I knew what she’d meant. She liked the way the lipstick angled up into a tip. She liked how new it was.

I spread some on my lips and pushed them together, smearing it around. Then I capped it quickly, afraid that if I left it open too long I would lose the scent of my mom forever. With her face already receding from my memory, I couldn’t afford to lose any more pieces of her. I licked my lips, liking the way the wax felt smooth against my tongue, liking the way it tasted.

I dug around a bit more, then picked up the playing cards, spreading them out to play a quick couple games of Chameleon.

I played until the house was dark, except for the blue of the constantly running television flickering onto the porch from the living room. I stashed Marin’s purse and went inside.

As quietly as I could, I tiptoed to the bathroom, hoping to go unnoticed. But as I passed the living room on my way back, Grandmother Billie’s voice cut through the recorded laugh track of whatever sitcom she was watching.

“I don’t know if you think you’re gettin’ outta doin’ those dishes tonight because of that scene with the door, but you’re not,” she said.

With a sigh, I went into the kitchen and bellied up to the sink, which was positively overflowing with dishes. They must have had a feast. I filled the sink with water and started scrubbing, hearing Marin’s little voice in my head, singing the song she always sang in the bath. “B is for bubble. Bubble, bubble, bubble…”

I made a mental note to draw that on gum foil later. I didn’t want to forget the bubble song.

When I was done, I opened the fridge and took inventory. I had no idea what dinner had been, but whatever it was, there were no leftovers. Instead, I made myself a sandwich and cut up a few slices of cucumber. I didn’t know if the ingredients were spoken for, but I figured they couldn’t starve me. If nobody was going to take care of me, I would have to take care of myself and live with the consequences.

As I sat down with my food, I heard the sound of footsteps on the wooden basement stairs. Aunt Terry appeared at the top of the steps, holding the laundry basket I’d left behind earlier in the day. She extended her arms toward me.

“I brought your laundry up,” she said, setting the basket on the table next to me.

I swallowed. “Thank you.”

“I heard what happened this afternoon.” She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Clay’s all upset because he’s got to do a little work. It’ll be good for him.”

I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and set the sandwich on my plate. “I just wanted out of the basement. I kind of freaked. It’s stupid, I know.”

Terry waved her hand. “It’s not stupid. I get it. Listen, don’t take what they say to heart.” She ran her fingernail along the side of the basket, tracing the squares. “Lexi and Meg. They’re just jealous of you.”

“Jealous? Of me?” What did I have that they could possibly be jealous of? They were prettier, they had a mom and dad, and from what I could tell, they had everyone in the house—except for maybe Terry—eating out of the palms of their pretty little hands.

“Maybe I should’ve said they’re threatened by you. They think you’re gonna steal their daddy.”

I took a breath. “I feel like nobody wants me here.”

“They don’t,” she said. “But maybe they’ll come around. You never know. Weirder things have happened.”

But something told me that wasn’t going to happen. Even if Lexi and Meg found a way to completely ignore that I existed, they would never “come around.” Not really. If I was looking for friendship, I was in the wrong place.

“I should probably get myself to bed,” Terry said, pushing up from the table with a grunt. “Hey, did you ever find out about the funerals? Are they sometime soon?”

I shook my head. “I missed them.”

She froze, and I nearly melted under her sad gaze. “Oh,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” And then, seemingly struggling with what else to say, she gave up and disappeared down the hall toward her bedroom.

I ate my sandwich in silence, hating how it seemed like everything in my life suddenly could be summed up by that one sentence: “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

After I finished eating, I washed my plate and changed into a pair of Terry’s pajamas, then went back outside, staying on the porch like the family dog. The air felt crisp and cool, summer night air, and I rolled all of my new clean clothes into tight rolls and slipped them, one by one, into the backpack, which I shoved into its spot behind the couch with Marin’s purse.

I curled up in my blanket and listened to the night sounds around me—crickets and frogs and cicadas and barking dogs—and tried not to think about this being my new reality, even while I knew it was.

Nobody was coming to rescue me. Nobody was going to keep me safe. It was all up to me now.

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

Over the next few weeks, I slipped into a routine at my grandparents’ house. Get up, sneak to the shower, get dressed, wash the morning dishes, eat. Go outside, fold my bedding, play cards, think about Mom and Marin, and lie as low as possible until night fell, hoping nobody would bother me once I was asleep.

Ignore my half sisters.

Ignore my father and stepmother.

Ignore the grunts and orders of my grandparents.

Ignore, ignore, ignore.

I wrote a bunch of new foils.

Marin’s hair bounces when she runs.

I call Marin “Tippy” because she walks on her tiptoes.

Marin knows everything there is to know about dolphins.

Marin’s eyes sparkle when she dances.

Marin is a princess in orange-and-black velvet.

Marin sings in the bath.

Marin likes red Popsicles the best.

Marin can roller-skate.

Marin’s eyelashes are so long.

For every foil, there was a memory, so sweet and so clear I thought my heart might break in two. Not saying good-bye to them messed with me, made me mentally curl in on myself, made me pull away. I stopped checking my phone for texts. I stopped calling Dani. I stopped caring what happened to Ronnie or to anyone who wasn’t me. In my mind, even Ronnie wasn’t grieving as hard as I was, because he at least got to go to the funerals and I hadn’t even gotten that much.

Instead, I owned my grief. Turned it into something physical and ugly and carried it around in my gut.

“Hey,” I heard one morning while I sat on my couch, staring at the world sullenly through the wet ends of my hair. I picked at the dry skin on my heels, softened by the shower, and zoned out, the tiny squares of the porch screen getting bigger and bigger under my gaze. Aunt Terry stepped out onto the porch, sat in the lawn chair Clay had pulled out that first night and nobody had bothered to put back. “I haven’t talked to you in days. You okay?”

I tore my gaze away from the yard and blinked, her face shaded in purple where the light had been in my eyes a few moments before. “Not really,” I said.

“You seen your dad lately?”

I shook my head. I’d been avoiding him, and especially Tonette, ever since she’d screamed at me for “taking the last burger” the one night I tried to eat dinner with the family.

“You didn’t even think other people might want to eat, did you?” she’d yelled.

Why would I? I wanted to respond. Who is thinking about me? Who is making sure I get anything?

“Has he checked on you at all?” Terry asked, referring to Clay.

“No, but I kind of like it that way,” I said. “When he’s checking on me, he’s yelling at me. Tonette, too.”

I half expected Terry to argue about it, to tell me that yelling was Tonette’s way or that Clay was the kind of guy who didn’t show his feelings, or maybe worst of all, to say the same thing Dani’s mom had said, that this would take time. But she didn’t say any of those things. Because she knew I was right.

“You need a mama,” she finally said, very quietly.

I shrugged, numb, and pulled a hunk of dead skin off my heel, letting it drop to the peeling wood floor. Yes, I did need a mama. But my mama was gone. And nobody else could stand in. The end. “Whatever,” I said. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I can’t be your mama, you understand. I can’t even take care of my own kids most of the time,” Terry added.

“I know.”

“And Billie ain’t a good mama, take my word for that.”

I didn’t need to take her word for it. I’d already seen what kind of mom Billie was. “I know.”

“And Tonette spoils those girls. She don’t even know what they’re really like, she’s so blind.”

I shrugged again. It didn’t matter what Tonette saw or didn’t see in those girls. It only mattered what she saw and didn’t see in me.

“Listen, I don’t got a ton of money, but how about we go into town and get haircuts or something?” Terry asked.

“Haircuts?”

She shrugged, a sheepish smile crossing her face. “I got boys. Haircuts is the best I can do with a girl.”

It occurred to me that nobody was going to say one way or another whether I needed or didn’t need a haircut. Or a visit to the dentist. Or to study or to learn to drive or to eat regularly or do any of the things I was used to being reminded to do. It was all up to me now, a thought that was both empowering and frightening as hell.

“Okay,” I said, my hands searching the back of my hair involuntarily. “I could use a haircut.”