I traced the page with my fingers, feeling the indentations where he had pressed the pen onto the paper so hard that he almost pierced it. I imagined him writing it – filling the paper with his angry scribbles, with his rough handwriting, erasing one line after another when the words didn’t come out the way he wanted, perhaps even breaking the pen in his overly large hand^ that explained the ink stains. I could imagine the frustration that would make his black eyebrows knit together and his forehead wrinkle. If I had been there, I might have laughed. Don’t have a stroke, Jacob, I would have told him. Just say it as it is.

The last thing I felt like doing now was laughing, as I read again the words I had already memorized. His reply to my pleading note – which passed from Charlie to Billy and then to him just like we were in second grade, as he had pointed out – did not surprise me. I pretty much knew what it would say before I even opened it.

What surprised me was how much every erased line hurt me – as if the peaks of the letters were sharp blades. And, mainly, that behind every angry start hid a huge lake of pain^ Jacob’s pain cut deeper than mine. As I pondered this, the unmistakable smell of something burning came from the kitchen. In another house, the fact that someone else was cooking besides me might not have been a cause for panic.

I quickly stuffed the crumpled paper into my back pocket and ran, barely making it downstairs in time. The glass jar with the pasta sauce that Charlie had put in the microwave was just on its first spin when I abruptly opened the door and pulled it out.