By late afternoon, my eyes would glaze over with what Mom called phone brain, so I’d switch to reading. Mostly books I’d read before, in elementary school. The kinds of books where regular kids had magical adventures in their own backyards. Breadcrumbs, The Jumbies, The Seventh Wish. I liked wishing books best of all. Books that made it seem like incredible things might happen to anyone.

And then, later, when I heard keys jangling in the door and Mom and Dad poked their heads in, I got good-kid points for the fact that I was reading on my own.

“Who says kids don’t read anymore?” Dad might say.

“I told you she was mature enough to stay home alone,” Mom might add. “Our Leah makes good decisions.”

Then dinner would happen, and eventually bed. So that I could fall asleep and start all over again the next day.

After a few days, when Mom asked me how my summer was going, I answered “couldn’t be better” in my most cheerful tone.

This is what “fine” sounds like, I thought.

“Fine” didn’t last long, though. About a week into my new routine, something shifted, and the drifting didn’t seem to work anymore. I woke up one morning, early, and couldn’t go back to sleep. And lying there in my bed, the sheets all tangled and bunched and sweaty, I found I was totally, absolutely, incredibly bored.

So I got up and wandered around the house, but that didn’t help. I was still bored. Bored with myself. Bored with the house, and my books, and dumb YouTube. A few times that day, I found my phone full of texts, group messages from people I never talked to anymore but who hadn’t thought to leave me off. They were boring too, mostly just different versions of Hey! and How’s your summer going? I never replied, but I still scrolled through them, to see what people were up to. And—I couldn’t help it—to see what Tess was doing.

Ever since we were really little kids, Tess and I had done everything together. Preschool. Girl Scouts. Dance class. We’d shared a fort in my backyard, and licked each others’ lollipops, as gross as that seemed now. And every Saturday night, up until last year, we’d had a sleepover. We took turns telling each other bedtime stories, and slept tip to toe, with a pillow at each end of the bed, so I’d wake up in the morning staring at Tess’s feet, and that seemed normal. I’d kept pajamas at her house and a toothbrush.

I wondered if my toothbrush was still there, its frayed plastic bristles collecting dust. Or if they’d tossed it by now.