There, are we good? I asked myself, and I responded, One more time to make sure, and so I swished and gargled more water, spit it out. I patted my sweaty face dry with some toilet paper and walked back into the golden light of Davis’s mansion.

He motioned for me to sit down, and put his arm around me. I didn’t want his microbiota near me, but I let him keep his arm there, because I didn’t want to seem like a freak. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just, like, a little panicky.”

“Was it something that I did? Should I do—”

“No, it’s not about you.”

“You can tell me.”

“It’s really not. I . . . just, kissing freaked me out a little, I guess.”

“Okay, so no kissing yet. That’s no problem.”

“It will be,” I said. “I have these . . . thought spirals, and I can’t get out of them.”

“Turning and turning in the tightening gyre,” he said.

“I’m . . . this, like . . . this doesn’t get better. You should know that.”

“I’m not in a rush.”

I leaned forward, looking at the hardwood floor. “I’m not gonna un-have this is what I mean. I’ve had it since I can remember and it’s not getting better and I can’t have a normal life if I can’t kiss someone without freaking out.”

“It’s okay, Aza. Really.”

“You might think that now, but you won’t think that forever.”

“But it’s not forever,” he said. “It’s now. Can I get you anything? Glass of water or something?”

“Can we . . . can we just watch a movie or something?”

“Yes,” he said. “Absolutely.” He offered me his hand, but I got up on my own. As we walked toward the basement steps, Davis said, “Here at the Pickett residence, we have both kinds of movies—Star Wars and Star Trek. What would you prefer?”

“I’m not really a fan of space movies,” I said.

“Great, then we’ll watch Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, forty percent of which is set right here on earth.” I looked up at him and smiled, but I could not cinch the lasso on my thoughts, which were galloping all around my brain.

—

We walked down to the basement, where I tapped the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel to make the bookcase open. I sat down in one of the overstuffed leather recliners, grateful for the armrests between the seats. Davis appeared after a while with a Dr Pepper, placed it in the cup holder by my armrest, and sat down next to me. “How do you manage to be best friends with Daisy without liking space operas?”

“I’ll watch them with her; I just don’t love them,” I said. He’s trying to treat you like you’re normal and you’re trying to respond like you’re normal but everyone involved knows you are definitely not normal. Normal people can kiss if they want to kiss. Normal people don’t sweat like you. Normal people choose their thoughts like they choose what to watch on TV. Everyone in this conversation knows you’re a freak.

“Have you read her fic?”

“I read a couple stories when she first started in middle school. They’re not really my thing.” I could feel the sweat glands opening on my upper lip.

“She’s a pretty good writer. You should read them. You’re actually kind of in some of them.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said quietly, and then at last he pulled out his phone and used an app to start the movie. I pretended to watch while settling all the way into the spiral. I kept thinking about that Pettibon painting, with its multicolored whirlpool, pulling your eye into the center of it. I tried to breathe in the Dr. Singh–sanctioned way without making it too obvious, but within a few minutes I was sweating in earnest, and he definitely noticed, because he’d seen this movie a hundred times, so really he was only watching it to watch me watch it, and I could feel his glances over at me, and even though I had my jacket zipped, he obviously had noticed the mad, wet mustache on my sopping upper lip.

I could feel the tension in the air, and I knew he was trying to figure out how to make me happy again. His brain was spinning right alongside mine. I couldn’t make myself happy, but I could make people around me miserable.

—

When the movie ended, I told him I was tired, because that seemed the adjective most likely to get me where I needed to be—alone and in my bed. Davis drove me home, walked me to the door, and kissed me chastely on my sweaty lips. As I stood on my doormat, I waved at him. He backed out of the driveway, and then I went into the garage, opened Harold’s trunk, and grabbed my dad’s phone, because I felt like looking at his pictures.

I snuck past Mom, who was asleep on the couch in front of the TV. I found an old wall charger in my desk, plugged in Dad’s phone, and sat there for a long time swiping through his photos, scrolling through all the pictures of the sky split open by tree branches.

“You know we’ve got those on the computer,” Mom said gently from behind me. I hadn’t heard her get up.

“Yeah,” I said. I unplugged the phone and shut it off.

“Were you talking to him?”

“Kinda,” I said.

“What were you telling him?”

I smiled. “Secrets.”

“Ah, I tell him secrets, too. He’s good at keeping them.”

“The best,” I said.

“Aza, I’m very sorry if I hurt Davis’s feelings. And I’ve written him an apology note as well. I took it too far. But I also need you to understand—” I waved her away.

“It’s fine. Listen, I gotta change.” I grabbed clothes and then went to the bathroom, where I undressed, toweled off the sweat, and then let my body cool down in the air, my feet cold against the floor. I untied my hair, then stared at myself in the mirror. I hated my body. It disgusted me—its hair, its pinpricks of sweat, its scrawniness. Skin pulled over a skeleton, an animated corpse. I wanted out—out of my body, out of my thoughts, out—but I was stuck inside of this thing, just like all the bacteria colonizing me.

Knock on the door. “I’m changing,” I said. I removed the Band-Aid, checked it for blood or pus, tossed it in the trash, and then applied hand sanitizer to my finger, the burn of it seeping into the cut.

I pulled on sweatpants and an old T-shirt of my mom’s, and emerged from the bathroom, where Mom was waiting for me.

“You feeling anxious?” she said askingly.

“I’m fine,” I answered, and turned toward my room.

I turned out the lights and got into bed. I wasn’t tired, exactly, but I wasn’t feeling too keen on consciousness, either. When Mom came in, a few minutes later, I pretended to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to talk to her. She stood above me, singing this old song she’d sung whenever I couldn’t sleep, as far back as I could remember.

It’s a song soldiers in England used to sing to the tune of the New Year’s song, “Auld Lang Syne.” It goes, “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.” Her pitch rose through the first half like a deep breath in, and then she sang it back down. “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.”

Even though I was supposed to be basically grown up and my mother annoyed the hell out of me, I couldn’t stop thinking until her lullaby finally put me to sleep.

THIRTEEN

DESPITE MY HAVING psychologically decompensated in his presence, Davis texted me the next morning before I even got out of bed.

Him: Want to watch a movie tonight? Doesn’t even have to be set in space.

Me: I can’t. Another time maybe. Sorry I freaked out and for the sweating and everything.