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I didn’t know I was doing it for this exact moment. I think some part of me always did.

Dylan looks at the screen. Then at me.

He doesn’t believe me. He knows me. That’s the problem with Dylan. He’s known me since I was nine.

“Empty your bag,” he says.

My backpack. It’s on the floor by the couch, where I slept. He knows I carry cash. He knows because I’ve always carried cash, in an envelope in the inside zipper pocket, folded in half, ever since I was a kid. He knows because he took it out of that pocket once, when I was sixteen, and I never got it back.

“No,” I say.

It comes out clear. It comes out loud enough to fill the kitchen. And I watch it land on his face like I slapped him, because I’ve never said it to him. Not like that. Not once.

“What did you say?”

“I said no.”

He takes a step toward me. Just one. The kitchen’s so small that one step is all it takes, and he’s right there, and I can smell the beer, the weed, and the old cigarettes on him.

“Grandma,” I say. Then louder. “Grandma!”

“Shut up.” His hand closes around my wrist. Not hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to stop me. The one with my phone in it. “Shut the fuck up, Tess, she’s sleeping—”

“Grandma!”

“Dude,” says the one in the hallway. “Chill.”

The one from the recliner doesn’t say anything. He just drinks his beer and watches.

On the couch, the girl turns her face to the wall.

And I’m so scared I can’t feel my feet.

But the thing about being scared for most of your life is that your body learns to keep working through it. My heart is going so hard I can hear it in my ears, and my wrist is in his hand, and my phone is in my hand, and somewhere under all of it, my brain is still doing what it’s always done. Counting. Watching. Reading him.

His eyes are jumping. He doesn’t want to do this in front of his friends. He doesn’t want Grandma to come down the hall. He wants this fast and quiet and over, and I’m making it loud. Loud is the one thing he can’t afford.

So I make it louder.

“Grandma knows how much money I have,” I say. Clear. Steady. “She knows exactly what’s in my bag. I told her last night. If anything’s missing tomorrow, she’ll know it was you.”

It isn’t true. Not a word of it. I’m a good liar. Rafe told me so.

Dylan’s jaw works. His eyes are wide, and I can’t believe I’m only realizing it now that he’s high.

I take a step back. Then another, toward the living room, toward the open space, toward the front door. His hand comes with me on my wrist, but it loosens. Just a little.

My phone buzzes against my palm.

I can see the screen from here, just the top of it, upside down, between his fingers and mine.

Rafe: Coming.

And then, a second later:

Rafe: 12 min.

Twelve minutes.