Elise squeezed my hands, pulling me back to reality. “Remy?” she said, her voice a soft whisper. “You’re crying.”

Surprised, I touched a hand to my face. “Oh.”

She let go of me, pushed herself up.

“Don’t go,” I said.

“I’m just going to find some tissues.”

“Don’t go.” I hated the way I sounded, so weak, so helpless.

She sat back down, facing me, and wrapped both of my hands in hers, her touch warm and comforting.

Above us, the war raged on. “So tell me, what did the lawyer say?” my mother asked, and I closed my eyes, imagining her expression with startling clarity: the contempt in her eyes, the frown, the downward twist of her lips.

“You don’t believe me,” Dad said.

She scoffed. “Of course I don’t. It’s childish, honestly. What, every time we have a fight you’ll just announce you want a divorce? If you were going to do it, you would’ve done it already. I know what you really want. You just want me to beg for you to stay, but I won’t, not today, not anymore.”

“No,” he protested, though he sounded deflated. “I mean it this time.”

“Okay, so then tell me. How do you want to do it? Who’s getting the house? Who’s getting the cars? Who’s getting the kids?”

“Remy?” Elise shook me lightly. “Let’s get out of here.” Her eyes flicked toward the basement door that led out to the backyard. “Let’s go for a ride.”

I was frozen, unable to move.

“I’ll take Christian, you’ll take Remy,” Mom continued. She had to know I could hear, but maybe she just didn’t care. I wondered if Christian was upstairs in his room, if he was listening to every word or if he’d managed to escape.

For one brief moment, hope flooded me. We were a team, Dad and me. Maybe this was it, what I’d been waiting for all these years—maybe this was when we’d leave.

Then my dad said, “That’s hardly fair. Christian’s going to college soon.”

His words hit me like a knife to the heart. He wasn’t going to take me.

He didn’t want me.

A sob tore its way out of me, but it sounded far away. He was supposed to care, we were supposed to have each other. That’s all I could think. We were the outcasts, the resistance. We were the remainders. Christian had Mom and I had Dad.

“Remy, let’s go.” Elise was tugging my hand. When I didn’t budge, she kneeled down before me. “Breathe for me, just breathe.” She slowed her own breathing down and I began to follow her pace, taking deeper breaths. “Repeat after me: My name is Remy. I am seventeen years old. This won’t last forever.”

I nodded.

My name is Remy.

I am seventeen years old.

This won’t last forever.

Elise was right. Nothing lasts forever.

16.

The summer before high school, my dad popped into my room on a random Thursday and asked if I wanted to tag along on a work trip. “It’s in Chicago!” he said. “I’ll be busy during the day but we could do fun things in the evenings, maybe go see a show?”