"How am I supposed to respond to this?! Is there a ‘Finding Out Your Brother is Satan for Dummies' that I could read? Damn it, how can you possibly understand?"

"I'm just trying to help!" Heda replied.

"Well stop!"

“And let you sit around the basement and wallow in self-pity?" Heda was on her feet too, and she was agitated as all hell.

"You want to get stoned or get drunk, or do anything but just fucking dealing with it. That's bullshit escapism and you know it."

“Ooh, big word! What the hell is the worst thing you've ever had to deal with, huh? Your mother being too popular or your dad being too great or your brothers being too supportive? Or maybe being forced to have all that hot sex with European girls on your parents’ dime?"

"Qh, so now you're pissed off at me because my life hasn't sucked?

Screw you! I'm not going to apologize for having a good life. You could have a good life too if you'd stop whining about your old one."

"Get out!" Madison screamed.

"Fine. Come talk to me when you're ready to stop being such a bitch.”

Heda stormed up the stairs, hearing the sound of feet scattering. She wondered how many of her friends had been Listening in.

“What the --" Sasha said as soon as Heda was up and the door was closed again.

"Is she —~'

“Are you —~

“Maybe someone should ——

“People should just stay the hell out of there until she comes to her senses," Heda growled.

"She's got a lot of nerve," she added, tromping into the dining room with a can of Pepsi and a bag of potato chips.

"She just isn't happy if she doesn't have something to complain about." Heda found that Billy was in her path. She tried to brush by him, but it was like trying to move a semi-tractor by blowing on it.

“What's your ——"

"I know you're mad, and you have every right to be. But Madison is my best friend, and I am not going to let you walk away from her.

She needs you, and if that means you have to put up with her psychosis, then so be it."

“And you were going to make me . . . how?" she whispered dangerously.

But to his credit, Billy did not back down a step.

“Do you know that people who win the lottery have an above-average rate of suicide?"