Doors slammed, tires crunched over branches, and voices filled the rest of my short walk home. I thought about dinner at my dad’s tonight and what forced conversation we would have during at least three courses. Half of it would be about my brother, of that I was sure.

I had to be at dinner by seven, which meant getting ready to leave my house by six forty. I needed to shower and put civilian clothes on, even if I was giving my appearance minimal effort. My dad had stopped commenting on my looks once I’d lost enough “extra pounds” to please him. Small mercies, I guess.

I really wanted to stay home and eat leftovers with Elodie. Sure, dinner once a week was better than living there—by far. But I hated the task of it. Every week since moving out I’d told myself the same thing: that I’d get used to the routine. I hated that my entire week revolved around Tuesday at seven. When I did my laundry, when I washed my hair, when I brushed my teeth, when I worked—it all had to fit around this dinner. I guess I wasn’t as much of a grown-up as I thought.

CHAPTER TEN

I was starting to hate Facebook. Every single time I opened the app, there was a newborn baby, a proposal, or a death. If it wasn’t that, it was politics, with everyone shouting so loudly they couldn’t hear what everyone else was saying. The whole thing was exhausting and I had barely posted in months. I never felt like I did anything important enough to share with people I hardly knew. And unlike Sarah Chessman, who had moved away my senior year at Spencer High, I didn’t feel like every Crockpot meal or selfie was social-media-worthy.

But out of slightly bitchy curiosity, and a tiny bit of envy I’d never admit to, and because I had another few minutes to waste on my walk home, I went to Sarah Chessman’s page to scroll through her boring life. Maybe it was the fact that I was walking home through the back alley and my feet hurt like hell, or that I’d be knocking on my dad’s door in an hour, but Sarah’s life actually looked legitimately eventful. She had a husband—a newly minted soldier stationed in Texas—and she was pregnant. I watched a ten-second video of her opening a box full of pink balloons, revealing the gender of her soon-to-arrive baby. Gender-reveal parties were starting to piss me off. What was the point? Why did people spend money on them? If I ever had one, who would even come?