I was being stubborn—I could have run home. But I stayed until my body couldn’t take it anymore, until my head was banging and banging, until the coffee acid in my stomach begged to rise up and out.

I didn’t know how many I smoked, but finally I shot up—the chair tipping over—and I bolted for the front door.

“That’ll teach you to steal the blessing tobacco!” Grammy said.

Down the road, I dry-heaved into some brush.

My knees shook and my eyes watered. Everything was blurry. I weaved into the woods, split through sharp pine branches, stopping to lean on an oak every so often to try to puke before bobbing and bobbing—branches scratching my skin—farther and farther from Grammy’s house.

On the riverbank, my knees in mud, I tried to throw up but could not. It was in there—so much was deep down in there—but it would not come. I burped and gagged and burped, but only saliva dripped from my mouth, sending ripples through the river when it hit, making it harder to see in the brown water what I looked like.

I was thirsty, but the river was a brown watery grit, filled with poison from the mill up north that sent down wads of pink and shit-colored bubbles that eventually dumped out into Penobscot Bay. I needed a drink, so I cupped my hands and dipped in, and I slurped the water. It tasted fine, but sickened me. I tried to throw up once more, but I couldn’t, and I almost fell into the river, had to catch myself, hands all muddy.

Before standing, I splashed water on my face. My headache was fading, but that nausea in my gut was trapped.

I hurried back through the woods, hoping I didn’t look ill, hoping I looked fine. Excuses are easier if you look fine.

At home, Frick was outside under the hood of his gray truck, swearing, and I ran past him and up the concrete steps and through the back door. Mom was where I’d last seen her, at the kitchen sink with a bottle of Connoisseurs Silver Jewelry Cleaner, freshening what she hoped to sell at the pawnshop in Overtown where Paige had started working when she randomly showed up back home, and the smell of that cleaner—of old pennies—made me wonder if everything was going to smell worse than it actually was.

“Did she have enough wood?” Mom said.

“Yeah,” I said.

I kicked off my shoes, and through the hole in my sock my big toe stuck out. I put it back in and hurried down the hallway to my room. Paige came out of hers and bumped into me.

“Jesus,” she said, waving her hand in front of her nose. “Grammy smoke you out over there?”

“A little.”

Fully clothed, I crawled into bed, my muddy knees staining the white sheet.

. . .