After getting off the phone, I ambled over to my brother's room, assuming

that he wasn't in and furious that he'd left the air conditioner on. Instead, I found

Cam sitting at his table with Oliver, browsing Archie comics with an opened

bottle of seltzer between them. “Hey Kate,” Oliver said, squinting, “come hang

out with us.”

I first met Oliver when I was in 10th grade and he in 8th; that year, we had both

chosen to fulfill our phys ed requirements with yoga, and the flaky music

teacher / “certified instructor” failed to show up often enough that Oliver and I got

used to spending those fifty minutes talking. He introduced himself by explaining

that he was bipolar (a lie) and that he was taking yoga at his psychiatrist’s

behest. I recognized the aggressive vulnerability of his admission immediately,

having only just learned not to bring up my eating disorder in polite conversation.

More than that, I recognized another precociously clever and unhappy kid at

St. Ann's. Slight, feminine, and eager to bare his wounds, he was a perfect

partner in co-misery

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