“What did you do?” I ask him. “She wouldn’t just kick you out for no reason.”

“You’d have to ask her,” he says.

“Where is she?”

He tilts his chin back toward the main hallway.

“Does she know you’re here?”

He nods, then winces as he looks down at his shoulder. “Good thing we’re in a hospital.”

“Better if we were in a funeral home,” I say, walking away.

I peer into a few rooms before finding her. She looks tired, her ever-perfect eyeliner smudged. Mom sits in a chair near the door.

“I’m here,” I say. “I brought clothes.”

“They’re keeping me overnight,” Scarlett says in a voice not her own. Her eyes are glazed over, and she stares at the ceiling.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Mom says. “False alarm. Just some cramping. Hard to know what’s what.”

“I knew it was probably fine,” Scarlett says. “Mom panicked.”

“Better to be cautious,” Mom says. “Is it not?”

I suspect that either Scarlett is playing it off not to acknowledge any vulnerability, or Mom manipulated the situation as an excuse not to get on the plane. Perhaps a little of both.

There’s only one chair in the room. I don’t really know what to do with myself. “Do you want anything? I can get food or . . .”

“You can go home,” Scarlett says. “You don’t need to stay.”

“Of course I’ll stay.”

“Mom’s here,” she says. “Matty’s here.”

“Yeah, I saw.”

“Yeah,” Scarlett says. “Rory, please go home.”

“You asked me to be here,” I say. “You asked me to drop everything and come here to be with you, and I came. You said he left.”

“Aurora!” Mom grabs my hand. “Your sister is lying in a hospital bed. Can you please relax?”

I can’t. The anger is teeming, untamable.

“You lied to me,” I tell Scarlett.

She won’t look at me. She’s still just staring at the ceiling.

“You lied to me and now my life is over.”

“Aurora,” Mom says. “Please.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’m leaving.”

I pass Matty on my way out. He’s talking to Seth, who sees me but doesn’t wave. His eyes are dark, his brow furrowed. I listen. I don’t need to be close to hear what they’re saying.

“She’s crazy, man,” Matty says. Me. He’s talking about me.

“She can be aggressive,” Seth says. “She can be intense sometimes.”

I force myself out to the parking lot before I really lose it.

I drive around for a while. I don’t want to go back to Scarlett’s. I don’t really want to be anywhere. I pass the high school and see that the field lights are on. There’s a track there that I used to run on weekends. I pull in and get out of the car. I slide out of my leather mules and walk barefoot across the cold, cracked pavement. I start running the track, my legs alive beneath me, moving in a new way. The wind whips my hair back. I cut through the night like a knife.