Times like these, I need Lily. Whenever I’m about to get in trouble, Lily is (was) the one who reminds (reminded) me to breathe. I try to imagine her next to me, whispering in my ear, but it doesn’t work because now whenever I think of her, I think of her six months ago, slipping that letter under my door, slipping out of the house, slipping into the beat-up old Volkswagen she bought when she was sixteen, slipping out of my life. I wonder where she ran to, where she’s hiding. If our money’s gone. If she’s spent it all by now.

Now I’m leaving too.

The sound of sirens closes in on our street. I want to look out the window but if he finds me at the window that would be bad. The front door slams shut. Dad storms into the room and I jump from my chair so fast it goes flying into the cupboards. I lose myself in endless apologies—I’m sorry, I couldn’t eat it, I know it’s a waste, I’m so sorry—but he’s screaming over me and his voice is so loud and so panicked at first I can’t understand a word he’s saying.

And there’s blood on him.

“—go, we have to go!—”

I see the blood and my head is full of snapshots: the coffee table. My head against it. Blood in my hair. The floor mashed against my face. My teeth mashed against my lips. Later, more bruises than I could count. I don’t know what he’s done this time, what’s happened, but I don’t want to be part of it. I push past my father and rush down the hall to the front door. I struggle with the chain lock. Slide it out of place. I pull the door open and—

Tires squealing against the pavement.

People running directionless.

Screaming.

This must be a dream. I must not be awake. Or I’m awake and someone ruined our tidy, quiet street while we were sleeping. Broken glass. Doors flung wide open. Cars parked and running with no one inside of them. An alarm sounds nearby. Smoke billows out the window of a house down the street. Mr. North’s house. A police car is parked haphazardly on his lawn, its lights flashing. A fire. That must be what’s happened except I can’t understand why this would turn everyone to panic.

Everyone is panicking.

People rush by. They don’t even look at me. A loud crack makes me jump but I can’t source the sound. Another scream. A group of people run down the road, so frenzied their movements are jerky and uncontrolled. I watch one of them fall, a man. The others surround him, they’re so desperate to pull him to his feet they overwhelm him and I can’t tell where he stops and they begin.

A car careens past and takes out our mailbox but it keeps going. I take a few dumb steps down the walk and spot a woman staggering awkwardly across our lawn. Is this the girl that needed help? She is covered in red, half hunched over, her arms reaching for someone I can’t see. I don’t know who she is, but I call out to her; I want to know if the blood on my father is hers. She somehow hears me over all the other noises and turns her head in my direction at the same time my father grabs me and yanks me back inside, throwing me into the foyer. I hit the wall as he slams the door shut—in the woman’s face. I glimpse a crimson-stained mouth just before the sound of her body colliding against the wood fills the house. My father takes me by the arm and drags me down the hall. He walks so fast, I can’t keep up. I trip and land on my knees. He whirls around. I cover my face with my hands instinctively but he hoists me to my feet and drags me toward the door to the rec room—