*
Sammie finds me. I don’t know how she does it again, how she knows, but she finds me on the roof, and she leads me back to her place, where she tucks me into her bed. She brings me water and feeds me cookies and sits with me until I’m ready to talk.
“What’s going on?”
I shake my head. I’m not ready.
“Do you want to cry?”
“No.”
“Do you want another cookie?”
“No.”
“Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”
“Okay.”
She plays with her phone while I stare out the window. It’s my birthday today. I’m seventeen. One more year until I’m eighteen. One more long year before I can leave this terrible place and get away from my selfish, irresponsible parents.
“Did you hear about Professor Cox?”
“No.”
“Evan didn’t tell you?”
I bristle at his name. I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to talk about anything. “He tried,” I mutter. “But I didn’t let him.”
“Oh.”
I roll over and look at her. “I’m not going to do that to you anymore.”
Sammie puts down her phone and shrugs. “I’m over it. I’m over him.”
“What?”
“I can’t force someone to like me,” she says. “And I don’t want to get in the way of someone liking you.”
“Come on, Sammie. I’m not choosing a guy over you.”
“Well, that’s good. I’m glad to hear it. But I want you to know—seriously—I’m really, really over him. If you decide you want to go for Evan again, he’s all yours.”
“You’re way too good to me.”
She sits back against the headboard. “Is that why your life is falling apart? Because of Evan?”
“Not at all.”
“Do you want to tell me why your life is falling apart yet?”
“No,” I say. “But you can tell me about your life. I’d rather hear about you.”
“You mean how my mom discovered my Instagram account and how she totally freaked out and made me delete it?”
“Oh, Sammie, no.”
“Yeah, no.” Her eyes fill up with tears. “I’m not telling you that fun story.”
“It’s because of me, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“She thinks you’re going to put up nudie pics like me.”
Sammie wipes her eyes and laughs. “Nudie pics?” Then she shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. That’s not even the half of it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
I hand her a box of tissues. “What’s the other half?”
“Forget the other half. I don’t want to talk about it.” She blows her nose and clears her throat. “Want to hear about Professor Cox? That’s a better story than both yours and mine.”
So she tells me. Her mom has been helping him ever since the incident with the tomatoes. It turns out that Professor Cox had been a journalist in the 1960s, a good one who worked for the Associated Press and was on his way to becoming a nationally known writer when he became convinced that he’d caused the Cuban Missile Crisis. He started throwing ashtrays across the office and writing incessantly about all-out nuclear annihilation. At that point, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, along with some other coexisting issues. He was hospitalized for a while, and after that, and years of medication, he also completed a doctorate in psychology, partly in an attempt to cure himself. He gave most of his inheritance from a family fund to charity. His family, deeply concerned and immensely wealthy, finally stepped in. They connected him with the St. Mary’s Seminary, which has parishes in Virginia, where they sent Professor Cox for a “cure of the spirit.” But it still wasn’t enough to help his mental state, and he went as far as to try to fake his own death.
After that, he was hospitalized again, and this time, he was put on some new meds that actually helped and allowed him to function fairly well. Professor Cox’s family donated a good chunk of change to St. Mary’s, so they eventually agreed to hire him as a professor. But for the past few years, he’d been trying to self-medicate with some illegal pills. That’s what Evan found in his cabinet. That explains the postcards and the tomatoes. “You were right. He does suffer from psychological issues. I feel bad about calling him ‘the Nut.’”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
“He’s back in the hospital, and my mom’s been helping to advocate for him. His family’s paying her, but I know she’s happy to do it.”
“Is that why you’ve been busy with so many errands?”
“Um.” Sammie picks up her phone. “Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
“Vivi, forget my stuff. What’s going on with you?”
“Ugh.” I roll on my back. “You’ve done such a good job of distracting me. Please don’t remind me. What time is it?”
Sammie looks at her phone. “Ten-thirty.”
I muffle my face with the pillow. “I don’t want to go to work today. I can’t go to work today.”
“If you tell me what’s going on, I’ll take your shift.”
“If I tell you what’s going on with me, will you tell me what’s going on with you?”