“Why would you do that, Jake? What are you hoping to find in the pages of that book? An explanation for why I thought to kill? Why I keep killing? Don’t you think you could just ask me instead of going behind my back?”

“You never . . .” There are so many roaches. “You never talk to me normally.” Roaches falling like BASE jumpers to the floor, spreading across it, on a mission, it seems, to fill the gaps in the tile—to eat the whole bathroom alive. “Get the fuck out of my house.” My voice is low and clear.

Sawyer snaps to face me as a wind rushes through the space, blowing him backward, smearing his visibility through the cool air.

“Jake!”

A fist explodes against the door. I grab the doorknob and pull myself to my feet as a roach skitters up my naked leg.

Benji bangs the door while I shake all over. “Hey, Jake! You wanna shut up?”

“You want to know why I killed them?” Sawyer’s struggling to stay in one piece, with his eyes sinking through the veins behind his face and gashes tearing into his arm, sending a smoke of blood into the air.

The banishing . . . it kind of worked that time.

It’s kind of working.

“I killed them because they hated people like us. They hated gay people. People who hate gay people don’t deserve to be here. Don’t you think that?”

I know what he wants—to be in my head. But I’m in control now, and as I blink at the walls, at the roaches, their guts splatter and evaporate, like Sawyer’s skin. I can make this stop happening. My eyelids are a pair of Whac-A-Mole mallets tied to their life spans.

I find myself in the mirror again—kinky curls, brown eyes and skin. Back to normal.

No roaches.

There were never any roaches.

I imagined them. Sawyer imagined them . . . for me?

There he is, still watching me from the other side of the bathroom, like he’s waiting for an answer. And the roaches crawl up the side of his face, disappearing into his ears, hair, and head.

A grin flashes across his face, and his expression softens, like he’s warmed to me now and wants to just be friends. “Don’t you agree? Don’t you think everyone who wants to keep you from Allister deserves to die?”

“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

The shout sends ecto-mist ripping through his body so he rips apart at the cheeks and chest, his body splitting open at the neck and knees, until he pops in a burst of red smoke and then exits through the crevices of the door.

The shower curtain flaps like a sail, and the hinges rattle behind him.

I want to believe that’s the end.

I escape the bathroom, enter my room, collapse on the bed, and tuck myself under the covers. The night darkens.