“Thanks, dudes,” I said. “Glad I didn’t have to do that by myself.”

“You’d have done the same for us,” said Carter.

“By the way,” Austin added, “you’re still a total idiot.”

“Um,” I feigned confusion, “that’s not what your mother said last night.”

Austin kicked my ankle.

Carter gave me a fist bump.

Jeff Karvotsky still didn’t notice the garden on his back.

And that contented feeling, like I truly belonged somewhere, lasted until I got home.

The stench of the messy kitchen hit before I walked in, and not in the good way, like when you overfill your blender and your peanut butter protein smoothie explodes into the heavens and you try to make a fun game of catching it in your mouth as it drips from the ceiling. Super fun.

Both of my parents sat at the kitchen table, surrounded by take-out boxes and soy sauce. There were two Chinese places in our town. One of them was pretty good, and the other was cheap, deep fried, and just the right kind of salty. My parents ordered from the cheap place in one situation: they were stress-eating.

“Hi,” I said.

My dad sat with a pile of bills in front of him, which he read in between bites of crab rangoon. My mom held her head in her hands, with a full glass of white wine in front of her. An actual calculator—like real-life, not on her phone—was next to the wine.

“This why you ditched us at practice?” I asked.

“You’re lucky we saved you dinner,” my mom said.

“Are you guys going to tell me what’s going on?”

My dad kept his focus on the stack of papers while my mom shook her head. “Everything’s okay. Your college applications are going to cost more than we expected.”

“Quite a bit more,” said my dad, “though Clarkebridge will totally be worth it.”

I eyed the greasy take-out boxes. Long brown noodles sat in a puddle of oil with some squashed green beans.

“So, yes, this is why you left us all at practice?”

My mom pointed to an empty plate and chopsticks, under the bills she worked on.

“Easy, tiger,” she said. “We’re doing this for you.”

The lady should really get an award for her ability to guilt-trip me. Then again, maybe that’s what moms are for.

The other take-out boxes made the oily noodles look gourmet.

“Do we have any other food?”

“Not really,” said my mom. “Want to take a trip to the store?” She had her wallet in her hand about five seconds later, already ushering me out the door.

“Get bread and whatever you want. Not anything too crazy.”

“Okay,” I said.

She closed the door with a loud click.

Interesting . . . my parents didn’t usually try to get rid of me. Nor did they let me buy whatever I wanted for groceries.

Chocolate chip cookies for dinner it would be.

Knee-deep in the bread aisle of the local grocery store, I searched for the perfect loaf. Bad timing. Parents and nine-to-fivers filled the place with their evening shopping and jostled into me like it was Black Friday. A guy who was five inches taller than me and easily twenty pounds heavier studied the bread beside me, and I almost lost it. I could only imagine having to wrestle him for the cinnamon raisin kind.