I sat on the floor of my big sister’s room with my back against the wall. Rachel was on her bed reading her book. We kept the door locked and listened to the radio. There was a piece of loose string hanging from the left sleeve of my T-shirt. It held my attention.

Rachel flipped the pages noisily and sighed now and then. She had a way of working her books. They were all bent and creased and smudged. It was her way of loving them. I pulled on the string and watched her body shift and her teeth chewing on her lower lip and the pages being turned. Her pipe was on her nightstand. [...]