Chloe CHAPTER 51 BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS

December 27–29

I naively hoped the next few days would revert back to what ’rents time had been before Andrew, but there were too many emotions in the way.

“Do you want to play mahjong?” I had asked my parents the first night it was just us, but my mother had simply huffed, “We don’t have a fourth,” even though my entire life thus far had been us playing a three-person version with some tiles removed. Somehow Drew’s one-time addition had shifted that—though, really, I knew that wasn’t it. She was still mad at me.

The next day I asked if she wanted to go shopping—I was so desperate I might’ve even tried on some whale tails to make her smile—but she had said there wasn’t enough time, all the good inventory had been bought up for Christmas, her favorite salesperson was on vacation, and her farmers’ calendar dictated she be frugal today. So many reasons, I had responded, and she hadn’t laughed.

I tried not to, but I also hovered around my father. I brought him water and snacks like a sad dog that knows something is wrong but can’t say what. Then I would get scared I was making it too obvious that I knew about the cancer, so I’d keep my distance for the next hour. I was like a frantic Ping-Pong ball, and between that and my spiraling thoughts at night, I felt more unmoored than I had in a long time.

I tried to focus my energy on other things: planning out my coursework for the rest of my college years, reading ahead for my upcoming quarter, putting so much extra time into my research-assistant gig I worried the professor would think I had no life.

And I plotted how to lighten at least one of the weights between my parents and me. Because I couldn’t live with myself otherwise.

Five days after ridding myself of the Kuos—though it felt more like a lifetime, to be honest—I reentered the belly of the beast. I pulled up to the gross white columns, the mere sight of the pillars making me want to hurl chunks. This was not going to be fun. But it was still better than many of the alternatives, like coming here to visit my fiancé, or waiting in a not-quite-Lamborghini for a visit to Prime Strip.