“So he’s back and you haven’t talked to him? Do you need permission?” She waited for an answer, then shook her head, opened her palms, spread them, made him look at her. “Don’t you have a brain?”

“What?”

“It’s not all about you, stupid. Don’t you even want to know what’s going on?”

“He was supposed to call me.”

She was leaning toward him, all feeling and fervency; all Lily’s feelings were enormous, like this one. “Well, duh. His mother died. All right? Do you even know how that feels? I don’t.”

He ran his hand through his hair. For a moment he felt as if he might come to pieces. He had thought he was getting better. You could protect yourself to death. And that was only the first layer. She thought he was supposed to do something. But what? Walk to Ehringhaus, risk getting beat up by half the boys in the dorm, risk Ben being one of them? That sounded so dramatic. Was that an excuse to do nothing? Would Ben hurt him?

“You better eat your food, you said you were starving.” Lily had asked for more coffee, and tapped on the table. “I can almost see your brain spinning.”

For the rest of the meal they were quiet. They paid the bill and she drove him home. No advice, just good night. She wanted to borrow a book. He would find it in his room. That was all.

When he opened the door to his room the curtain moved, and for a moment, so breathless, it was as though Ben were there, coming in through the window, same as he had a few months ago, full of himself, sitting on the bed, waiting to be adored. It caught at Ronny, a pain at the base of his throat, a physical longing, emptiness, the room dark and silent.