“Crumple them up,” she said. “Smash them into a tiny ball.”

I looked down at my perfect pink heart, not wanting to ruin it. But I wanted to follow instructions, too. I balled up my heart like the other kids, then smoothed it flat again when our teacher told us to.

“See those creases in your heart?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said sadly. The heart looked ugly now.

“Those creases are like harmful words,” the teacher said. “When you say harmful words to someone, the hurt they cause stays with that person—just like how the creases stay on your paper hearts, even when you smooth them out. That’s why we have to be very careful with the words that we say to each other.”

I got my phone from the nightstand and texted Frankie, telling her I was sorry for yelling, and that I hadn’t meant that about her being selfish. I told her I loved her.

She wrote back okay and sent a thumbs-up.

She forwarded a meme of a cartoon turtle with heart eyes.

But I knew I’d creased her paper heart.

I wondered if she would ever know that she’d creased mine.

chapter 15

The next morning, the beginning of the fourth week of camp, I felt okay. I couldn’t remember having any nightmares and I’d slept without waking up a bunch.

I showered and dried my hair, then pulled the sides up into a messy knot on the top of my head, the rest long and wavy. I put on mascara and tinted lip balm and a sleeveless lavender shirt that I’d always liked wearing.

I hummed along with the music Aunt Maureen chose during the drive to the library, even though it was old, guitar-heavy parent rock. Kane danced in his booster seat as best he could while being strapped down, arms and legs flapping, sometimes to the beat.

“TETH, YOU’RE PRETTY!” he shouted over the music as we were pulling into the library parking lot, warming me from the inside out. “YOU’RE EVEN ALMOST AS PRETTY AS MINNIE MOUSE, TETH! ALMOST!”

I hugged Kane before I went inside, and he hugged back, his squishy, sticky hands with dimples on the knuckles gently patting me on the back.

My mood stayed up at camp; we were learning to sculpt.

I was surprised by how much I liked it once I got started, and by how much it shut up the mean voice in my head. I’d thought I’d hate it, since sculpting was what we’d done in art class at school right after Colette died. And here, at first, when Karly turned off the lights in the room with the labyrinth floor, telling us to pay attention to the hourlong movie on the basics of sculpture, Mean Me was noisy.

There’s no way you’re going to be able to do this. You can barely draw.