“Because it’s turtles all the way down,” I said again, feeling something akin to a spiritual revelation.

—

I stopped at Mom’s classroom for the last few minutes of lunch. I closed the door behind me and sat down at a desk opposite her. I glanced up at the clock on the wall. 1:08. I had six minutes. I didn’t want more.

“Hey,” I said.

“First day back going well?” She blew her nose into a Kleenex. She had a cold, but she’d spent all her sick days on me being sick.

“Yeah,” I said. “So listen, Davis gave me some money. A lot of money. About fifty thousand dollars. I haven’t spent it or anything. I’m saving it for college.” Her face tightened. “It was a gift,” I said again.

“When?” she asked.

“Um, a couple months ago.”

“That’s not a gift. A necklace is a gift. Fifty thousand dollars is . . . not a gift. If I were you, I’d return that money to Davis,” she said. “You don’t want to feel indebted to him.”

“But I’m not you,” I said. “And I don’t.”

After a second, she said, “That’s true. You’re not.” I waited for her to say something more, to tell me why I was wrong to keep the money.

At last, she said, “Your life is yours, Aza, but I think if you look at your mental health the last couple months . . .”

“The money didn’t cause that. I’ve been sick for a long time.”

“Not like this. I need you to be well, Aza. I can’t lose—”

“God, Mom, please stop saying that. I know you’re not trying to make me feel pressure, but it feels like I’m hurting you, like I’m committing assault or something, and it makes me feel ten thousand times worse. I’m doing my best, but I can’t stay sane for you, okay?”

After a minute she said, “The day you came home after the accident, I carried you to the bathroom, and I carried you back to bed and tucked the covers up to your chin, and I realized that I’ll probably never pick you up again. You’re right. I keep saying I can’t lose you, but I will. I am. And that’s a hard thought. That’s a hard, hard thought. But you’re right. You’re not me. You make your own choices. And if you’re saving it for your education, making responsible decisions, well, then, I’m—” She never finished the sentence, because the bell beeped from on high.

“Okay,” I said.

“Love you, Aza.”

“I love you, too, Mom.” I wanted to say more, to find a way to express the magnetic poles of my love for my mother: thank you I’m sorry thank you I’m sorry. But I couldn’t bring myself to, and anyway, the bell had rung.

—

Before I could get to history, Mychal intercepted me. “Hey, how’s it going?” he asked.

“I’m okay, you?”

“Daisy and I broke up.”

“I heard.”

“I’m kinda devastated.”

“Sorry.”

“And she isn’t even upset about it, which just makes me feel pathetic. She thinks I should get over it, but everything reminds me of her, Holmesy, and seeing her ignore me, not show up to lunch, all that—can you, um, talk to her for me?”

Right then, I spotted Daisy halfway down the crowded hallway, her head down. “Daisy!” I shouted. She kept walking, so I yelled again, louder. She looked up and picked her way toward us through the crowd.

I pulled her and Mychal together. “Both of you can talk to me about each other, but you can’t talk to each other about each other. And you’re going to fix that, because it’s annoying. Cool? Cool. I have to go to history.”

Daisy texted me during class. Thanks for that. We’ve decided to just be friends.

Me: Cool.

Her: But the kind of friends who kiss right after deciding to just be friends.

Me: I’m sure this will work out perfectly.

Her: Everything always does.

Since I had my phone out, and we were watching a video in class anyway, I decided to text Davis. Sorry not to reply for so long. Hi. I miss you.

He wrote back immediately. When can I see you?

Me: Tomorrow?

Him: Seven at Applebee’s?

Me: Sounds good.

TWENTY-TWO

I THOUGHT I’D BE FINE driving Mom’s silver Toyota Camry to Applebee’s that night, but I couldn’t shake memories of the accident. It seemed surreal and miraculous to me that so many cars could drive past one another without colliding, and I felt certain that each set of headlights headed my way would inevitably veer into my path. Remembered the crunching sound of Harold’s death, the silence that followed, the agony in my ribs. Thought about the biggest part being the part that hurts, about my dad’s phone, gone forever. Tried to let myself have the thoughts, because to deny them was to just let them take over. It sort of worked—like everything else.

I made it to Applebee’s fifteen minutes early. Davis was already there, and he hugged me in the entryway before we got seated. A thought appeared in my mind undeniable as the sun in a clear sky: He’s going to want to put his bacteria in your mouth.

“Hi,” I said.

“I missed you,” he said.

After the nervous-making car trip, my brain was revving up. I told myself that having a thought was not dangerous, that thoughts aren’t actions, that thoughts are just thoughts.

Dr. Karen Singh liked to say that an unwanted thought was like a car driving past you when you’re standing on the side of the road, and I told myself I didn’t have to get into that car, that my moment of choice was not whether to have the thought, but whether to be carried away by it.