"She wasn't talking about running away," my mom continues, her voice measured, each word placed carefully. "Dr. Hartley asked her to explain, and she said — some people disappear because someone decided they should."
I look at the window.
"She was talking about Cody," my mom says.
"She's grieving," I say. "People say things."
My mom tilts her head slightly — the tell she has when she's deciding how much to show. "I'm not asking you as your mother right now."
"Then don't ask."
"I'm asking because your sister is getting thinner every week and she's saying things in therapy that sound less like grief and more like—" She stops and recalibrates. "She sounds like someone who knows something she's decided not to say out loud."
I turn back to look at her.
She meets my eyes and holds them. "And the only person Nessa has ever protected unconditionally is you."
The silence between us is its own conversation.
"I'll talk to her," I say.
My mom watches me for a moment longer than is comfortable. Then she picks up her tablet, signaling the end of it. "Be gentle with her, Theo. Whatever she's carrying, she didn't choose it."
I stand and leave before she can add anything else.
Nessa's door is closed.
I knock once. No answer, but I open it anyway.
She's on her bed, back against the headboard, knees pulled up, headphones on. The room is dim — curtains drawn against the afternoon. There's a particular stillness to her that I don't like. Too loose. Too unbothered.
I cross the room and pull the headphones off her head.
She startles violently, knocking her water bottle off the nightstand. "What the fuck, Theo!"
"Are you high?"
"Get out of my room."
"Nessa." I look at her eyes. Her pupils are slightly wide and slow in the way she's tracking me. "What did you take?"
"Nothing. Get out."
I pull the desk chair over and sit backwards in it, arms folded over the top rail. She stares at me with the particular exhausted fury of someone who doesn't have the energy for this but doesn't have a choice.
"Mom told me what you said in therapy."
Something flickers across her face. Fast. Gone. "Mom shouldn't have told you that."
"She's worried."
"She's always worried." Nessa pulls her knees tighter to her chest. "I was just talking. That's what therapy is."
"You said some people disappear because someone decided they should."
"It was hypothetical."
"Really?"
