Her eyes widen, like she thinks I’m out of line. Like she thinks I’m the one who has something to be sorry for. “Excuse me? ‘Show up here’? I sleep here every night. And I’ll remind you that I’m your mother, so watch your tone.” I can tell she’s getting ready to go full lawyer on me, and all the fight drains out of my body.

“Sorry.” I’m back to mumbling. Across the table, Gwen looks like she’s about to cry. I swallow hard.

My mom sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “It’s okay. I don’t want to spend our time together fighting. Now, can you please tell us how school is?”

I look around the table before answering. Gwen’s still hunched over her plate, my dad’s fading into the wallpaper, and my mother has bags under her eyes that look like they’ve become permanent fixtures on her face.

This is our family dinner.

Chapter Fifteen

It’s late. It seems like it’s always late, like the days just slide by me and the nights are the only times I can hold on to. I’m standing in my bedroom, staring at my white walls, where posters used to hang. Posters of bands I went to see with Lucy and Chim and Jordan, art museums my parents took Jordan and me to when we were younger, all the bullshit stuff I used to be interested in before I realized none of it matters. I took them down after Jordan died.

Now the walls of my room are bare.

The thick envelope clutched in my hand is unopened. I know it’s another letter from him. It says so right on the postmark: Los Angeles County jail, Twin Towers Correctional Facility.

I only know one person there.

David Ecchles.

The boy who killed my brother.

—

I usually leave these letters unopened. I opened the first one, and after that I knew better. I stuff them under my mattress, around my room, try to forget they exist. I can’t throw them out; in some perverse way, they’re my last connection to Jordan. Everyone else around me has healed, moved on, put up memorials, but these letters are my reminder that nothing will ever be the same. And I deserve to be reminded. Punished.

It’s my payment for surviving.

That first one arrived shortly after David was incarcerated and denied bail. I got home from school one afternoon, a month after everything, and found an envelope in the mailbox addressed to me. I never got personal letters in the mail—I don’t live in the fucking Dark Ages—so I was curious. I literally did not think he could write to me from in there.

I was stupid back then.