"Come off it, Vinny. Is it really worth still being pissed off with him?"

I grumble a non-committal answer. She jabs a finger into my ribs, which in turn makes me jerk the wheel to the left. I'm ticklish, dammit.

"Jesus, Casper—"

She bites back a laugh. "That's what you get for not talking to me. You have to talk to someone."

Maybe, yeah. I should. But not to the dying girl. She has enough to deal with. "It doesn't matter. I'll get over it."

"You're making the assumption that you being irrational is totally acceptable behavior," Casper drawls, toying with the buttons on the radio to find a station. "Maybe in a week, two weeks, you'll get over it. But what if he doesn't? You two are both so fucking oversensitive about everything."

Tension slithers up my spine. My jaw tightens. "I'm allowed to be angry."

"Of course you are. Emotions are totally irrational half the time." Her ice blue eyes lock onto me. "But you have full control over how you deal with them. Acknowledging that something is irrational and refraining from taking it out on someone is the best thing to do."

I am silent.

I am panicking. What if she's right and he doesn't forgive me for overreacting?

"You need to realize Adam didn't ditch you, Vinny. He's got his own set of issues, mostly pertaining to his mom. You happened to be caught in the middle of it. How do you think Adam felt after you left? Stuck with his mom while she berated him about his choice of friends and told him to go to his room like he's a five-year-old?"

I can picture it, but I don't want to. Adam, sitting quietly in his room, on the edge of his bed. Maybe wanting to play his guitar, but not daring to try because his mother might flip out about the noise. If we'd gone only ten minutes earlier we would have slipped out of the house before she came home.

"I'll call him," I mutter. Mostly just to get her off my case.

Casper is placated for the moment. We head home and she manages a small bowl of cereal before we both crawl into bed and sleep.

CHAPTER 18

The trees are turning orange and gold outside my window and the air has a fun autumn-y scent. It's the first day I haven't taken my medicine in a week and a half, and I'm feeling human again. Shaky, a little crazy, but less robotic.

(I've called Adam three times.)

I celebrate that evening by turning I Want to Break Free on loud, opening the sliding glass door to let in the cool air, and clean.

(He hasn't called back.)

I vacuum and shove laundry into the tiny stackable washer and dryer in the hall closet. I scrub the bathroom and mop the kitchen. Maggie used to nag me to get these things done around her house, and I feel a little more adult-like that I'm doing it in my own apartment because I want to and not because I have to.