“I’m not used to seeing it, honestly,” she told me. “It makes you look the tiniest bit crazy.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Will you see Zeke today?”

“Probably,” I said, but, yeah, duh, of course I would see him.

“And do what?” she asked.

At that moment, I could feel something opening up in me and I realized how hard it was to walk through the day when you had an obsession and you couldn’t say a word about it. I wanted to tell her that I was a fugitive, that it had happened so suddenly that I could scarcely believe it myself. I wanted to ask her if gold seekers were good or bad people. I wanted to ask her if she thought I was a gold seeker. I wanted to describe the feeling of pressing a single piece of paper against a brick wall, that little piece of duct tape trying to adhere to the rough surface, and how important it was for the tape to hold. I wanted to tell her that, maybe, if she made her own poster, and if she mailed it anonymously to my father, she would feel better. I wanted to tell her that I could breathe in time with the Xerox machine, that my insides felt like a copier. I wanted to ask if it was possible to have sex, to get it over with, without actually having sex. I wanted to ask her if my dad, when they first met, asked her to slice her finger and enact some weird blood oath. I wanted to show her my novel about the bad girl. I wanted to read it to her. And I wanted her to say, “This is so good, Frankie.” And I’d say, “I don’t feel like I belong here,” and she’d say, “You mean Coalfield?” and I’d say, “Anywhere.” My mouth was wide open. My mother had no idea what could come out of it.

“Hang out,” I finally said. “Just, like, hang out.”

She looked at me. If she brought up the condoms again, I would die. I wanted her to understand that there was something so much weirder inside of me, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was.

“Well, have a great day,” she said. She kissed me, collected her purse and keys, and left the kitchen. I reached for the other Pop-Tart and ate it in three bites.