“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.” She clomps down the stairs, satisfied by my explanation — at least for now — leaving me in the midst of the disaster that is my life. And even though it was a lie when I said it, I start to think maybe I should clean.

So I start tidying, and once I start, I can’t stop. For the first time I have an inkling of what it’s like to be my mom. I feel that if only I can get everything put back in its place, maybe my life will rearrange itself into something bearable. Maybe my mom is on to something — maybe that kiss would never have happened in a world that had some order in it. Maybe if I get rid of all the reminders of what a freak I am, I won’t feel like such a freak.

Maybe I’m already just like her.

I clean with shaky hands and let the task take away all my thoughts except decisions about where to put stuff. This book on that shelf, these pencils in the holder I’ve never used, and that last uneaten bag of shortbread from Zoe into the trash to be buried under subsequent detritus. Fantasy novels piled in my closet, video game posters pulled from the walls and shoved behind bookshelves where they can’t be seen. When I’m done, the place doesn’t even feel like it’s mine anymore. I’m living in someone else’s room, someone else’s life.

I fall face-first down on my bed, consumed with fear that I’m doomed to turn out just like my mother — perpetually organizing my life to stave off disaster while only deepening the pit of my own dysfunctional reality, the black hole of my existence. The pointlessness of it all is so vast. I am a fucked-up robot incapable of human interaction. I am a girl with a mentally ill mother and a father who didn’t love me enough to stay. I just destroyed the only relationship I had that gave me any hope someone could love me. None of that is ever going to change.

There is no cure for the cruelty of the universe, and no way to rearrange these broken stars.

Zoe

I sit frozen on my bed, staring after Sam.