“Saylor can’t help it. It’s her default setting,” my best friend and co-captain Emma Watkins contributes as she mixes whatever disgusting cocktail she’s come up with tonight.

I flip Emma off. “I’m just being honest,” I retort from my perch on the kitchen counter as I drum my bare feet against the cabinet below the butcher block. My body is thrumming with excess energy. The last time I missed my daily run was three months ago, thanks to the snowstorm that hit right before the start of winter break.

If only extreme weather were at fault today. Instead, there was my father’s unexpected phone call, followed by a half-hour lecture from my older sister Hallie to detail the many, many ways in which I did not respond appropriately to the news that our father is getting remarried sixteen years after our mother zoomed off solo into the metaphorical sunset.

Actually, lecture is probably the wrong word.

Hallie made it clear my lackluster “okay” wasn’t what our father was hoping for, but most of our conversation was her going on about how wonderful it is that our father is finally settling down with an age-appropriate, stable woman who’s just as boring as he is. I added the last adjective—boring—in my mind while I painted my nails bubblegum pink and scrolled through social media on my laptop. I wouldn’t have even indulged the conversation if not for the fact that Hallie’s eight months pregnant. She’s a worrier, and I didn’t want sending her into an early labor on my conscience.

“Ignore her, Anne. She’s having a bad day, and she’s drunk,” Cressida explains, smoothing things over like always—as she literally spreads chocolate icing.

I shrug because both are true. Doesn’t mean I’m wrong about the bright yellow top, but I don’t care enough to press the point. I’ve got other things to worry about, like which sports team captain to bring back here tonight. I’ve narrowed it down to lacrosse or hockey when Anne interrupts my inner debate.

“Bad day? I thought you were celebrating, Saylor?”

I shrug again. My interest in sharing what prompted my quick trip from euphoric morning to vexed afternoon is nonexistent. Given the fact that I’m the only player on Lancaster University’s women’s soccer team who has never had a family member attend a game, I’m sure my teammates have all surmised my upbringing was not the idyllic white-picket-fence-golden-retriever fantasy many of them took for granted. The best part of coming to Lancaster was finally shedding the sympathetic stares regarding my perennial lack of parenting. I’m in no mood to expound upon my fractured family—even to my best friends. It will either lead to pitiful looks and awkward apologies, or more of the amateur-family-therapist lines Hallie spouts at me.