"Oh, would you be quiet!" the boy snaps. "How dare you say you're fine? Don't lie to me, you've got a concussion!"

Autor sets her cup down near a sun jar and paces, nails digging into his palms. "I know you have to do this sort of thing--that it's a part of your life you never asked for--but you can't say things are fine when they're so clearly not," he says, and his speech is pressured, disjointed, curved around a ball in his throat. "'Fine'. Of all the words to choose... It's just as bad as 'fell', and you know it."

He can't even see her anymore. Sunlight, refracting off of a hot film of tears, stings his eyes.