He narrows his eyes and says, You’re grounded for a week, and walks out of the room.

Mom?

Sorry, she sighs. You know how he is about breaking the rules.

Rules.

My father’s rules:

• Don’t make noise

• Don’t draw the wrong kind of attention to yourself

• Don’t stand up for anything you believe in

• Don’t show any emotion that isn’t anger

• Don’t be yourself

I’m working on that song for Gabriel. Trying to get the chords to fit together, only they’re fighting me and each other. They’re dissonant and ugly and not at all how I feel.

Except when I think about the fact that Gabriel won’t give me his number, and then I’m all about the jarring notes.

What do you think of the space shuttle? Becky asks. I get to see her at school, which not even my father can forbid. The shuttle just landed, and like always, the teachers turn on the TVs, and all the classes cluster around, watching.

It’s the first step toward jet packs, I say. Can you imagine that someday, this will be normal? Like, we won’t even notice when shuttles are launching and landing. It will be business as usual and no one will care. Maybe we’ll even colonize the moon or find life on Mars.

Maybe then everything on Earth will make more sense.

I duck into the library at lunch and head to the fear room, amazed that no one ever seems to use it the way it was intended.

Under my note about Gabriel, the one I couldn’t finish is this: And?

I drum the pen on my palm.

I write: I want to know everything about him.

Then, I turn the period into a comma, and listening to a tiny voice inside me, I add, but I think he has secrets.

Becky says everyone has secrets.

I used to have this awful fear about having to choose which parent I wanted to live with if they broke up, she tells me. I always chose my mom, because she was fun when I was a kid and my dad was the one who made me do my homework. Then he left, and I felt like it was my fault.

After I hug her, I try to think of what secret I could share in return. Becky knows I’m gay. She knows I miss Connor, even when I’m giving him shit. The only thing she doesn’t know is that I’ve always wished she were right about James being in love with me.

And I’m not telling anyone about that.

My parents are both out, so after school, Becky, James, and I sit in Connor’s old room playing Pong. The TV is a little off-center, and you can’t see one of the paddles, but I’ve gotten good enough that I can mostly guess where it is.

I’m two points up on Becky, when James says, So, where’s Andy these days, kitten?

Becky drops the controller, and I score the winning point. Why? she asks. I can see her knuckles go white against the plastic knob.