“Hi, sorry,” I say, not really sure why I feel the need to apologize. I was ready for his voicemail, for hanging up. Now I feel pitiful. “I didn’t think you’d pick up.”

“Paige? Can I call you back in just a few minutes? I’m sort of in the middle…just…I’ll call you right back, okay?” His voice is partly muffled while he juggles his phone and whatever else.

“Yeah, sure. I’m leaving soon, so if you get a chance…” I say, before he talks over my words.

“Great. Thanks. Call you back,” he says, ending the call barely after his last word.

I stare at my phone in my hands. The time stamp reads 27 SECONDS. I sit on the edge of my bed and let my eyes wander to the towel at my desk and the science experiment from moments before. I can’t stay here. They will never stop making it clear they don’t want me here. When Houston calls back, I’ll tell him I’d like the room, and I’ll move my things. I’ll come back early from holiday break to do it. And I’ll find a way to talk to my parents about it—to make it okay. Then I’ll fix my relationship with my sister.

I’ll find my way. I always do.

These thoughts circle in my head for the next three hours until finally I can call for the cab to take me to the airport. When I hang up, I scroll back to those twenty-seven seconds from the morning and delete the record of the call. Then, I roll my bags down the hall, down the stairs, and out the door of the Delta House.

Houston

“Dude, it smells like vomit in here,” Casey says, his arm folded across his nose as he steps into the kitchen with a small bag of groceries.

“She just threw up again. Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to really get the smell from that last round out of the house yet. I think maybe I’m immune to it,” I say, rinsing out the yellow bucket that I threw up in when I was a kid and have now passed along to my daughter. What a gift.

“So you just, what…like…hose that shit out?” His voice is still muffled in his sleeve.

“Yeah. Didn’t you throw up when you were a kid, man? Is this so foreign to you?” I ask, wiping down the inside with a dry paper towel, and setting the bucket on the floor, then unhooking the plastic bag from Casey’s thumb.

“My mom wouldn’t let us leave the bathroom until we were done spewing,” he says, letting his arm fall away, but only for a second while he speaks. I chuckle and roll my eyes.

“I guess I don’t like the idea of making her sleep on the bathroom tile,” I say, pulling out a packet of soda crackers, removing two, and placing them on a napkin.

“So what is it, like the flu or something?” Casey asks as he follows me back up the steps, bucket and crackers in my hands.

“I think so. She’s been at it since two this morning. I had to call in to work, which sucks ass,” I whisper, not wanting Leah to hear as we get closer to her room.

“Nah man, you’re looking at this wrong. You got a sick day without being sick. When she’s napping, you should totally hit the Xbox,” he says, finally letting his arm drop. Casey’s gotten used to it too.

“All I see is six less hours of pay I’m going to get this week,” I say as I lean into Leah’s door to slide it open.

“Un-co Casey!” Leah says, coughing when she screams Casey’s name, her voice hoarse from being sick.

“Take it easy, kiddo. Don’t overdo it,” he says, reaching out his hand and ruffling Leah’s hair, which is wild and juts in a million directions. We didn’t really do the brushing thing today.

Her face bunches when I set the napkin on her lap. “I don’t like those,” she whispers, her voice lacking the enthusiasm it had when she greeted my friend.

“I know. But here’s the deal,” I say, sitting down on the bed next to her, rolling up my sleeve and resting my forearm on her forehead, feeling for a fever. We’ve been lucky so far, and she’s still cool now. “If you can eat two of these and not throw up for…” I look at my watch, trying to think of a safe, but arbitrary time, “thirty minutes…” Leah looks up at me, her bottom lips sucked into her mouth so far that her chin is white. “I’ll let you try a sugar cookie next.”

Leah grabs a cracker fast, stuffing the entire thing in her mouth at once.

“Slowly. Eat them slowly. Remember…they have to stay in the tummy,” I say, standing as she moves on to the second cracker, this time taking nibbles, her eyes wide on me with hope. She’ll get a cookie anyway, because that face does me in. But I’m exhausted, so this throwing up thing needs to stop too.