“Come on, Danny.” Eli’s voice was so calm, so steady. “It’s okay to be mad. Do you need to hit me with one of those cheap flowery chair pillows? Just let it out.”

Eli looked Daniella in the eye as he said it. And somehow, Daniella had never noticed that Eli had brown eyes, not blue. She knew every freckle on his face, but she had somehow assumed the wrong color of his eyes. Given the rest of his coloring, they should have been sky blue, or maybe a sea green. But no, these were just a plain, clear brown. The realization grounded Daniella, again. She was coming back to her body after a flight through space and time and rage. The returning sensation started with a heaviness at her eyes with the threat of hot, angry tears. Then the sense that she had fingers and toes and they were hers and they didn’t belong to the well of anger inside of her. Then she could feel her own breathing in her chest—in and out, but still not easy or smooth.

Eli didn’t break eye contact. “It’s okay, you know.”

“No.” Daniella shook her head. “I hate you.”

“I know.” He nodded, and suddenly Eli seemed like the kind of boy who knew the secrets of the universe.

“You don’t know anything,” said Daniella. It was a plea. A benediction. A desperate need to be spared this feeling. She blinked a tear away.

But Eli was ruthless. He let go of her shoulders and used one of his hands to wipe away the tear from her cheek. “I know more than you’ll ever say. And I know why you won’t admit it.”

Daniella shook her head. He couldn’t know anything. She never told him, and she never told anyone, really.

But Eli paid attention. And he must have been paying attention to Daniella. “I know you write poetry in that notebook when we’re not looking. I know you take Calc BC even though you tell everyone you’ve got Algebra II to do over the summer. I know you have a weakness for astrology memes, and I know you’d rather dive into Lake Michigan than ever admit you had a feeling.”

There was a callus along one of the ridges of Eli’s thumb and Daniella could feel it as it moved back and forth across her cheek. She wanted to get out of her body again, go back into that place that was just white-hot anger. But she could feel that rough patch of skin across her cheek, and she could feel her breathing change to shorter, choppier breaths, and she was undeniably aware of the fact that one of her hands had reached out to play with a belt loop along Eli’s jeans. She’d found her way back into her body, and she hated that it was Eli who helped keep her tethered there.