“Mom. I’m not going,” I said.

“I can’t stay home or we’ll go broke.”

“I’ll stay inside. I won’t get in trouble.”

I could tell she didn’t know what to do or say.

“I’m not dumb. You can leave me alone for a few hours.”

She leaned against the counter in the little kitchen. I shouldn’t have confused her by getting dressed like I was going to school. I should have stayed in bed so it was clear.

“Rodney, do you want to talk about your dad? About what happened?”

“No,” I said. “I know what happened and I don’t want to talk about it right now. If you try, I’ll…”

She waited.

“Run away,” I said. “Or join a gang.”

I could tell she didn’t believe me. I didn’t believe me either.

“A water polo gang,” I said, so she knew I wasn’t serious.

“You can’t put off going back to school forever.”

That’s where she was wrong. I am very good at putting things off.

“We’re going to see your dad this weekend,” she said. “And I think we need to clear the air. Deal with reality.”

I shrugged. I was taking a mentally healthy day. That’s what my dad used to call it when he stayed home from work. There were only a few. One time he taught me how to play blackjack until Mom reminded him of the no cards at home rule. It was fun, just me and him doing something together.

After trying to make me go to school for a little while longer, my mom gave up. She went to work and left me at home by myself, which is probably illegal.

I tried to play games, but no one was online, probably because they were in school. I thought about messaging you, but then remembered that we aren’t speaking.

I watched YouTube videos on the laptop for a while, but my mom has the censorship level cranked up so far, I might as well be five.

Then I had a snack.

By the time it was 10:00 a.m. I was really bored. My mom called and asked how I was.

“Fine,” I said. “Doing homework.”

Which wasn’t a total lie. I put the books on the kitchen table in a way that looked homework-y in case she came home for lunch. I totally planned to do homework at some point in the future, but not right now.

At 10:20 a.m. someone knocked on the door.

For the first time, I felt nervous. This was basically the first time I’d been left home alone without an adult around. If there was a criminal murderer at the door, the little house didn’t even have an alarm or a housekeeper to call the police or anything.

Then the doorbell rang.