I wasn’t even sure she would actually come, but here she is, smiling on my doorstep, holding two hot cocoas and a bag of what I can only assume is some kind of breakfast food. I look behind her and wave to Vera, who was nice enough to give her a ride. I smile when she waves back, trying to do my best impression of someone holding it together. Inside, I feel like broken glass. She backs out of the driveway with a little honk, and I usher Peak into the house.

“Are you safe?” Gray asked when I called her.

Yes. Now.

I take everything from Peak, setting the drinks on the table, and she pulls her coat off, hanging it on one of the hooks near the door. She looks around, taking in the house—it’s a lot, I know, too much—before looking at me, really looking at me, and sighing.

“I hate your father,” she says, coming closer and running her hands through my hair.

“I don’t,” I say, shutting my eyes.

“That’s more than half the problem.”

It’s barely scratching the surface, actually, but it’s probably best not to say that out loud.

“I don’t want to go.”

“You’re not.” She takes the bag from my hand. “Can you eat? I brought bagels and butter and cream cheese. It always settles my stomach when I’m nerved up before a big performance or something. I thought it might—”

Her words cut off in a whoosh when I pull her into a hug and hold on too tight, shaking my head. The bag crinkles between us until it falls to the floor, a stray bagel rolling out, and I bury my forehead into her shoulder, breathing her in, letting her hold me together.

“Let’s go lie down for a while,” she says, and I nod against her neck before leading her up the stairs, the bagels abandoned on the floor where she dropped them.

I perch on my bed, watching her catalog the contents of my room. It only takes a minute; there’s not much. My mom never got around to sending most of the things I asked for, and I threw out half of what she did send because of bad memories.

“Where’s all your stuff?”

I shrug, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed. “I travel light,” I say, because that’s easier than explaining that nothing really feels like mine.

She glances in the empty closet, the doors wide open. “Really light, I guess.”

I reach over the side of the bed and rummage through my duffel bag, searching underneath the wrinkled clothes and the boxer briefs and about a dozen Sharpies that I somehow collected, until I feel the pointy plastic of the mask and curl my fingers around it.

“Still have this, though,” I say, holding it up.