“I dunno.” I shrug. “I’m…I’ve been better….” I trail off. The air is filled with noise from the nearby airport, small commuter jets taking off and landing. All those people on board, living lives totally different from mine. Leaving here. What I wouldn’t give to trade places with them.

“I just feel like an idiot.”

“Why?” Conor says.

I shake my head. “Don’t be like that. You know why. I trusted her. I thought…I thought she got me. I brought her to my fucking house! I don’t bring anyone to my house, except you. I thought that maybe, for the first time in forever, someone saw me. Like, me, not my fucking mom.”

The balloon of anger that’s been floating in my midsection since earlier today, slowly leaking, finally bursts. I throw my beer across the driveway, can still half full. It lands and explodes. Conor, god love him, doesn’t react.

I continue, “But then I find out that all she saw was my mom. It’s such bullshit. I can’t believe she came over, acting like she’d never been to my house before, all the while casing the place.”

I expect Conor to be sympathetic, but instead he snorts. I glare at him and he holds his hands in front of his chest. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. But, bro, casing your house? Really? May doesn’t seem like the type.”

“She didn’t seem like the type who’d vandalize my house either!”

He shrugs. “True, but when she was doing that, did she know it was your house?”

I squint out into the night and grab a new can of beer out of the bag. “You mean, before we met? I guess no….” I grunt the words out.

“Since you guys started…whatever”—he waves his hand vaguely in the air—“has anything been spray-painted on your house? Any shitty letters left in your mailbox?”

I clench my teeth. “No, but…she came over! She was inside my house! She acted all innocent, like she’d never been there before. She sat at the dining room table and had dinner with my parents!”

“Dude. You need to chill.” He says it offhandedly, like he assumes I’ll just go along with him without argument. I’ll just chill.

I slam my fist on the hood of the car, and he jerks back in surprise.