Libby says, “I’m going to drive you home.”

“You don’t have a license.”

“Seriously?”

“What? I can drive.” Even though I know I can’t won’t shouldn’t will not do so.

“YOU’VE BEEN DRINKING. Where’s your car?”

“Just down the street to the right. About three houses away.”

She brushes past so now she’s walking ahead of me, leading me away from the party, and I catch a whiff of something—sunshine.

At first we don’t talk. It’s as if the car is being powered by our minds, and the harder we concentrate, the faster we’ll get there. He is staring out the window, not doing anything except sitting, but I’m completely and fully aware of him. The way one hand rests on the seat, the other on the window. The way every now and then the streetlights catch the gold flecks in his dark hair. The way his legs are longer than mine, and the way he sits, like he’s perfectly at ease no matter where he is.

He must feel me thinking about him, because he says, “It feels good just to sit here. With one purpose. Knowing where we’re headed. Knowing what we’ll do when we get there. Cut and dried. Black and white.”

“I guess it does.” And I know what he means.

He looks at me. “Do you know who Herschel Walker is?”

“Football player?”

He whistles, then goes, “Ow.” He cradles his jaw.

“When you’re housebound, you watch a lot of TV.” Even things you’re not interested in, like ESPN documentaries and home improvement shows.

“Well, as you clearly already know, he was one of the most powerful running backs in football history, right? But when he was young, I guess he was afraid of the dark—like, terrified of the dark. And he was overweight and he stuttered, and all the other kids gave him hell for it. So what he does is he creates this Incredible Hulk inside him, someone who could stand up to people and never give up.”

I decide I like Herschel Walker, and that in many ways, I am Herschel Walker.

“He’d read aloud every day, and by doing that, he taught himself not to stutter. In middle school, he started working out hard, and by high school he was a beast. He graduated valedictorian and won the Heisman Trophy, three years into his college career at UGA. When he retired from the pros, he started noticing this shift in his behavior, and that’s when he found out he’s got this thing called DID, dissociative identity disorder. Multiple personalities.” He gestures like Mr. Dominguez in driver’s ed. “You want to get in your left lane.”

I change lanes and stop at the light.

“At the next light, you’re going to turn left onto Hillcrest.”

I see the map in my mind—my old neighborhood. I learned every street in it the year I got my first bike. I would take off and ride all over, my mom running alongside me, laughing, saying, “Libby, you’re too fast.” Even though I wasn’t. But I remember the way she made me feel—like I could go anywhere and do anything.

Jack says, “So after all those years of pushing himself and not giving up, it’s like the pressure did Herschel in. When he was asked about the DID, he compared it to hats—you know how we wear hats for all different situations? One for family. One for school. One for work. But with DID, it’s like the hats get mixed up. So you’re wearing the football hat at home, the family hat at work …”

“Too many hats.” I think, I know what this is like.

“After a while, it gets hard to keep them straight.”

And I wonder if we’re still talking about Herschel Walker or if we’re now talking about Jack.

He says, “I think we’re more like Herschel Walker than Mary Katherine Blackwood. I actually don’t think we’re like her at all.”

I can feel him looking at me, but I keep my eyes on the road.

He says, “Thank you for helping me tonight.”

“I prefer to think of it as saving.”

“Fine. Thank you for saving me.” And now I can’t help but look at him. And he smiles. It is slow at first, creeping across his face like a sunrise until suddenly it shines like the hottest point of the day. I sit on one hand so that I don’t cover my eyes, which is what I want to do.

I smile at him.

And our eyes lock.

Neither of us breaks away, and I actually don’t want to, even when I remind myself I’m driving, Hello.

I drag my eyes away and stare out the windshield, but everything is a blur. I can feel him looking at me.

You need to calm down, girl. Calm. Yourself. Down.

We hit a pothole, and the Land Rover sounds as if it’s going to bottom out.

Jack says, “Christ, this car is shit.”

We turn onto my old street, Capri Lane. I haven’t been back here since that day they carried me away to the hospital. Jack is talking, but I’m not listening because everything is coming back to me. My mom. Being trapped in there. The feeling of not being able to breathe, of thinking this was it, of thinking I was dying. Of being rescued.

When I woke up in the hospital, everything was white. Blue, gray, black, white, like they were the only colors in the world. “You had an anxiety attack,” my dad said. “You’re going to be okay, but we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

We’re getting closer to my house, and I can see it coming toward me, only it’s nothing like it used to be because, of course, they had to tear my house down, didn’t they? Even though it was the last place I saw my mom alive. Even though memories of her were in every wall and floor.