Mom’s footsteps receded, and then I remembered Ben’s calves, so white they nauseated me, disappearing into the smoke.

Mom returned, but not with Dr. Levitt. This doctor was wearing not scrubs but faded jeans cuffed to reveal slender ankles and white sneakers, brand new. She wore her hair in a shiny silver bob. She looked like a woman who had a garden, who wore a floppy straw hat while she tended to her tomatoes, rewarding herself with a glass of lemonade on her front porch afterward.

“TifAni,” she said. “I’m Dr. Perkins. But I want you to call me Anita.” Her request was quiet and firm.

I pressed my hands against my cheeks, mopping up facial grease and tears. “Okay,” I said.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” Anita asked.

I sniffed. “I’d really like to brush my teeth and wash my face.”

Anita nodded solemnly, like this was an important thing for me to do. “Hang tight. I’m going to work on that for you.”

Anita was gone for all of five minutes before she returned with a travel-size toothbrush, children’s fruit-flavored toothpaste, and a bar of Dove soap. She helped me out of bed. I was okay with Anita touching me, because she didn’t seem like she was about to break down in hysterics at any moment, forcing me to comfort her.

I turned on the water so I couldn’t hear Anita and Mom talking about me while I used the bathroom. I peed and scrubbed my face, brushed my teeth next, spitting one long sticky line of the sweet-tasting toothpaste into the sink. It refused to break away from my lips, and I had to cut it off using my fingers.

When I reemerged, Anita asked me if I was hungry, which I was, viciously. I asked Mom what happened to the coffee and pastry, and she said Dad had eaten it. I glared at her as I climbed back into bed.

“I’ll get you whatever you want, sweetheart. The cafeteria has bagels, orange juice, fruit, eggs, cereal.”

“A bagel,” I said. “With cream cheese. And orange juice.”

“I’m not sure if they have cream cheese,” Mom said. “They may just have butter.”

“Anyplace that has bagels has cream cheese,” I snapped.

It was the sort of rude response that would usually incite Mom into calling me an ungrateful bitch, but Mom didn’t dare in front of Anita. Just put on a big fake smile and turned on her heel to go, revealing the dent in the back of her hair she’d gotten from sleeping in the stiff hospital chair.

“Is it okay if I sit down here?” Anita pointed to the chair next to the bed.

I shrugged like it didn’t matter to me. “Sure.”

Anita tried to sit with her legs tucked underneath her body, but the chair was too small and too uncomfortable. She settled for the normal way, one leg crossed leisurely over the other, hands cupping her knee. Her nails were light purple.

“You’ve been through quite a lot over the last twenty-four hours,” Anita said, which wasn’t entirely true. Twenty-four hours ago I was just getting out of bed. Twenty-four hours ago I was just a bratty teenager who didn’t want to go to school. It was eighteen hours ago that I discovered what the slimy inside of a brain looks like, what a face looks like without skin and lips and the odd pimple.

I nodded, even though her calculation was incorrect, and Anita said, “Do you want to talk to me about it?”

I liked that Anita was sitting next to me, rather than across from me, staring me down like I was a pickled cadaver awaiting dissection. Years later I learned this is a psychological trick to get people to open up. I wrote a tip in The Women’s Magazine that if you have to have a difficult conversation with “your guy”—how I loathe that term—do it while you’re driving, because he will be more open to what you have to say when you’re side by side rather than if you were to broach the subject of moving in together head-on.

“Is Arthur dead?” I asked.

“Arthur is dead,” Anita answered, very matter-of-fact.

I knew the answer already, but it was shocking to hear those words coming from a person who had never even met Arthur. Had no idea Arthur existed until just a few hours ago.

“Who else?” I dared.

“Ansilee, Olivia, Theodore, Liam, and Peyton.” I never even realized Teddy’s real name was Theodore. “Oh, and Ben,” she added.

I waited for her to remember more names, but she didn’t. “What about Dean?”

“Dean is alive,” Anita said, and I stared at her, slack-jawed. I was positive he had been dead when I left him. “But he’s very badly injured. He may not walk again.”

I brought the blanket to my mouth. “Might not walk?”

“The bullet entered his groin and severed a vertebra in his spine. He’s getting the best care possible,” Anita said, adding, “He’s lucky to be alive.”

I swallowed at the same time a hiccup jumped up my throat. The impact ached in my chest. “How did Ben die?”

“He killed himself,” Anita said. “It was the plan all along for both of them. So you mustn’t feel bad about what you’ve done.” I was afraid to tell Anita that I didn’t feel bad. I didn’t feel anything.

Mom appeared in the doorway, a plump bagel in one hand and a container of orange juice in the other. “They had cream cheese!”

Mom had taken it upon herself to fix up the bagel. She hadn’t applied nearly enough cream cheese, but I was so hungry I didn’t scold her for it. It’s weird, being that hungry. It’s not like lunchtime, when it’s only been a few hours since breakfast and your stomach is popping and gurgling in history class. It’s like the hunger has spread to your entire body and it’s no longer about your stomach. In fact, your stomach doesn’t hurt at all, but your limbs feel weightless and weak, and your jaw understands this and tries to chew as fast as it can.

I gulped down the orange juice. Every swallow seemed to make me thirstier, and I crushed the container trying to get the last sip.

Mom asked if I wanted anything else, but I didn’t. The food and the orange juice had restored me, given me the strength to grasp the reality of the last eighteen hours. It took over the room, an invisible swell that wouldn’t break for some time. Just carried me around in its arch wherever I went, drenching everything in misery.

“I was wondering”—Anita leaned forward and pressed her hands on her knees, directing a needy glance at Mom—“might I speak to TifAni alone?”

Mom knitted her shoulder blades together and stood up straighter. “I think that depends on what TifAni wants.”

It was exactly what I wanted, but with Anita’s support, my desire felt too powerful to yield. I said softly, so as not to hurt her feelings, “It’s okay, Mom.”

I don’t know what Mom expected me to say because she looked very surprised. She collected the empty orange juice container and the napkins off my lap and said, primly, “That is perfectly fine. I will be right outside in the hallway if you need me.”

“Do you think you can close the door behind you?” Anita called after her, and Mom had to struggle with the doorstop and she couldn’t get it for an excruciating few seconds and I felt so bad for her. Finally she did, but the door dragged lazily behind her, so that I saw Mom when she thought I couldn’t see her. She was looking up at the ceiling and then she wrapped her arms as far around her skinny body as she could manage and rocked back and forth, her mouth stretching out in a silent sob. I wanted to yell at Dad to hug her, goddamnit.

“I have the sense it’s difficult for you to be around your mother,” Anita said.

I didn’t say anything. I felt protective of her now.

“TifAni,” Anita said. “I know you have been through a lot. More than any fourteen-year-old should ever be expected deal with. But I need to ask you a few questions about Arthur and Ben.”

“I told Officer Pensacole everything yesterday,” I protested. After I’d fled the cafeteria, so sure Dean was dead, I barreled down the same path Beth had taken, only I didn’t scream like she did. I didn’t know where Ben was, didn’t want to call attention to myself. He had already put the gun in his mouth at that point, but I couldn’t have known that. When I came upon the row of SWAT officers, crouched low, guns drawn on my nearing body, I thought they were aiming at me. I actually turned around to go back into the school. But one of them chased after me and ushered me through the crowd of googly-eyed bystanders and mothers hysterical in their embarrassing dog-walking tracksuits, screaming names at me and begging to know if their babies were okay. “I think I killed him!” I was saying, and the medics tried to put an air mask over my face, but the officers intervened, demanding details, and I told them it was Ben and Arthur. “Arthur Finnerman!” I shrieked when they asked, over and over, Ben who? Arthur who? I couldn’t even remember Ben’s last name.