I think about who I need. Is it Mom or Maria or Ginger or Dan or Melissa or Well or any of the people I’ve had to rely on in the past week? If I had to pick, who couldn’t I live without? I rub my eyes and picture Mom in Tahoe on Amelie’s couch. Has she picked up the phone and put it down again a million times like I have? Or is she just happy to be free, not missing me at all?

Something wakes me. A clink-clinking. I’d been dreaming of Tahoe, of that time when we went swimming in the cold waters of the lake. The sky was a cloudless blue, and I could smell the coffee from Joe’s. We’d sprawled on the sun-warmed pier to dry off. Mom lifted her sunglasses and tucked a wet piece of hair behind my ear. “Today we are mermaids,” she whispered.

Clink-clink. It chases the dream away. I sit up. My neck is stiff from falling asleep crooked against the window. There it is again. Clink-clink. Pause. Clink-clink-clink.

I check my phone. It’s two a.m.

Clink.

It’s coming from outside.

I scooch down in the reading chair so only my head sticks up enough to give me a view of the patio.

Clink-clink.

There’s Well in the moonlight, crouched like a burglar in a black hoodie on the edge of the fire pit. I throw my sweatshirt over my pajamas and tiptoe down the stairs. The French doors aren’t locked. I roll my eyes. Only in suburbia would you leave your doors unlocked. I slip out into the night.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper when I reach him, even though there’s no way Ginger and Dan could hear me from the far reaches of their bedroom. Well hops down and props his feet up on a lounge chair. He’s wearing glow-in-the-dark Skechers.

“I’m coming to rescue you.”

“From?”

“Yourself, dearie.”

“What makes you think I need rescuing?” I tuck my hands inside my sleeves. It’s freezing out here. The weather changed with the rain. Was my talk with Andrea just this morning? It feels like years and years ago.

“Fine. You don’t. Maybe it was just my imagination that you were basically mute today at school.” I look down at my feet. Well points at the sky. “But it’s a full moon and we’re both up, so hang with me for a minute, will you?”

Lit up as it is by moonlight, the wet lawn looks almost like a lake. At its far end, the gate that leads to the path through the forest is just visible. Something near my foot catches my eye.

“Is that a quarter?”

Well blinks at me a second before he says, “I couldn’t find any rocks.”

“What?”