In the dorm that night, I’m putting the pieces together but the pieces are more amorphous almost-pieces than anything concrete or worth acting on, and I’m not getting anywhere.

When Peyton gets back she immediately asks if I want to play cards. She, I already realize, is always wanting to do something: talk (most recently to discuss her reading of Catcher in the Rye), or go on a walk-turned-social engagement, or a trip to the store for things I’m not convinced we need. I can’t decide if this is to compensate for something, the sort of thing people who don’t want to be left alone with their thoughts do – or maybe a lack of private thoughts to want to be left alone with. And even though keeping pace with Peyton’s whims is fast becoming my third job, the inclusion in the mundane highlights a quality in both Peyton and Ellis I quite like: how they treat me as though they’ve known me for much longer than they have.

I finally agree to play because the world is hot and boring and makes no sense and there’s nothing better to do. But I’m not paying attention. I’m playing horribly. I think of Celeste. Dad. I lose three rounds in a row.

‘Your game’s off,’ Peyton says. ‘No fun if you don’t wanna kill me. What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Liar.’

‘Do you ever just realize …’ I say. ‘Never mind.’

‘What?’

‘That you have nowhere in the world to go back to?’

Peyton blinks. ‘Don’t you?’

I shake my head vigorously. The leaving has felt too good. The leaving has made me realize that, no, I can never go back.

‘I’m sorry, Mona,’ Peyton says. ‘You seem … Don’t take this the wrong way. And I’ve known you for, like, five days so this might be totally out of line and off the money, but, you’re really heavy, sometimes? Most of the time. And serious. Very brooding.’

I blink, suddenly shy.

‘Like, sometimes I look over there at you at your desk and your face is –’ Peyton performs a not-especially flattering expression, lips tight, eyebrows furrowed, eyes angry.

Pink blooms across my cheeks. I want to apologize for my face, for her having to look at it.

‘And it’s nothing bad, and it’s just you, but it does make me sad. Because I think probably something happened to make you that way. And I don’t know what it is. I mean, what, you can’t go home? Is that what it has to do with?’ she asks. ‘Your family?’

I don’t know why I say this, but after a moment I say, ‘Maybe I’ll tell you someday.’

‘How very cagey. Well, you’re nice deep down, anyway.’

Her certainty makes me angry. ‘And what makes you say that?’

‘You offered me the bed,’ she says. ‘The first day.’