“Gia. What are you doing here?”

“I’m angry.”

“Okay . . .”

“I need someone to let me be angry.”

She gave me a little smile. “Well, that’s my specialty. Come on.” She led me back to her room and pointed at the desk chair. “Sit. Start your rant whenever you’re ready. I will be here to egg you on.” She plopped down on her bed then she stood up again. “Hold on. I feel like we need some angry music as our background.” She pulled out her phone, scrolled through a few screens, then pushed Play. Music poured through some wireless speakers on the bookshelf. She adjusted the volume so it wasn’t too loud.

I laughed.

“Laughing and anger do not go together.”

“Stop trying to make me laugh, then.”

“I’m not. I’m totally with you on this. What are we angry about again?”

“My brother.”

She raised her fist in the air. “Totally with you. Carry on.”

“So he called this morning, not to apologize but to tell me I wasn’t supposed to be at the stupid ceremony.”

“He did not.”

“He did.”

“That jerk.”

“And then my parents watched the video.”

“Were they crushed?”

“No, they were proud.”

“Proud?”

“Yes!” I stood and started pacing the room. “They told me they hoped I would be proud too, eventually.”

“They watched it? Are you sure?”

“I didn’t see them, but I’m pretty sure.”

“That’s lame.”

“It is, right? Am I being stupid? Do I have the right to be mad?”

“Gia, I’m mad and I’m not even you.”

“But you’re mad about everything.”

“Not entirely true, but I do enjoy my angry times.” She sat there for a moment, on her bed, staring at me. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“You’re angry. What are you going to do?”

I stopped pacing, my shoulders still tight with tension. “I don’t know.” I’d obviously felt angry before but my goal had always been to smash it down, keep it inside, not let anyone see it. I groaned when I realized that I was just like my parents. That’s what they always did. They didn’t like us to express bad feelings because that would imply our family was less than perfect. Even my mom’s appearance always portrayed perfection. They kept everything inside. I kept everything inside.

“Scream.”

I looked toward the door. “I’m not really a screamer.” Even realizing what I just had about my parents, about myself, it was hard to just let go of that, to let go of a lifetime habit. But I wanted to. I needed to. My insides were on fire and I knew I needed to let some of those feelings out.

“Just scream.”

I took a deep breath and screamed.

She smiled. “You have a lot of work to do but that was a good start. Now let’s scream at your brother.”

“I’m not calling my brother.”

“No, I just mean scream things and hope he can hear them. Like . . .” She threw back her shoulders. “What’s his name again?”

“Drew.”

“Drew, you are a huge jerk and a horrible brother!”

“Who doesn’t even know how to apologize right!”

“And who has funny-looking hair!”

I tilted my head. “You think his hair is funny looking?”

“For sure. He needs to cut it shorter or grow it out longer. You can tell him I said that.”

I laughed.

“It helps a little, right?”

“Yes.” It really did. The fire in my chest wasn’t quite as red hot.

She lay back on her bed and looked at the ceiling. I looked up as well and saw that, along with the nature photographs on her wall, she had some on the ceiling too. “Those are great pictures. Do you collect them from all the places you visit?”

“I take them.”

“They’re yours? I didn’t know you were a photographer.”

“I try. We went on this three-week trip around the States. That’s where I took most of them.”

“Hayden told me about that trip.”

She smiled. “That’s right. I’m sure he said it was like a trip to the underworld or something, and I like to pretend that too, but we both loved it. He forced us to play his stupid games. We fought a lot and laughed a lot and learned a lot.”

“I think it sounds fun.”

“‘Fun’ probably isn’t the right word, but it was an experience.”

In the quiet that followed her statement, I felt awkward, like I hadn’t earned the right to be here asking for her help. We hardly knew each other. “So . . . are you doing anything today? Hanging out with Nate?”

She sighed. “No. It’s hard to just hang out with him. Nate is just . . .” She shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s just Nate.”

“Do you want him to be your boyfriend?”

“Sometimes.” She picked up her pillow and flipped it over then patted it a few times. “And sometimes I want to strangle him. I think I might need to get the second impulse under control before I work on the first.”

“Why do you want to strangle him?”

“Because he’s clueless. He has a crush on this other girl who is totally out of his league.”