I paused.

“If you want me to shut up, I will.” I laughed nervously, realizing that this guy hadn’t given me anything and I was telling him stuff I had never told anyone. Half of me saw the red flags, and the other half ignored them because it just felt good to be around him. It crossed my mind that I could make up anything I wanted about my mom if I felt like it. I didn’t have to tell him the truth about her. I could make her out to be the villain who abandoned her kids, or a sympathetic free spirit who escaped the ties of a life she was forced to live but never wanted.

He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. I stopped talking.

“Go on.”

There was something too casually cool about him. He was close to the line of arrogant and I could feel how sure of himself he was. I envied it. The way he knew exactly who he was and didn’t have to say it or show it off. His attentive listening made it clear he wasn’t a narcissist. I’ve met enough of them to know.

“One year she really went to town. The year before . . .” I paused. I wasn’t ready to decide which version of my mother I would put in the story I was telling Kael. “She decorated the whole house in those lights from Spencer’s, even a freaking disco ball. Do you remember that store? They had the most absurd T-shirts and penis-shaped everything.”

He nodded.

“They had these disco lights and my mom put them around our living room and kitchen. All of our friends came over. I mean, I only had like three friends, most of the kids came for Austin. We always had a packed house. I had this boyfriend, Josh, and he brought me cornbread. That was my birthday gift.”

I didn’t know why I was going into such detail, but I was so lost in my own memories that I just kept going.

“I never figured out why he brought me cornbread. Maybe his mom had it lying around? Or was it a snarky joke about my weight that I didn’t get at the time? . . . I don’t know. But I remember getting this karaoke machine and thinking it was the coolest present ever, and my mom went into her room and locked the door during the party so we could feel older than we were and not be chaperoned the entire time. Of course, we ended up playing one of those stupid party games and I had to kiss a boy named Joseph, who actually overdosed on heroin a few months ago . . .”

I could feel Kael looking at me, but it was the weirdest thing—I couldn’t stop myself from talking. We were at another red light. The sky was pitch-black and the red lights were reflecting off his dark skin.