“I—I’m fine,” I grumble out, and I feel tired, so tired, so I walk over to a pile of comics and kneel down beside it, hoping that it looks like I’m sorting through them, when really I’m using them for support.

“Bingo! It’s up. Let’s see, fun facts, fun facts, fuuuuuun facts.”

“Vera,” I say, but she doesn’t look up from the screen.

“Did you know earthworms eat fourteen baby robins a day?”

“What?”

“Other way around. You know what I meant. Just, how many do you need?”

“How many of what?” I ask, my confusion distracting me enough to get to my feet.

Vera finally stops, looking up with a smile. “You scared the shit out of me.” She walks over to the mini fridge she keeps behind the counter, and pulls out a bottle of water. She twists off the cap and hands it to me, and that’s when I know for sure. It settles over me, all calm and shit, what a total head case I really am. My girlfriend gave her mom, like, a panic attack prevention plan for me. Fuck.

“Jubilee told me some facts just in case,” Vera says, looking ridiculously proud of that. And now that it’s confirmed, I want to crawl under a rack and melt into the floor. “She and Lil used to do that when she was little, too, you know.”

“Wonderful.” I know she did it out of kindness, but the fact that Peak and Vera definitely had a “my boyfriend is messed up and here’s how to help him not lose it” talk just makes me feel worse. Dirty almost. Broken in a way I haven’t felt in a little while. A very little while.

“She just wanted to make sure that if anything ever happened here, you would be okay.”

“Right,” I say, because still, it smarts, and I’m embarrassed, and also I get so tired after these things, I can’t be bothered to say more.

“Ridley, I didn’t mean to—it’s just that, you’re dating my daughter. My only daughter. And I care about you. You seem like a great kid . . .”

She pauses, and there’s a but coming. I know because there’s always a but coming, always an addendum, a reason why someone can love me but not unconditionally. When I die, my gravestone will probably say, Here lies Ridley Oliver Everlasting. But . . .

“But,” she finally says, and I wince. “Jubilee is my priority. And I have concerns.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Makes sense.”