“Should we try a breathing exercise?” And so we did, inhaling deeply and then exhaling as if to flicker the candle but not extinguish it.

She told me she wanted to see me in ten days. You can kind of measure how crazy you are based on how soon they want to see you back. Last year, for a while, I’d been at eight weeks. Now, less than two.

On the walk from her office to Harold, I looked up the case report. That woman, she did have a fever. I told myself to feel relieved, and maybe I did for a little while, but by the time I got home, I could hear the whisper starting up again, that something was definitely wrong with my stomach since the gnawing ache wouldn’t go away.

I think, You will never be free from this.

I think, You don’t pick your thoughts.

I think, You are dying, and there are bugs inside of you that will eat through your skin.

I think and I think and I think.

NINE

BUT I ALSO HAD A LIFE, a normal-ish life, which continued. For hours or days, the thoughts would leave me be, and I could remember something my mom told me once: Your now is not your forever. I went to class, got good grades, wrote papers, talked to Mom after lunch, ate dinner, watched television, read. I was not always stuck inside myself, or inside my selves. I wasn’t only crazy.

On date night, I got home from school and spent a solid two hours getting dressed. It was a cloudless day in late September, cold enough to justify a coat, but warm enough that a sleeved dress with tights could be managed. Then again, that might seem like trying, and texting Daisy was no help because she responded she was going to wear an evening gown, and I couldn’t totally tell if she was kidding.

In the end, I went for my favorite jeans and a hoodie over a lavender T-shirt Daisy had given me featuring Han Solo and Chewbacca in a fierce embrace.

I then spent another half hour applying and unapplying makeup. I’m not the sort of person who usually gets carried away with that stuff, but I was nervous, and sometimes makeup feels kind of like armor.

“Are you wearing eyeliner?” Mom asked when I emerged from my room. She was sorting through bills and had spread them out across the entire coffee table. The pen she held hovered over a checkbook.

“A little,” I said. “Does it look weird?”

“Just different,” Mom said, failing to disguise her disapproval. “Where are you headed?”

“Applebee’s with Daisy and Davis and Mychal. Back by midnight.”

“Is this for a date?”

“It’s dinner,” I said.

“Are you dating Davis Pickett?”

“We are both eating dinner at the same restaurant at the same time. It’s not marriage.”

She gestured at the spot next to her on the couch. “I’m supposed to be there at seven,” I said. She pointed at the couch again. I sat down, and she put her arm around me.

“You don’t talk much to your mother.”

Dr. Singh told me once that if you have a perfectly tuned guitar and a perfectly tuned violin in the same room, and you pluck the D string of the guitar, then all the way across the room, the D string on the violin will also vibrate. I could always feel my mother’s vibrating strings. “I also don’t talk much to other people.”

“I want you to be careful about that Davis Pickett, okay? Wealth is careless—so around it, you must be careful.”

“He’s not wealth. He’s a person.”

“People can be careless, too.” She squeezed me so tight it felt like she was pressing the breath out of me. “Just be careful.”

—

I was the last to arrive, and the remaining space was next to Mychal, across from Davis, who was wearing a plaid button-down, nicely ironed, sleeves rolled up just so, exposing his forearms. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always been pretty keen on the male forearm.

“Cool shirt,” Davis said.

“Birthday present from Daisy,” I said.

“You know, some people think it’s bestiality, for a Wookiee to love a human,” Daisy said.

Mychal sighed. “Don’t get her started on the whole Are-Wookiees-people thing.”

“That’s actually the most fascinating thing about Star Wars,” said Davis.

Mychal groaned. “Oh God. It’s happening.” Daisy immediately launched into a defense of Wookiee-human love. “You know, for a moment in Star Wars Apocrypha, Han was actually married to a Wookiee, but does anyone freak out about that?” Davis was leaning forward, listening intently. He was smaller than Mychal, but he took up more room—Davis’s gangly limbs occupied space like an army holds territory.

Davis and Daisy were chatting back and forth about the dehumanization of Clone troopers, and Mychal jumped in to explain that Daisy was actually kind of a famous writer of Star Wars fan fiction. Davis looked her username up on his phone and was impressed by the two thousand reads on her most recent story, and then they were all laughing about some Star Wars joke I couldn’t quite follow.

“Waters for everyone,” Daisy said when Holly arrived to take our drink order.

Davis turned to me and said, “They don’t have Dr Pepper?”

“Soft drinks aren’t covered by the coupon,” Holly explained, monotone. “But also, no. We have Pepsi.”

“Well, I think we can spring for a round of Pepsis,” he said.

I realized in the silence that followed that I hadn’t spoken since answering Davis’s compliment about my shirt. Davis, Daisy, and Mychal eventually went back to talking about Star Wars and the size of the universe and traveling faster than light. “Star Wars is the American religion,” Davis said at one point, and Mychal said, “I think religion is the American religion,” and even though I laughed with them, it felt like I was watching the whole thing from somewhere else, like I was watching a movie about my life instead of living it.

After a while, I heard my name and snapped into my body, seated at Applebee’s, my back against the green vinyl cushion, the smell of fried food, the din of conversation pressing in from all around me. “Holmesy has a Facebook,” Daisy said, “but her last status update is from middle school.” She shot me a look that I couldn’t quite interpret, and then said, “Holmesy’s like a grandmother when it comes to the internet.” She paused again. “Aren’t you?” she said pointedly, and then I realized at last she was trying to make room for me to talk.

“I use the internet. I just don’t feel a need to, like, contribute to it.”

“It does feel like the internet already contains plenty of information,” Davis allowed.

“Wrong,” Daisy said. “For instance, there is very little high-quality romantic Chewbacca fic on the internet, and I am just one person, who can only write so much. The world needs Holmesy’s Wookiee love stories.” There was a brief pause in the conversation. I felt my arms prickling with nervousness, sweat glands threatening to burst open. And then they went back to talking, the conversation shifting this way and that, everyone telling stories, talking over one another, laughing. I tried to smile and shake my head at the right times, but I was always a moment behind the rest of them. They laughed because something was funny; I laughed because they had.

I didn’t feel hungry, but when our food arrived I picked at my veggie burger with a knife and fork to make it look like I was eating more than I could actually stomach. Eating quieted the conversation for a while, until Holly dropped off the check, which I picked up.

Davis reached across the table and put his hand on top of mine. “Please,” he said. “It is not an inconvenience to me.” I let him take it.