It took bullying and bribing and cajoling on our parts, but eventually Susie and I convinced Ned to leave the hospital and come home with us. By the time we got him on the T, he was so tired that he could barely stand. Eventually, the rhythm of the Orange Line put him right to sleep, and his head lolled on my shoulder. I let it stay there.

Susie watched us soberly from across the aisle. When she saw me looking, she jerked her chin at Ned. "Why didn't you tell me about him?" Her jaw was working, maybe getting ready for the shrug she assumed would be my answer. I sighed instead, and checked Ned to make sure he was asleep.

"We were really close, Ned and me. When we were growing up."

"I guessed. What happened?"

I checked Ned again. There had been a sort of magical calm over the two of us at the hospital, a quiet sanctuary where no explanation had been necessary. I was reluctant to break it up, even when he couldn't hear me.

"When things got bad," I began, "I thought he'd understand my side like he usually did. And he didn't. I took that pretty hard. Didn't want to talk about him yet." I leaned back, resting against the windows. "It wasn't about you. I just…I didn't want to."

She nodded, staring down at her sneakers. "How did things get bad? Or don't you wanna tell me?" Her voice was flat—I felt it flatten me, too.

I stared at her until she raised her eyes to mine. "I want to tell you. But you know how it is with me and…I mean, it would be easier to…if you could go there, if we could. I could show you. That might be easier than telling you. I don't think I could," I admitted finally, "tell you. In words, I mean."

"Was it really that bad?"

I tried a smile. "Sometimes it was. And sometimes it was perfect. And sometimes it was nothing."

She slumped back in her seat, her gangly legs lolling out into the aisle. "Jeez, don't be too obvious about it. Try an be a little more cryptic, why don't you?" Then she smiled at me, and I smiled back at her, unbearably relieved that she liked me again.

We caught a cab from the station, and Susie and I woke Ned enough to climb our front steps and walk down the hallway to my bedroom. We had given the hospital Ned's cell number to call in case something changed, and I charged the phone next to me while I worked, checking it every so often to make sure it wasn't on silent.

I got down to reading relatively easily, all the while conscious of Ned's presence in my house. I made more progress than usual—maybe because the physics of Gothic arches was significantly easier to understand than anything that had happened in the last twenty hours. The fact that Ned Bertram was asleep on my bed would have made me go into a minor panic attack a few years ago, but now I wasn't quite sure what to think. Now that I wasn't in love with Ned, how did I relate to him? What kind of person would he be now that I didn't worship the ground he walked on?

I buried my head in my reading and didn't stop for breath.

What must have been hours later, Ned said, "Don't want to bother you, but do you want some dinner?"

I snapped my head up to look at him, bleary-eyed in his rumpled t-shirt and jeans, his feet bare, his fingers straightening his hair. He looked like a grumpy baby. I told him so.

He blinked at me, surprised, then snorted with laughter. "I'm pretty sure I am one." He sat in the chair across from me, taking in my sea of books. "Hard at work?"

"Always." I stretched over the back of my chair.

"How's it going?"

"Like, since you fell asleep?"

"No, like, the books. The college. Everything."

I sighed, running my own hand through my hair. "Slow."

He leveled his gaze at me, then at my books. "Compared to other people, or compared to how you want to be doing?"

"Yes." He snorted again, bending his head to rest on his fists on the tabletop.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"Maybe. Can you teach me how to, you know, learn stuff? And study?"

He blinked. "God, I don't even know. We can give it a shot, if you like."

"At this point, I'll take anything. I'll take magic from a swamp witch. Whatever."

"A swamp witch?" He raised an eyebrow, barely containing his laughter. "Not a lot of those ladies around."

"I'm resourceful. I'll find one."

"But I was serious. What do you want to do about dinner?"

"I'd like to have some."

"Good, then we're in agreement. Can I…" he trailed off, looking at the fridge.

"Yeah. Happy hunting." I heard him open the fridge and rummage around for a moment.

"Frozen pizza or leftover pasta?"

"Frozen pizza. Definitely."

"Where's Susie?"

"She babysits across the street on Thursdays. She should be back in an hour or so."

A companionable silence fell as Ned ripped open the pizza box and preheated the oven, then came to sit across from me again. I read to the end of the article, circling back twice to make sure I didn't miss any information, then highlighted what I thought was important. Sometimes I got it right. I sat back again, rubbing the back of my head underneath my fall of hair. I sighed, looking up to see Ned watching me.

"It's that hard on you?"

A twinge of embarrassment made the bottom of my stomach twist, but it was gone in a moment. Ned was watching me soberly, not a hint of a smile or judgment on his face.

I sighed again, tossing my highlighter down on the table. "Yeah. I mean, I basically only just learned how to sit still for long enough to read. Now I'm supposed to be reading this and understanding it the first time, and then be good enough at it to discuss it right after I read it. It's going okay. Just not great. I basically sleep here or on the couch most nights. It's a good thing you're here. My bed can get some actual use."

He nodded, looking down to watch his fingers beat a pattern on the place mat in front of him. "Do you like it, though?"

I smiled. "Yeah. I mean, when I don't hate it. I like designing. And I like learning what works and what doesn't. I don't like the math part, or the reading the theory part. I like the doing. The drawing, the thinking. I like that. And I like being able to see what other people were thinking when they made something. I can do that better, now."

He nodded, chin still on his hands. "I'm happy for you."

"Thanks," I said down to my highlighter.

Seconds ticked by where neither of us said anything. Then it hit me. "Ned?"

"Yeah?" We could have been kids again, looking up through the leaves of the big tree out front.

"That was the longest conversation we've ever had." I looked up to see a small smile work its way into his eyes and barely stretch the corners of his mouth.

"I know."

"You weren't going to say anything."

"Nope. I think it's one thing if you point it out. It's completely different if I make a big deal out of it."

"But it is a big deal."

"If you think it is, then I agree. But it would rude of me to say it first." The silence that fell between us was so thick that I could hear his watch ticking on his wrist.

"I wasn't joking," I said finally. "You did look terrible. You look like you haven't eaten in months."

He shrugged. "Rice and beans." I watched him. The grin faded off of his face, and he straightened up to sit back in his chair. "Things have been rough on my end, too." His voice grew quiet. He spoke to my dictionary.

"Not, like, binge-drinking-and-setting-things-on-fire rough, right?"

He did that strange explosive laugh again, "Right. Not that bad."

"How bad?"

He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders before looking at me.

"Bad."

"For how long?"

"Since you left." He was looking down at the table again. "To be clear, I'm aware that I was the one who abandoned you and that's part of the reason why you left. So please know that I'm not saying you're at fault for getting away from Mansfield and… I'm just saying that I haven't been able to get it together since you did leave. That's all."

The look on his face made tears well up in my eyes, but I blinked them back and tried to control my voice.

"What does that mean, that you haven't been able to get it together?"

He took several deep breaths. "I think I took you being there so much for granted that I…I don't know. Talking to you always helped me figure things out. What to do, what to say, how to say it. You always knew what you thought, and you always stuck with it, even when nobody else did. I think I depended on you without knowing it. I definitely looked up to you."

"You did?" He looked up then, at the incredulity in my voice, and bit back a laugh.

"Yeah. Always. You knew what was right and you knew what was wrong and you always did the right thing. Not like me. I knew what was right, too, but I could be persuaded to do the wrong thing. I didn't think that that was how I was. Am. But it's true. You can buy my opinion. Nobody could ever buy yours."

"You're being hard on yourself."

"Maybe," he shrugged again. "But I think it's true. And it's probably better that I'm hard on myself than let it go, really. Ultimately."

I imagined Susie's face, hearing Ned say the word "ultimately" so casually. The thought cheered me briefly.

"Ned. What's going on with you and Mary?"

He sat back in his chair hard, running a hand through his hair. "See, that's what I'm talking about. Or part of it, anyway."

"Is she a bad opinion?" My bemused frown seemed to amuse him briefly, but he waved his hand.

"No. I mean, probably. Probably, definitely. I don't know. See, I know she doesn't want what I want. I know we're so completely different that it's ridiculous and it's not working, but at the same time, whenever we break up, we're both miserable. Like, we just went on a break a couple weeks ago and already I'm back with her. I know it's bad, and I know she's bad for me, and I'm pretty sure I'm bad for her, but at the same time, there's nothing I can do about how it is because I'm crazy about her and there's literally no one else for me and it's a problem. And I just wished I had your clarity on that, too. You know when someone's bad for you and you steer clear of them."

I gave that a thought—decided not to contradict him.

"I missed you," he said again, this time to his fingers as they played with the edge of my notebook. "I didn't even consider what it would do to me, you not being home. Or, in my home." He rubbed both hands over his face. The dark circles under his eyes looked bigger.

"You know you're going to be okay," I said.

He sighed again. "I know. And really, I'm already pretty okay. Good family, lots of food, enough money, loving friends. I'm doing okay. No need to do the poor little rich kid thing. That's pretty tired, anyway."

"Hey. You're allowed to be unhappy if you're unhappy."

"I don't know—am I even unhappy? Being in a relationship with someone I love, that's not a good thing? Isn't that part of the definition of happiness?"

I shrugged, giving him a wry smile. "I don't know. I've never really seen a happy couple before. I wouldn't know what one looks like."

He looked about ready to rub his face in frustration. I turned my notebook to a clean page and drew a Hangman game. He smiled and guessed a letter. We took turns playing until the pizza was ready.

Susie came in as Ned was slicing the pizza. "Boom! Perfect timing." She threw herself down where Ned had been sitting.

"Hands. Wash them."

"Yes, mother." She got up and peeked over Ned's shoulder. "Oh, you used the Meat Lovers? Uncle Liam's gonna be so pissed." Ned paused, looking at me. I shook my head, motioning for him to keep slicing.

"I'll have to owe him one," said Ned.

"Better pay it back with interest. Two hundred percent."

"Wow, that's steep. I didn't realize Uncle Liam was a such a loan shark," I cleared my books away so that Susie and Ned had places to set their food down.

"You never know when it's your own family. It's always like, 'they're so great, they could never be criminals,' when all this time he's been shakin' the neighbors down for their Meat Lovers. And don't get me started on Four Cheese. Thank you," she said, grabbing the plate Ned offered her, along with a roll of paper towels for napkins. Ned came to the table with two more plates, then went back for glasses of water.

When we'd all settled down, Susie curled up her spider legs in her chair and turned to Ned. "Hey. Ned, right?"

"You got it."

"I've been wondering a thing. Maybe you can help."

"Maybe I can."

"What the hell is Mansfield even like, anyway?"