"Yeah, wake me up at some stupid hour and then don't let me go back to sleep. The sleep deprivation will get to my brain before long and I'll just get kinda giggly," she says, still laughing, though she's calming down a bit. "When things got really bad at home, Marshall would come sleep in my room, except we'd never be able to fall asleep. We'd lie there and just laugh about every stupid thing that was going on, because what the hell else were we gonna do? Sometimes shit gets so bad you just have to laugh before you stab someone in the face."

It's not as serious as she's making it sound. The memories of lying in the dark with her brother, laughing up at the ceiling while Tara and Max fought in the other room, those are mostly good memories. It's the nights lying alone in the dark, knowing the silence that stretched through the house wasn't because everyone was sleeping but because there was nothing left for her parents to say that get to her. Those are the bad memories.

"I like being awake in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep," she says, a smile still curving her lips. "It's a different world."