“Don’t. Amelia, don’t. His cousin’s dad is a sheriff anyway. It’d just stir stuff up. There’s no, like, lawyer stuff or police stuff that can fix this. It can’t be fixed. It just is,” Harper said.

Amelia frowned and closed the book. She bit her lip and stood up. Harper was leaning on the kitchen island with both her elbows, looking out the window.

“Can I give you a hug?” Amelia asked.

“I don’t need a hug,” Harper said.

“It’s not for you, it’s for me,” Amelia said.

Harper nodded. Amelia put her head on Harper’s shoulder and breathed deeply.

“You’re not a very touchy person, are you?” Amelia said.

“No,” Harper said. “My dad always said I was like a cat. I want to be in the room, but with my distance. Exactly three feet away from people at any given time.”

“I can’t believe someone would say that,” Amelia said.

“The cat stuff? It’s fine, I don’t care,” Harper said.

“No,” Amelia said. “The stuff about the shotgun.”

Harper stood upright. She walked to the fridge and opened it. She took two diet sodas out and placed them in the large center pocket of her hoodie. When she turned around, her facial expression was mostly neutral and slightly grim. Her eyes seemed completely flat in her skull and her jaw seemed locked in place, but her lips were completely straight. She faced Amelia for a few seconds before walking with the sodas in her pocket to the base of the stairs.

“I just have to realize that, because of this, and this isn’t melodrama, this isn’t like, wrong, that part of my life is completely over. That there’s no going back. And I don’t know if it can even work normally or if I can ever be normal again.”

“Harper, hold on, don’t go upstairs,” Amelia said, walking toward her.

“I don’t want to talk right now. I can’t even cry about anything anymore. I just feel dead. I feel like I’m already dead.”

Harper started walking up the stairs.

“You shouldn’t say that,” Amelia said. “You really shouldn’t. High school, honey, it’s a small bubble. And it’s popped. It’s gone. All these people you knew…most of them you would have forgot, anyway. It’s such a tiny, shitty part of life, and when it’s good, it’s worse, because it’s a fucking trap and you end up wasting parts of your life being wistful for it. Listen, we… Maybe we should just go somewhere. Even for a little bit. We’ll just get in the car and drive.”

Harper paused at the top of the stairs.