Startled, I opened my eyes to find my youngest cousin, Kane, next to the bed. I felt out of it, like I’d fallen asleep. His dark blond hair was wild from his own nap. He was looking at my left hand, where the cuticles on three fingers were coated in crusted, dried blood. I’d gotten really good at hiding my hands in pockets or long shirtsleeves after the nail biting had gotten so much worse.

Good job, loser, you’re freaking out a little kid.

“That’s a bad owie,” Kane pointed out again.

“Yeah,” I said, tucking my hands under the covers.

“Does it hurt?” he asked with huge, concerned eyes.

He was asking about my hand, but I felt the question in my heart. “Yeah, it does,” I said quietly, which made the tears come. They always came eventually.

Kane reached over and wiped my cheeks dry with his miniature thumbs. “It’s okay to cry when you have an owie or just anytime you feel sad.”

“Thanks, Kane,” I said, so surprised by the gesture that I stopped crying. I wasn’t used to being around kids who were younger than me. I didn’t have my babysitting certificate yet. Colette and I had been planning to do that together at the end of the summer.

“Okay and Mommy says you have to come to eat your hamburger now please.” Kane stared at me for three seconds, then added, “Okay, Teth, you have to get up now Mommy says please. We are having hamburgers and do you like ketchup?”

“I do,” I said, sitting up and throwing off the covers.

I followed Kane to the landing. Before he started down, he took my hand and looked up at me with his big eyes and long eyelashes.

“We’re going downstairs now,” he said bravely, taking a deep breath, then the first step off the landing. “You don’t have to be scared. Just hold on tight and go slow.”

“Okay, thanks, Kane,” I said, getting choked up again.

“Ketchup is icky,” he said as we stepped. “I like plain hamburgers. We can still be friends, though, because everyone has their own ’pinions and that’s okay. ’Cept my ’pinion is ketchup is very bad and my ’pinion is your ’pinion is wrong.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

Me and my little cousin made it down the steps. And then we ate hamburgers.

chapter 2

Kennedy sat shotgun, her hand with a black snake thumb ring and a gold band on the middle finger dangling out the window, the wind making the nonshaved side of her dyed-black hair go wild. She rode with her eyes closed, nodding to the aggressive music she’d connected to the rental minivan’s speaker system.

Her dad hadn’t seemed to mind it; Uncle Bran was nodding, too, thankfully with his eyes open so he didn’t veer the car off the road.