This isn’t an entirely new thing, her texting me while I’m at school, but there’s been an uptick since the pre-Coffeehole meltdown. She’s checked on me every day this week. I eyeball the untouched paper sack containing my lunch and squeeze the paper clips in my fist until I can feel them leaving imprints in my palm.

Lunch was good. Everything is fine. I don’t know what to do other than to try to reassure her.

Do you know where you want to go for Halloween dinner?

I bristle. It used to be one of the family traditions I looked forward to most, so she kept it up after Dad left. However, with the increasing intensity of her focus on numbers, rightness, and food-borne illness, it’s become more chore than celebration for both of us.

Still thinking about it. I send the message while the anger is still building so that I won’t think it through long enough to send something I might regret. Between Will not telling me about his plans for next Sunday, the nosy banana masticator he’s sent as his messenger, and my mom being my mom, I’m running out of ability to deal. Inside my head, I try out honest responses that I would never dare send to Mom:

We both know your OCD will make the final call, so why waste my time making me pretend I’m choosing?

I’d rather eat tuna out of a can in front of the TV than watch you try to turn your meal into an acceptable pattern of fours while you fret about the restaurant’s sanitation practices.

Halloween is on a Saturday this year, so I plan to spend it partying with my friends. OH WAIT — I’ve never made any thanks to the impossibility of navigating them around your routines.

Maybe I’ll save the cash for spending money in London, which by the way I’m going to visit whether you want me to or not.

The inside of my chest feels white-hot. I start doing multiplication tables in my head, beginning with sixes, a trick I’ve used for years to robot my way through upsetting moments. I flip back to Zoe’s message and go back to Starworld, hoping my emotions won’t follow me there.

Me: *adds functionality to dispense Kleenex out of one of its earholes when you are sad* *dubs it the Fairy Godbot*

Zoe: *dies*

Me: *promises to make him look less like a flying spaghetti monster after beta testing is completed*

Zoe doesn’t respond, so I peek over at her table. Her phone is still clutched in her hand, but she’s turned away now, talking to her friends. They’re laughing about something, and she’s shaking her head, protesting. But then she falls back into her phone, and two messages fly in: