“It’s nice. You’ll have to come stay for a weekend as soon as you’ve healed up. I only signed a six-month lease because I plan to buy a house this summer, but I still want it to feel like home for you and Cole.”

Way too much of the new reality rushes in at once, and I can’t think of anything else to say.

Daddy ducks under a doorway. “You can do that thing you do to your walls, and I can help you transfer it all when we move. I’ve already helped you start. Hung a life-sized poster of Candace Parker in your room yesterday.”

Astonishment helps me break my silence. “Really?” I say, but I want to be like, Seriously, Daddy? Have you seen my walls? Candace Parker can ball and all, but I don’t have a single picture of a basketball player in my room. My walls are full of random things I love.

Maybe they haven’t told me what I want to do with my life yet. But one thing’s for certain: staring at a life-sized basketball player will tell me zero things about my future. I don’t know how I’m going to take it down without hurting Daddy’s feelings, but best believe it’s coming down.

As I approach the elevator, Mom says, “The gastrointestinal surgery department is on the sixteenth floor and you’re sixteen!” Guess my feelings about that poster were still all over my face becase Mom only points out potential signs when she catches me with a sad or sideways look. It usually perks me up, but today it makes my mood worse.

You see, Mom doesn’t believe in all my sign stuff. She’s never said so, but she’s not exactly big on believing in general. Well, believing in yourself, in your dreams, in love—those types of things—sure. But with everything else, she’s always preached that questioning and studying is more important that believing. And every time she’s asked me how my signs work, I’ve never had a good answer for her.

All I know is that I can’t afford to miss them. What if the one time they clearly point me in the direction of what I’m meant to do with my life, I’m not even paying attention? What then?

I step onto the elevator, she pushes the circle with the sixteen, and it lights up. Sixteen years and the signs still haven’t told me what I need to know most. I finally have the chance to quit basketball, but I still don’t have a clue what to replace it with.