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stoic hands and curled roman numerals, measuring the minutes until they’re allowed to worry again. But they’re counting down, individually of course. Mom has probably been doing something virtuous and disgusting, like scrubbing grout with a toothbrush, to keep her mind off everything, and Dad, no doubt, is watching baseball. He can watch game after game after game without thinking or feeling a thing.
    I don’t want them to know I’ve been crying, so for the second time this evening I force myself to stop. It’s harder this time because I’ve already let it get out of hand. I’m snotty and out of breath and my face hurts from squeezing.
    I take a deep breath, try out my voice with a few empty hello s, then call home.
    “Where are you?” Dad answers. The synthesized SportsCenter theme blares in the background.
    “I had to stay late to help close.” It isn’t until I hear myself that I realize I’m lying. I’m not sure why, since they’ll know Mo’s leaving soon enough. Maybe I’m just not ready for his reaction tonight. It’ll be too light, too encouraging. He doesn’t like Mo, doesn’t understand us—any guy who wants to be just friends with me must be gay or lying or both. He would not understand that without Mo I’m going to drown.
    “When will you be home?” he asks.
    “I just dropped Mo at his place.”
    “Okay. I’ll tell your mom you’ll be home in ten minutes.”
    I’m only a block away now, but I don’t correct him. I need at least ten minutes to get myself together.
    I pull into an empty playground parking lot and stare at moonlit slides and gleaming monkey bars. The swings rock and squeal in the breeze. I grew up in this park, but I never realized just how creepy it is at night. I was never allowed to wander after dark. It’s like a children’s ghost town.
    What if Mo’s wrong?
    It feels dangerous, but I want to believe it. He’s wrong. Mo’s just pulling a Mo—freaking out first, getting details later. Tomorrow he’ll find out about some visa extension or job for his dad in Louisville, and this night will be the crazy night we thought he was going back to Jordan, and nothing else.
    I hiccup, a reminder of losing control, but I feel differently already. Stronger. I twist my wrist to hear my bracelets jingle. This is all just one big emotional overreaction.
    Unless it’s not.
    My mind flits back to the day at the science center. The lost year, the pact with God, the tiny spot where the IV pierced my skin forever marking me, Lena’s smell and feel still burning in our house and in my brain. I don’t want to be that girl. I don’t want to be the one needing to be saved. That girl was alone. Starved. Godless.

Chapter 8
    Mo
    G odless. I’m definitely not that. Sarina probably thinks so, but all-or-nothing is her mental disease, not mine. She’s the closest thing to devout our family has seen in generations. Who knows why. Mom’s parents were devout, but they’re dead. And Dad’s parents, the Teta and Jido whom we lived with, are lukewarm, which means we were too when we were living under their palatial roof.
    Sarina is a believer of things, though, so she has no idea about the big fat place between godless and God-fearing where I reside. I wonder if her piety is helping her now. Maybe she isn’t as scared because she knows she can fit in that way.
    We pass in the hallway outside the bathroom, and she smiles, but it’s a weird smile—no teeth, wide eyes—like I could pull it, let go, and it’d snap back into place. I nod at her, she says good night and closes her door, closes her door , like I don’t know she’s afraid of the dark and has slept with it cracked her entire life.
    I stand in the hall outside her room, waiting for something. Not sure what. I want to go in there and talk to her like I used to, hang in her hammock chair and ask her what the hell we’re going to do.
    I’m not even sure how human the response would be. She’d probably tell me Dad must know