I scan the place for Kitty so we can get this over with. The mother lode herself is ass-up in the fourth aisle shelving issues of Squirrel Girl, wearing a crop top that’s wildly out of season, suspenders, and a cat ear headband. Her tiny butt is emphatically swaying to whatever is streaming through her hot-pink earbuds.

“Over here,” I say to Will, pointing.

He grabs the sleeve of my hoodie and tugs me in the opposite direction. “Don’t let her see us!” he says, his eyes wide as he looks for a place to hide.

“Isn’t seeing her the point?” I ask, amused by the panicked expression he’s wearing.

“But how do I approach her without it being weird?” he whispers.

“Just go buy the latest issue of Squirrel Girl,” I say. It’s hilarious that he’s asking me for advice about how not to be weird.

“But what should I say?” He runs his fingers through his hair again, making an even bigger mess of it.

“Ask her if she wants to study together or something. Don’t you both have Cass for history?” I can’t believe I’m having to coach him through this given that I’ve got the social skills of a potted plant and would communicate entirely in integrals, surrealist paintings, and spaceship blueprints if I could get away with it.

“You’re a genius,” he says, and bounces on his toes before heading back to the aisle where Kitty is. I flop down into one of the beanbag chairs at the front of the shop and stare at a mobile of the solar system hanging overhead. The planets move slowly, pushed by air coming through a vent in the ceiling. It bothers me that the model isn’t to scale, even though that’s impossible: if Earth were the size of a dime, proportionally Jupiter would be half a mile away. I hope someday I’ll be one of the people who helps figure out how to cross those unfathomable distances. Maybe I’ll even engineer machines capable of exploring new planets. I love finding the intersection between math and art where designs are born, whether it’s a miniature rocket my dad helped me build or the pinecone catapult I got in trouble for testing on the mailman’s truck when I was ten.

Will’s face looms over me a few minutes later, his grin so wide I can practically see his molars. “She said yes!”