind a chain-link fence looms the Buckner Building, staring at me like a giant spider out of dozens of busted-out windows. My sweat dries, leaves my shirt wet and cold in the fall temperature. I shiver and zip up my jacket, slide my hands into the pockets, stand up as tall as I can, and stare back.

Black patches stain the concrete, spreading like a rash. Even from the road I can hear the echoey plink of water that drips inside. The building has sat here alone and wide open to the elements for so long now it seems to have become part of the land.

Grass grows out from doorways, and moss clings to rocks and dirt instead of floors. My skin prickles. Kids say it’s haunted, but I think it’s just sad and lonely. I think of Mom, the way her eyes close when she takes a drink, like she needs me to disappear. But Dad—I swipe at a tear—Dad always wanted me. I kick the ground and walk over to the fence, thread my fingers through the holes and try to see inside the closest window, but the dim evening turns the insides black.

I can’t go home. I can’t face him. Can’t look him in the eye, because Mom’s words put something dark and ugly in me. He didn’t want you, you know. All these years of her drinking, and the only thing that’s kept me from wanting to put my fist through a window is Dad. So the thought that once he didn’t want me wiggles around my heart like a worm, makes me question everything.

Down by my knees, I notice that the metal wiring looks warped, but when I look closer, I see that someone’s cut the fence, made a little door. I push on the metal, and it gives just enough for me to crawl inside. So I do. The grass is almost to my waist and mixed with weeds. My foot kicks an empty and rusted beer can; it makes a popping sound that bounces off the concrete building, seems to dance around me. It’s getting darker, the light more blue than yellow.