That’s what the youth worker accused me of when I got here. Being obsessed with myself. Can you believe it? We were in the dining hall, and I said I wasn’t going to eat the dried-out mashed potatoes from a box.

“The food sucks in here,” I said in a loud voice. Well, didn’t that fat youth worker at the end of the table tell me to be quiet. I was so pissed off.

She was standing right over me. And she laughed. I couldn’t believe it, like I was a big joke. No one laughs at me.

“Yes, Isabella, I can tell you what to do. And I’ll tell you it would be smart to stop obsessing over yourself and what you want. Think about other people for a change. Maybe the girl who died. The girl they say you killed. Maybe think about her for once.”

Her. Lulu. Like I wanted to think about her.

My father still isn’t speaking. Time is crawling by but there is a clock in here and I know it’s only been a few minutes. His face is still in his hands. He needs to cut his fingernails. He hasn’t had time for that either. My mind is galloping, a wild horse tearing through my past, through my life, showing me every horrible thing that has ever happened, all those crazy people who have tried to pull me down.

It was Lulu, Sergei’s stupid ex, who caused all these problems in the first place, starting the day we saw her at the store. Lulu didn’t go to the same school as us, and I never really thought much about her until that day when we were buying Popsicles. She was tiny, with long hair, a ruby-red nose stud. “Hi, Sergei,” she said in this cutesy voice, looking down at her feet and then looking up. She didn’t even wait for him to say hello, just walked out. Right before she did she winked at him, right in front of me, a sexy wink with her long eyelashes, all coy.

What nerve. Winking was our thing. How we got together. I’m the one who winks at Sergei, not her. She’s not winking these days, now, is she?

I was watching him all the time after that. Sergei denied it, said she didn’t wink. Like he thought I was blind. How insulting. It was so obvious. He said Lulu was really shy; she wouldn’t do something like that. I didn’t talk to him all the way home, and when he parked the car in my driveway, he told me not to be jealous. I wanted to stick a fork in him then. Of course I was jealous — but I wasn’t going to let him know. Who did he think he was to accuse me of being jealous of her? I made myself laugh, like I didn’t care. “Why would I be jealous? You dumped her,” I said with my eyes almost closed.

His hands got tight on the steering wheel and the yellow skin on the side of his index finger from all the weed he smokes was bright against the black vinyl. “So?” he said.