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this girl’s name, and now we were trading views on the afterlife. I couldn’t believe I was having a conversation that involved the words “caught between worlds.”
    “This ‘psychic’ is just going to feed you general bullshit that could apply to anyone. And then she’ll take your money—how much is she charging you, anyway?”
    “None of your damn business.”
    “Fine,” I said, “but I’d be real careful how much I paid her if I were you.”
    She put her hands on her hips. “You want to give me advice, but you don’t want to help me when it counts.”
    I swallowed and turned my head. I told myself she wasn’t my problem. But I heard the message she’d sent me, those small letters like a whisper in my brain, that “please.” I told myself I didn’t owe her anything. And yet, anytime someone told me they knew a person who’d killed himself, my stomach went heavy with guilt, as if I were personally responsible for all the suicides of the world. Why do you people put us through this? was the question I heard, whether they meant it that way or not.
    “I’m trying to help you,” I said, “but you don’t want to listen.”
    “Look, if there’s even a chance this person could give me some answers, I’m going to try it. That’s all I’m doing, is trying.”
    “Yeah, but be careful. If you want to believe, they’ll use that against you, get you to think—”
    “How do you know so much about it?”
    “I read this book a couple of years ago about a guy who exposed a bunch of fake psychics—”
    “You read a lot, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question. “Come out and join the rest of us in the real world for a change.”
    “You’re the one who’s not living in the real world.”
    She tried to stare me down then, the way she’d tried the other day in my basement. But I was much better than she was at freezing, keeping my eyes steady. Nicki’s mouth quivered and I knew she would blink first, and yet—
    And yet, I didn’t think I could talk her out of this. She was going no matter what I said. She had plunged into the waterfall and then into my house, and now she was going to plunge right through the wall between life and death, if she had her way. But I didn’t believe she would—that anyone could—punch through that barrier.
    “Is somebody going with you, at least?” I asked. “Angie?”
    “Angie’s at her grandmother’s all summer. I’ll be fine.”
    “You shouldn’t go alone. You don’t even know this woman.”
    Her eyebrows arched. “Well, who’s going to come with me? You?”
    I wound the towel around my hand. “No, I—”
    “Then shut up about it.” She turned and took one step away from me before I reached out and touched her arm with the towel.
    “Maybe I could come,” I said.
    “Why, so you can play watchdog?”
    “If you want to call it that. Yeah,” I said, dry mouthed. “I’ll play watchdog.”
    “Okay then. Tomorrow at one o’clock.”

FOUR
    That night, I stood on the deck, searching for bats and fireflies. I hung over the deck railing to study the shadows under the porch, the blood pooling in my head.
    My mother’s voice cut into my daydreaming. “What are you doing, Ryan?”
    I lifted my head: a woozy rush. “Nothing.” My standard answer, designed to hold up my end of the unspoken conspiracy Dad and I had to keep her from getting an ulcer.
    She stood in the doorway, her face pinched. “I asked what you’re doing.”
    “Not trying to jump, if that’s what you’re worried about.” We were only one story up. Even I wasn’t stupid enough to try to kill myself from this height. At worst I’d jam an ankle.
    She flinched.
    “Sorry,” I said.
    If I’d said that in front of Dr. Briggs, she would have made my mother and me dissect it, pull apart everything we’d said to hunt down each hidden (and not-so-hidden) meaning. Why had I said it? What did my mother think about it? Why had she flinched? What did I think about her flinching? And in