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“I forgive you.”
    I said, “Great, Andrew. Thanks. You’re a bigger human than me. Happy?”
    Andrew paused and stared at me. He peered over his nerdly glasses. “I’m not trying to be a bigger human being. I would like to be nice.”
    â€œStick it, Andrew.”
    He said, “What do you mean?”
    â€œStick. It.”
    â€œStick what?”
    I said, “Jesus. It’s no big deal. Okay?”
    â€œWhat isn’t a big deal?”
    â€œYou. Your concert. You’re not that great at piano. You’re not like Aleah. You should probably be a pharmacist.” I stared up at Andrew. I nodded at him.
    â€œI was trying to be forgiving, Felton,” Andrew whispered.
    â€œI am trying to be truthful. Pharmacist,” I said.
    â€œGod, Felton,” he whispered. “Why are you so mean?”
    â€œShake it off,” I said. Then I got up and left the house.
    You can begin to understand why Andrew might want to run away without telling me, huh?
    â€¢ • •
    Wait.
    What’s going on? There are a whole bunch of people standing at the desk talking to the lady back there. Something’s going on, Aleah. We’re supposed to take off in like forty minutes, but there’s not even a plane here yet. I’m going to go stand in that line like a donkey because everyone else is.

August 15th, 4:50 p.m.
O’Hare Airport, Part V
    Oh shit.
    My flight was canceled because of extreme heat in Little Rock. A runway buckled? I am not exactly sure where Little Rock is. Arkansas, right? I don’t understand how a runway in Arkansas can make me not fly in Chicago, but that’s what happened, Aleah.
    Stranded. Sort of.
    I’m sort of freaking out.
    Eyeballs hurt.
    Me. I have to make a choice: stay in Chicago overnight to get the next direct flight into Fort Myers or fly to Atlanta, which might get me to Atlanta with enough time to connect to Fort Myers—or it might not, because I’d have about three minutes to get off the plane and run to the other plane, which I would be happy to do, except I know it took me forever to get the sausages to ask a bagel lady for directions to find my gate here and I’m sort of not feeling that great right now, Aleah.
    Stay overnight in Chicago?
    There’s a hotel right here, but I only have that money from Jerri. If pasty fettuccine Alfredo costs like twenty bucks (that’s what it cost!), won’t a hotel room cost like $500 or something? I could ask. I should ask. Maybe I’ll ask.
    I’ll call Jerri and ask her.
    Jerri isn’t answering the phone. You know why, Aleah? She’s probably off in the woods some place making out with your freaking dad. Why won’t she carry a damn cell phone?
    Okay…I just have to ask somebody about something because I don’t really want to stay here, but I don’t want to go to Atlanta. I’ve been to Atlanta, with Gus, and it is too hot there for anyone to survive.
    Why am I writing you when I should be gathering pertinent information?
    Because I don’t know who to ask.

August 15th, 6:28 p.m.
O’Hare Airport, Part VI (Hotel)
    Jerri gave me a credit card to use in case of emergency. I’m beginning to suspect I have a good mother, Aleah, which means I can’t blame her for my lack of humanity or my narcissism.
    Not Jerri’s fault.
    After I wandered around for a half hour, staring at knickknack shops that sell magazines and little metal models of Chicago skyscrapers and these neck pillows that look like they would strangle me in my sleep and other assorted crap, the whole time wondering what in the whole wheat world I should do, Jerri called me (because I’d left her a message freaking out about how I was stranded and didn’t know what to do). She told me to go to Atlanta, except by that time there was no space left on the flight to Atlanta. I called Jerri back, and she said that this constituted an emergency and that I