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back, and hives break out on my arms. I peel my T-shirt off my body to escape the heat, but nothing helps.
    What if it’s not a panic attack? What if it’s related to the vertexes? Maybe it’s radiation poisoning. Oh God, what if I really am dying this time? I need to go back to the hospital before my skin starts melting off my body.
    “Mom,” I yell from the floor. “Mom? Mom!” I don’t think she can hear me from here. She’s the only one home, and the last time I saw her she was in the backyard gardening.
    Oh, God, they’re going to find my corpse, and Dad will flip into PTSD mode, Mom will never stop crying and have a nervous breakdown, and Benji will blame it all on me and refuse to come to my funeral.
    “Honey?” Mom’s voice calls. It takes her a second to find me huddled in the corner wearing only a bra and shorts. “Alex, are you okay?”
    “I need to go to the hospital. I think I have radiation poisoning.” I begin to sob and rock back and forth.
    “Honey, they said the vertexes are fine. No radiation. Did you take your medication?”
    “Yes, but it’s not working. It’s from the radiation, I know it. Are you just going to stand there and watch me die?”
    “Honey, no.” She wraps her arms around the back of me. “I know you’re scared, but we’ve been through this before. If you don’t feel better soon, then I promise I will bring you to the hospital. We just have to wait it through.”
    Waiting is the absolute worst. “Fine, but if I die, you’re going to feel really guilty.”
    She nods and slips the hair elastic from my wrist.
    “Can you call Rita? Tell her not to come over?” I beg as she smooths my hair back. I almost tell her to cancel on Dominick too, but I need to see him tonight to talk about yesterday. We couldn’t exactly talk about it on the ride home with my parents listening.
    “Absolutely. Climb into bed and I’ll sit with you.”
    She pulls the crisp, purple and blue, patterned sheet up to my chin. A cocoon. I pray that when I wake it will be over.
    Two hours later, I open my eyes and feel exhausted. My chest still has phantom pain, like soreness after a muscle spasm, but nothing like before. Mom was right—I didn’t need to go to the hospital. But I’ll never admit it to her, and she’ll never bring it up again. It’s a silent code we have in our house, a code we use to cover up a lot of things.
    At dinner I inform my parents that their precious Benji is returning. Mom practically leaps from her seat at the dinner table while Dad starts bombarding me with questions. Now I understand why Benji called me to deliver the news. Jerk.
    Dad badgers me for information that I don’t have. Stuff about “world security versus national security” and “pulling out of volatile regions too soon without the right reinforcement and protection of our interests.” I push salad around my plate, take a bite of my cheeseburger. At least once Benji returns, he’ll be stuck in the hot seat.
    “Regardless of what happens, we’re staying put,” Dad finally states.
    I speak up. “No matter what? Even if a comet comes?”
    “Ben, we need to discuss it as a family,” my mother says.
    “We’re staying put,” Dad repeats.
    Mom places a hand on his forearm. She’s not going to fight him, though, as usual. I roll my eyes. Dad catches me.
    “You mean you’d go?” He holds his fork over his salad in midair waiting for my response. Or maybe to poke my eyes out.
    “Well, no,” I say, “I don’t have enough information.” I pick at the remains of my dinner. “According to the news, there’s no comet in our vicinity.” I feel like a newscaster spewing regurgitated facts stored in my journal.
    “Exactly,” Mom says. “There’s not enough information.”
    “True,” Dad concedes, “but regardless, we’re staying put. A captain goes down with the ship. People go down with the planet.”
    “What?” I argue. “That’s ridiculous.”
    “Why is it ridiculous? We were