I check the time on my phone. Only five more minutes till the bell rings and I’m freed from the hell that is AP Bio. I’m so tired of everyone here talking about the ademavirus like it’s going to be the end of the world. Climate change is already the end of the world, and no one ever seems to take me seriously when I bring it up. Then again, I’m the type who likes to be prepared for disasters. I keep a suitcase in my car with extra pajamas, underwear, and clothes in case a wildfire hits and we have to evacuate. I live in a state whose weather report says “Unhealthy air quality for sensitive groups” every single day. It’s only a matter of time before we’ll have to outrun smoke inhalation. And yet, none of my fellow seniors can even bother to recycle their empty Coke cans. If only Greta Thunberg would show up to our school in a carbon-neutral jet and smack some goddamn sense into them.

I’m not entirely convinced the contraband was the real issue for my parents. I think they were more upset that I told my mom I hated her after she sent Gabriela home in the middle of the night. I’ve never snapped at them or told them I hated them (out loud), but after my fear of dying wore off, the vodka-gummy cocktail made me feel invincible. I don’t normally exude that much attitude because, for the most part, I generally tolerate my parents. Why wouldn’t I? It’s not like I see much of them anyway. They usually work twelve-hour days, and when they are home, their faces are usually buried in their phones or laptops. They’re both engineers at Apple who like to blame their obsession with work on their immigrant mentality, which rings pretty hollow, because they’re not actually your typical foreign parents. They’re not even really foreign at all.

For starters, they were both kids when they moved to America, so they grew up here. They don’t have accents. In fact, my mom says she has an American accent when she speaks Farsi, which I find hilarious. My Iranian accent is flawless because I insisted on getting a tutor when I was a kid. I’m even more fluent in Farsi than my older sister, Neda. It’s probably one of the few things I’m better at than her. Speaking Farsi and being a human being with a heart. Those are the little victories you hold on to when you’re related to someone who called Princeton their safety school (she’s a freshman at Yale). And even though my parents are more American Iranian than they are Iranian American, do you know what my mom said to me when I told her I hated her?

“You’re starting to sound like one of those disrespectful white kids.”