Sometimes Dad just knows how to tell someone they’re wrong without making anyone feel weird. Like when the furniture delivery guys were bringing his coffee table in, and one of them made a pretty cheesy joke. The other guy said, “That’s so gay, man.”

Dad didn’t skip a beat when he said, “That joke was bad. Not gay.”

The guys were quiet at first, but just laughed it off. When I asked him what he meant by that, he just said, “Sometimes people use the word gay to mean a negative thing, but there’s nothing wrong with the word gay or the people who use it to identify themselves. Trust me. I’ve got plenty of issues—your mom would agree—but being gay isn’t one of them.”

It was as simple as that. Sometimes I think that about the word fat. Maybe it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

“Sorry,” Kiera says to Dad. She looks to me. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Words mean things,” I say, and take a bite out of my slice. “It’s okay, though. Thanks.”

She nods and quietly eats the rest of her pizza, still patting away the grease every once in a while, but not making a big deal of it.

I wonder what Oscar is doing right now and if his night is half as awkward as mine or if Luis is farting on his head at this very moment.

After we watch a few episodes of Stranger Things, the only show me, Kiera, and Dad can all agree on, Dad heads to bed and leaves me and Kiera on our own. We change into our pajamas and Kiera wraps her braids into a silk polka-dot scarf; the two of us sprawl out in the living room—me on the big couch and her on the love seat—and flip through channels before landing on a mesmerizing infomercial about a portable snow-cone machine.

“When did you know your parents were gonna get divorced?” Kiera asks.

I roll over onto my stomach, so I can face her. “When they told me.”

“You mean you didn’t know? You didn’t see it coming?”

I shake my head. “Not even a little bit.” I can’t disguise how glum it makes me feel. I want Mom and Dad to be happy. I just wish it involved them being together. “My mom’s a therapist, and she didn’t even see it coming.”

“My mom always talks about how smart your mom is.”

I can’t stop myself from smiling. Sometimes I get so used to Mom just being Mom that I forget how smart and good at her job she really is. Even if I don’t love this idea of identical houses, she helps lots of people in Valentine.

“Afterward, though,” I continue, “when she thought about it, she could see that something was missing for Dad. Sometimes I think Dad would have just kept things the way they were and that he’d be happy to live with us if him and Mom could just be, like, roommates.”