At this point, the plastic box was full of all kinds of dangerous things. She wondered if it was worse to centralize it all like this. She thought deeply for a second, what else, what else…and her eyes went pale for a second as she carried the box down to the basement.

She placed the plastic box at her feet and snapped the lid on. She wrote “HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS” on the lid so that Harper wouldn’t open it. Amelia sighed and took out her cell phone and called Barrett. Of course, he didn’t answer. So she left a voicemail.

“Barrett, hi, it’s Amelia. I have a thing going on here, I can’t really talk about it, but I was hoping if you could come over and pick up a box for me. And, well, all your old guns are here, too. I just need you to come over and pick them all up. I can’t have them here right now. Call me back whenever you get this.”

Three canvas gun cases for two .22s and a hunting shotgun stood propped up in the corner of the basement. On the floor, there was a small, black case holding a 9mm handgun.

Amelia stared at them and scowled and tapped her foot on the ground. She exhaled loudly and walked up the stairs.

•••

Harper fell face down on the mattress after she closed the door to her room. Her mind was short-circuiting. So much bad shit had happened. The first boy she ever slept with died immediately, everyone found out, vandalized her house, fantasized about killing her, and now she was sleeping in the guest room of an old woman whose life had been completely pulverized.

She listened to Amelia running around the house, rummaging around and banging stuff together. She focused in on her own feelings and tried to decide if she was sad right now or not. She couldn’t tell.

Before everything, she had reacted to sadness differently. Despondency or grief would illicit large displays. Slamming doors, crying loudly, acting out, blaming others, vague and sad sounding social media posts ending in song quotes. There was an air of melodrama, an air of performance. The lows were low, always questioning life itself and tragedy and feeling so sad that she thought her heart would fall out of the bottom of her body, but usually it just took a night’s sleep to get back to a place of relative normalcy.