“Fine!” Mom yelled. “I’ll leave!”

“No!” For a split second, I thought that I had cried out; then, I spotted the silhouette that had broken out of the shadows. It was me, a few inches shorter and at least five years younger, my round little face swol en with tears, frantic red patches covering my neck.

Clutching Mom’s sleeve, the young me begged, “Mom, please don’t leave, you have to—”

“Seth, this has nothing to do with you.” Dad’s jaw was set, the vein in his neck pulsing pulsing pulsing. “Go back to bed. And tell your sister to stay in her room as well.”

Younger me stared up at my mom, eyes watery, waiting for her to object. When all she did was give a curt nod, he abruptly turned around and disappeared into the shadows again.

“Great, now look at what you’ve done!” Dad exclaimed as soon as he was gone.

“What I’ve done? You started this!”

“Because you’re being selfish!”

“And you’re not being fair!”

“You’re unreliable!”

“You’re controlling!”

“You’re—”

“You see?” the skeleton quietly said, directing my attention back to it. “That’s what happens, sooner or later. Love like you dream of doesn’t exist. Never has, never will. Sooner or later, everything goes to shit. It’s best to accept it now. Keeps you from getting hurt, hm?”

I swallowed, trying to drown out the sound of my parents still going on in the background, every inch of me shaking with the familiar anxious tremor I had felt a thousand times before. In the corner, little me cowered under one of the tables, wetly gasping for air as tears poured down his cheeks. In his hand, he was clutching the brown paper bag he had learned to breathe into when he got like this.

“In fact, now that I think about it . . .” the skeleton mused, grinning at me when I met its empty eyes again. “It’s better not to have a heart at all. Don’t you agree, Seth?”

Before I could react, one of its bony hands darted forward, the skul ’s cackling echoing from the low basement ceiling as its fingers reached straight into my chest, sharp pain erupting as they closed around my heart and pulled —

° ° °

And then I woke up with a gasp, the skeleton’s laughter still echoing in my head. On instinct, my hand frantically moved to press against my chest, until I could feel my heart pounding under my palm, a panicked drumming that calmed only after a few shaky inhales.

I was alive. I was safe. I was okay, mostly, at least.

And I was also sure that I wouldn’t fall asleep again after that nightmare my brain, the bloody horror movie producer, had come up with. Fucking hell.

17

Evelyn

On Monday, I found myself sitting between Noelle and Seth in class. Other teachers might have reprimanded Jasper and Noelle for swapping tables, from their initial seats in the front of the room to the ones next to us in the back, but Miss Pepperman had smiled only when she had entered the class and noticed our new seating arrangement.