I was finished. ‘OK. You know what, I – you can go. You can leave.’

‘Thanks for your permission.’

‘That wasn’t – that’s not what I was saying.’

So this was how it ended.

I watched her leave, her dark shock of hair waving behind her. Things would never, ever be the same between us, and the sooner we realized – she realized – the better.

Class didn’t start back up again until Wednesday, and I would have preferred to spend my remaining freedom inside, sulking, thinking, but I had to go back to the support group on Monday.

I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Actually, I was grumpy as hell about it. Didn’t want to be there. I felt like I had a whole host of problems that, even if I was the only bastard there, we wouldn’t have been able to solve. I was upset about the fight I’d had with Olivia; I was, as always, in a perpetual state of discomfort about my dependency on June; I was also, apparently, the target of someone who was human trash at best and a literal murderer at most.

Where would I even start?

Leo gave me a half-hearted smile when I arrived, which I returned. This boy was no longer a threat, I decided, and I liked that I knew more about him now than he knew about me.

That session, Gerry had us talk about emotions. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, ‘emotions in therapy? Groundbreaking.’

We talked about guilt and death. As in, thinking that there was something you could have done, when, really, there’s nothing that could have been done. Arguments don’t cause heart attacks. You didn’t have to cry at the funeral if you didn’t feel like it. Stuff like that. Even if I had told Dad not to go driving that day, nothing would have changed. And I thought, maybe when there’s meant to be a death, that death will happen no matter what you do. The grim reaper taking his daily cut of human life, and he needs to fill the quota. Some Final Destination shit. If Dad hadn’t died driving, he would have been hit by a rogue bullet or choked on dinner or fallen down the stairs, all of which are probably worse than a one-and-done car accident, so really, he was lucky.

Anger and death. I was angry at everything. People. Death. The universe. Whatever. ‘The stages of grief – I’m gonna be honest here – are bull,’ Gerry said. ‘Sometimes the anger lingers. Or the denial. Or the bargaining. Or the fear. Any of it can stay.’

She had us divide a piece of paper into four parts, and label each with I feel guilty when, I feel angry when, I feel scared when, and I feel better when.

Guilty when I smile, laugh, breathe.

Scared when literally anything happens.

Better when …

Better when I’m with June.