When Dad and Jesse told me that Sonia was coming, I asked Mom if I could spend the whole week at Dad’s, because Sonia was only staying for six nights and I didn’t want to miss any of them. Mom’s face changed, but right away she said, “Okay, sweetie, sure.” And a second later, she said, “That sounds like fun!”

And right away I felt horrible.

When I feel guilty, it’s like a wave is rushing up on me from the ground. First, my legs feel seasick, and then the feeling runs all the way to my head. I wouldn’t know this except one time Miriam gave me the homework “What does a feeling feel like?”

She told me to write down where I felt my feelings in my body. I told her that was pretty dumb homework, because feelings didn’t feel like anything in my body. “Feelings are in your head,” I said. “You don’t know you’re sad because your toes hurt.” And Miriam just smiled and said we would talk about it next time.

So I went home and sat on my bed with my green pen and my green spiral notebook, and I thought about what a feeling feels like. First, I thought about Ben Larson’s birthday party and the horrible speedboat ride. Right away, my chest hurt like someone was pressing on it and squeezing my throat a little bit at the same time. I wrote in my notebook: Afraid = throat closes up. No wonder it had been so hard to scream.

Then I thought about the time I took Lizette’s root beer and pretended it was mine, and how Ms. Adams was ashamed of me, and how guilty I felt. It took me five or six times of thinking about that to write down exactly where the seasick feeling starts (in my legs), how it goes through my stomach and the wrong way up my throat, and how, when it gets to the top of my head, it fizzes.

It’s worse when I don’t expect it. When I told Mom I wanted to spend a whole week with Dad and Jesse because I was getting a sister, I didn’t know it would hurt her feelings until I saw the way she looked right before she said, “That sounds like fun!” The fizzing in my head lasted longer than usual, almost like a burn.

—

In the middle of Sonia’s first night, I woke up because my hand was itching and the backs of my knees were stinging. I usually put on lotion before bed, but I didn’t want Sonia to see my eczema, so I had skipped it.