Like I said, it was a Band-Aid. But, my God, had we taken a gigantic step forward.

Drew CHAPTER 34 UTERUS IN

While Chloe was upstairs talking to her mother, I paced the living room so many times I left a giant oval in the carpet.

I used to pretend I was a balls-in kind of guy, chasing after my art dream. But in real life, I’d been floating in purgatory for years, refusing to break that final tie to my parents.

Chloe had gone for it. Balls (uterus?) in, pregnancy gun blazing. She was continually going after what she wanted—first by hiring me, then by finding another solution when that wasn’t working.

When I’d told her earlier on the couch that she’d been inspiring, I’d meant it. In the aftermath of her declaration, I was rethinking my life decisions, wondering why I hadn’t at least done something to get my art out there. Before, it had seemed bet-everything-on-red scary, but now it felt reckless not to have tried.

As I shuffled my feet to erase the oval path, I vowed to do better. To at least try. Baby steps were okay, but I didn’t want to be treading water anymore, not when there was no one coming to rescue me. Like Chloe, I needed to be my own knight in shining armor.

Chloe CHAPTER 35 WONTONS

When my mother and I came downstairs, Drew had made dinner for us.

“Aiyah, Andrew!” my mother yelled at full volume. “You are the nicest person in the world.” Then she gave me a pointed look that seemed to say, See? I can do what you asked.

It was so much I had to stifle a laugh. As I said before, she had two extremes. And I guess this—so polite it was fake—was technically better than so honest you wished she’d lie.

I pointed to the closest bowl of wonton soup. “Are these…?” I trailed off, not wanting to bring up Hongbo in front of my mother. But Drew knew that I was asking if these were the very wontons that had been thrown at him earlier.

“Why waste them?” he said with a shrug and a smirk.

This time I failed to stifle my laugh, but my mother was too busy preparing a tray to notice.

“Jing-Jing, will you bring dinner up to Bǎbá?” she asked. “Don’t worry, I’ll continue to be nice to Andrew.”

Even though I knew this was a ploy to get me to talk to my father, even though I was dreading it for multiple reasons—seeing him sick, not getting answers to my questions, accepting the consequences of the grenade I’d set off at the party—I steeled my shoulders and ripped the Band-Aid off.

I rap-rap-rapped on my parents’ bedroom door with my elbow, my hands grasping the tray of soup tightly so it wouldn’t spill as I knocked.