I DON’T MEAN to overhear. I’m not even trying to eavesdrop, I swear. It’s just that the store is so small, and Vera talks so loud, and with all the windows shut because of another cold snap, there’s not even the sound of traffic to drown it out.

Which is why I’m awkwardly reorganizing the comics in the dollar bin and trying not to listen to Vera yelling at Peak for hanging out with me too much. She’s shouting that it’s distracting her from school, that she got a C-plus on a test for the first time in her life, that she never sees her other friends anymore, and that she doesn’t spend enough time with her family. I hate knowing I’m a part of that. I hate that I’m dulling her shine—that instead of her pulling me up, I’m dragging her down—and now she’s lying to her family the way I’ve been lying to mine.

Which, speaking of, her parents apparently also want to meet my parents, which can’t happen for very obvious reasons, the biggest being that the second she sees my dad, she’ll know exactly who he is, and who I am by default, and how I ended up in her shop. She’s been grumbling about my dad more lately too—especially since he responded to her latest op-ed by going on a ten-tweet rant about the dangers of idolizing indie shops to the point where we ignore the “evolving landscape of our industry.” Yesterday, Vera even made a joke that my dad probably has a whole team working on a plan to “evolve her right out of his way.” Which made me feel like shit, because it’s true.

I should tell her the truth, or I should go. Or maybe both.

Jubilee raises her voice at Vera then, shouting that she’s going to college in a year, that this is her life, that there’s more to it than textbooks. I want to go and break it up; I don’t want them to fight because of me. I shouldn’t even still be here, and I know it. We’ve been on borrowed time ever since I sent that first text.

And it’s always the wrong thing, no matter what I do. It’s lies on top of lies on top of lies, all of it, and god, Vera is the mom I wish I had, and Jubilee is the person I’ve always dreamed of meeting, but this is all a house of cards, trembling on a foundation made of sand, and I can’t breathe.