I didn’t interrupt her.

“It’s like there isn’t room for being excited about people and loving people and also understanding those people in the ‘people’ part of my brain. But then things go wrong, they leave, the excitement becomes dread, and I have all the time in the world to go back and look at every conversation, every moment, and realize how badly I fucked the dog.”

“Fucked the dog, huh?” I asked.

“Heartbroken slang. Candy says—said that Imp and the older Heartbroken try to get the younger Heartbroken to start saying it because it really really bothers Rachel.”

“Got it. I’m not sure she’s the type you want to tick off, though.”

“That’s the fun of it. She gets so grumpy, apparently.”

I thought of Rachel ordering her dogs to maim people, breaking legs, when my mom and I had turned up at one crime scene.

The night everything had gone so wrong.

“I think, uh, whatever happens, you shouldn’t go out of your way to annoy or bother Rachel Lindt. I think that should be a rule. I don’t think you lose anything by doing your best to stay on her good side.”

“Except fitting in,” Kenzie said. Then, “Except I’m not even fitting in normally, and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do there. I hate it.”

“I know,” I said. “And I don’t want to add pressure or more rules. I think I get what you’re saying. People are frustrating and nonsensical and it’s all so hard. The clearest system in the world where you’d expect people to take their feelings and put them up on—it was the fridge?”

“Fridge.”

“Fridge. Even that doesn’t work out clearly.”

“You asked if I’m okay. Um, I learned tips and tricks from Jessica and I found my place in the team and the world, and I thought I was doing okay. And I wasn’t, was I?”

“You’re doing better, according to everyone that’s been paying attention.”

“…I don’t think I’m better.”

“I didn’t say better. Just… you’ve improved. Sveta would say to keep your eyes forward, build the you that you want to be.”

“After the first incident with my foster dads, I had other stuff around school and my dads. People would say I had a tough start, growing pains, you know? But I lost my foster dads. I went to the Wards and I talked to professionals, and they said I was doing better, I was improving, they liked how things were going, and… I lost the team. I got sent away to training camps, and they said a change of scene was doing me good, I was better, I was improving. And I got people in trouble there.”

I shook my head. Snow fell from my hood. “It’s a pattern, but that doesn’t mean you’re not making headway.”