Because I had already lost two people in one night without warning, and I could not, I simply could not, let the third one slip away while I was asleep down the hall.

I have tried, since, to explain to people what that kind of tired is, and I have never found the words for it, because it is not really about sleep.

It is a tiredness that lives underneath the sleep, in a deeper place, and no amount of rest touches it.

It is the tiredness of being seventeen and being the only adult in the house.

There is no one to check your work.