He looks like he has something to say, but I stand up and jump over the side of the truck bed, then sit in the passenger seat. After too long Orion—Ry—gets in and starts the truck.

I will not drown tonight.

I will not drown ever.

I am the desert. I am the desert. I am stone.

12

Set and Horus continued to challenge each other in the courts of the gods. They fought in ludicrous displays of strength and cunning—including a spectacular event that involved seeing who could stay underwater as a hippo longest. That one resulted in my mother’s decapitation.

It didn’t stick, obviously. Gods are awfully hard to kill.

In the end it was Osiris who put an end to the contests between Set and Horus, threatening to drag everyone into the underworld if they didn’t cease fighting.

My father’s equivalent of “Knock it off or you’re all grounded.”

WE DRIVE IN SILENCE UNTIL THE MOUNTAINS loom dark and swallow us into their winding embrace.

“Can’t or don’t want to?” Ry says.

“What?” I ask, my forehead against the glass of the window. I’m trying to pull the smooth chill into my head, let it flush out the water sloshing around in my soul.

“You said you can’t, then you said you don’t want to. Which is it?”

“Can’t. Won’t. Don’t want to. It’s all the same thing. Let’s don’t talk, okay?” If cutting off a beginning hurts this bad, I can’t imagine what ending something later would do to me. I just want to go home and go to sleep.

Too bad sleep isn’t very comforting lately.

“No, they really aren’t the same thing. If you don’t want to—I mean, genuinely are not attracted to me, do not think of me that way, cannot stomach the thought of touching me—then I would understand and I would never press the issue again. But that’s not how you feel.”

“How do you know?” I snap.

“Because I’m very pretty.”

I whip my head around to glare at him; he’s smiling like he couldn’t be more amused. “You aren’t that pretty.”

“I am to you. So let’s establish that it’s not that you don’t want me to kiss you senseless. It’s the idea of being senseless that terrifies you.”

“You are unbelievable.”

“I am, aren’t I?”

“Unbelievably arrogant.”

“Not arrogant. Confident. There’s a difference.”

“Which you clearly do not understand. But again, it doesn’t matter what my reasons are, because they’re mine and they aren’t changing. So you can be my friend, or you can get out of my life.”

“Hmm.” He raises his eyebrows, noncommittal. “What did your mom say?”

“What?”

“This afternoon, on the phone. What did she say that upset you so much?”

“None of your business.”

“Friends. It’s my business when someone makes my friend cry. I’m worried. Is she . . . did you come here because you weren’t safe with her?” He asks gently, like one would talk to an injured animal, his tone raising the question he doesn’t know how to phrase.

“No! Not like that. She sent me here because she was worried about me.”

“Tough love?”

“No, she was worried something terrible would happen if I stayed in Egypt. She . . . she’s kind of a mystic? And she was having bad dreams. That sounds stupid.”

“No,” he says thoughtfully. “I get that. I think people pay less attention to dreams than they should. We get all sorts of signals and information from our environment that our brains can’t process, so our subconscious does instead.”

“You think bad dreams are a legitimate reason for making huge choices?”

“Good dreams, too. Good dreams especially. Don’t you?”

“No.” I pause, thinking of all the dreams I’ve had lately. The dreams of darkness swallowing and unmaking everything around me while I . . . do nothing. Do I really feel guilty that I don’t worship my parents like they want me to? I didn’t think I did. I thought all I felt about that was anger. But . . . “Maybe. I don’t know. I hope not.”

“Okay, don’t get mad, but it sounds like your parents care. They’re trying to keep you safe in the best way they know how.”

“No, that’s just it. They don’t care. This was an easy solution for them, so they took it.”

“Why are you so sure they don’t care?”

“I can’t explain it. It wouldn’t make any sense to you. But trust me. My dad’s whole job, his whole life is taking care of people, and he’s so consumed by it he doesn’t even know who I am. He doesn’t even live in my world. And my mom, she’s like this legendary mother figure, but when it comes down to it, she doesn’t actually care about me. I’m a means to an end. Period. They don’t love me. They never have.”

“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about when you talk about love. How do you define it?”

“Well, according to you, I wouldn’t know.”

He smiles. “My family has made a special study of love. It’s kind of our thing. Did I ever tell you my mom is a professional matchmaker?”

Of course she is.

“Anyway, we Greek poets think a lot about love, too. We finally went ahead and made three separate definitions and words for love just to try and explain it. So maybe—maybe your parents love you in a way you don’t understand, or a language you don’t speak.”