“God fucking dammit,” I yell, then run faster, past the fire station and the sub shop and the dog-grooming place. The air smells like mud and new things being born in mud. Instead of feeling refreshed, I feel like I’m under mud too. Mr. Garcia gave me five days of detention. Five! The world just has no sympathy sometimes. Gene kissed someone else. My worlds finally got in the way of each other. Everything’s coming apart. Where am I going? Where do people go?

I keep going past the center of town, toward the office buildings, the strip malls, the dump. The muscles in my legs burn as I run up a sand hill in the back of a parking lot. The hill is high enough that I can maybe figure out where to go from here. When I get to the top and the only view is more parking lots and sand and office buildings, Evelyn’s voice rings in my head, pouring her heart out about philosophy: It’s not just an academic subject. It’s the consciousness we bring to our lives. I laugh out loud in between gasps of catching my breath.

Suddenly I get it. People don’t ask questions because they want to give another generation of kids too much homework to do. People ask questions because they’re scared and confused and lonely and exhausted and tiny and outraged and at one point really, really unsure of everything they never thought to question. The universe is wild and chaotic and untrustworthy and for some reason we’re here in the middle of it ordering lattes.

Dear Universe,

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO JUST REALIZED THIS IS FUCKING ABSURD?

“Cham?” my mom says when I get home. My feet are more blister than skin, and I leave my combat boots at the door. “Would you like to tell me why I got a call from school?” she asks, leaning against the doorway of the mudroom.

I sigh. “It was just a week of detention from stupid Mr. Garcia.”

“Detention?” my mom says incredulously. She grabs the bottle of Pledge off the floor and sprays the area by our feet. “What detention?”

“Um, just a small five-day penalty in the grand scheme of things. I didn’t even hear Mr. Garcia give it to me; school just sent an e-mail. Like how impersonal do you get?”

She makes a tsking noise and continues spraying the floor as she makes her way into the living room. I figure I’d better follow her. “It was your English teacher who called, and it wasn’t about detention. She says you haven’t turned in your college essay, and she’s very worried about you.” I sink into the couch and she sits next to me. “I know I haven’t been focused enough on your schoolwork, but I thought you had it under control.” She looks at me with her asymmetrical eyebrows, which is exactly where I got them from. “I’m guessing that if you haven’t finished your essay, you haven’t finished college applications.”