But I barely heard her. Because I was panicking, sweating, about to yell “Fire!” if not for the fact that it was illegal.

Yes, obviously I was going to tell my parents the truth tonight anyway, but on my own terms, not with an epic explosion to rival Christmas Eve.

And to think, when I’d arrived home just an hour ago, my parents had been aglow asking me about Andrew and his family. We’d finally reached a peaceful, happy, albeit fake place, and I couldn’t even have that for one second.

Jing-Jing, we are happy for you and Andrew, my mother had said to me in the car on the way here. We wish we had behaved differently in the beginning, though I stand by my motivation of watching out for you. But… maybe I have some regrets too. Well, not regrets. But, just, well, I hope Andrew is not mad. Maybe I even wish he were here right now.

It had both warmed my heart and sunk it to my pelvic floor. How much of her fondness for him was based on his made-up history? How much was because of the real him? And in that moment, for a split second, I had wavered on my decision to tell them the truth, a teeny-tiny voice in my head whispering, Is it that bad to ride the wave I paid Rent for Your ’Rents for, just a little while longer?

But because of my mother’s love of buns, everything was a moment away from crashing into each other, quite literally. It hadn’t happened already only because my father was playing Sudoku on his phone and my mother was fumbling with her purse, trying to find the reusable plastic bags she kept in there. I had about three seconds to decide what to do. Before they looked up. Before they saw Drew. Couldn’t he just feign diarrhea and run away? To be fair, he had managed to divert his client’s family in the other direction briefly, but they were clearly antsy to get to the café now.

Without thinking and without knowing what else to do, I yelled, “Stop!” to my parents.

They indeed did stop, but then my mother said, “Andrew?”

Because Drew and his client’s family were close enough to have also heard me yell, they had stopped in their tracks too, looking over to see what the commotion was about. And even though Drew had his back to us, my mother apparently knew what his backside looked like. Maybe he had too many buns, although that hadn’t been a bad thing until now.

“Hunh?” my father said, still not looking up from his phone.

“Eh, are these friends of yours, Andrew?” the client’s mother asked.

My mother looked from Drew to me, confused. “Jing-Jing, you said he was spending today with his parents and flying out tomorrow!”

The client suddenly understood, panic taking over her face.