Asher is pacing furiously en pointe while playing Cookie Clicker.

"Hello," he says, exactly as loudly as it'll take to be heard. 

He looks up and puts his phone down. "How is Raine doing?"

"She misses you. She stopped eating for a week and started again when Christine threatened her with something — Lev decided to be straight and the two of them are doing, something, but I don't think it's dating — she did get Christine to stop calling her Alexander, she's going by Ghost at camp. And she sent a bracelet to her sister with instructions to send it to you." 

He pulls up his sleeve. The bracelet's on his wrist.

"A week is a bit long to go without eating but fuck Christine-- why do adults keep meddling in people's diets like that-- I'm glad she has a name that isn't that bad."

"Yeah. The not eating was objectively pretty concerning but she came out of that meeting looking like she was going to cry. She does seem to like the name, though — she's making more of an effort in group, I assume because of whatever Christine threatened her with." 

"I mean, I've known people who went a week without eating and they were fine? You don't want to do it too often."

"...okay, but you know ballerinas." 

"So? Raine exercises less than they do."

"...Asher, ballerinas kind of famously are prone to eating disorders." 

"I guess? But the girls I know could eat if they wanted to, they just wanted to be thin enough to make principal dancer."

"...yes. That's called an eating disorder." 

"Not every time you diet to achieve a goal is an eating disorder!"

"Not every form of dieting, but if you don't eat for a week because you're trying to be thinner, that's an eating disorder." 

"--It's not actually worth fighting about. Tell me more about how Raine's doing."

Marlo is so, so worried about every girl Asher has ever known. 

"...she's coping. She talks more in group but she's weirdly specific a lot of the time, I think she's trying to answer honestly even though the questions are not really designed for her. She'll take basically any excuse to cuddle people — she's started taking showers in the middle of the night for some reason." 

"Give her lots of hugs."

He's not dancing even a little bit. This is extremely weird.

"We do. — by we I mean both me and Lev, but mostly Lev, she wants them more from him than from me." 

"I'm glad she has somebody."

The I wish it were me is implied.

"Me too. And I'm glad Lev has someone he's comfortable around." 

"My girlfriend is sort of dating your... not... boyfriend."

"I don't think the thing they're doing is dating, exactly, but — yes." 

"Right, because Lev has decided he wants to be straight. --Why."

"...he wants to have a family and wants to make sure he'd do right by his children." 

"I think Ron would be a great dad but I guess it's not my decision. Ugh. He should stop so that Raine has somebody."