Forever is a stupid word, kitten, James says. Besides, you still have us.

And even to me, his words sound hollow.

Does Andy want to end things? I ask, ignoring James’s not-so-hidden dismissive glare.

Becky’s anger slides away, but she sounds hurt when she says, No. No, he says we can make it work like his parents do. I just don’t know if I want to sit home every night wondering if he’s going to come home alive like his mom does when his dad is on patrol. Lord knows I do enough of that with my mom.

Why don’t you call your mysterious phone number for guidance? James says slyly. The advice it gives you is probably as good as anything Michael and I have to offer.

Becky harrumphs, then says, I’m not going to let some phone dude decide my future.

But after James leaves, she asks if she can make a call and goes off to the kitchen. Later, I do that *69 thing to redial the last number called. The raspy voice comes on, announces itself, and quotes the Rolling Stones about not always getting what you want, but sometimes getting what you need. I wonder which category staying with Andy falls into for Becky.

I wonder what seeing Gabriel is for me.

My mother asks me to take some boxes to our storage locker. Maybe this is how I’ll fill the summer. Moving things around the apartment from one place to another.

I stack the boxes and pull up a flap of the one on top.

Photo albums.

Connor and I as cops and robbers for Halloween, when he was ten and I was almost five.

Me playing guitar at a young performers’ showcase at St. Sebastian’s.

The four of us at Riverside Park for a picnic.

My dad, with his arm around me at a little league game, his face beaming with pride because I’d pitched a one-hitter. It makes me sad to think he’ll never look at me like that again…and then guilty for feeling sad.

I try to remember the last time we were all in the same room and can’t. How did we get here?

The glands in Connor’s neck are swollen, and he’s tired all the time. He says it’s nothing. He feels fine. He’s been working too hard. Or playing too hard. Or “whatever.”

I ask if he thinks he might have mono or Epstein-Barr or something. At least that’s the closest I can guess from the pamphlets I grabbed from the nurse’s office at school. Connor says he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t have insurance and refuses to go to the St. Mark’s Clinic.

I can’t go there, he says. It’s full of sick people.

I’ve been checking into the fear room once or twice a week, and even though the same paper is still up, my writer friend hasn’t replied.

I’m not overly interested in finding out who the writer is. And I’m not looking to meet someone at school. At the same time, it’s nice, for once, not to feel alone.