“Ridley, look at it from my perspective. I don’t know where you’re from, or who your parents are, and Jubilee won’t tell me anything. She’s never shut us out like this. And maybe coming to you directly is a violation of her privacy, but she’s put you at the center of her universe, and I just want to make sure that you deserve to be there.”

“I don’t,” I say, biting hard on the inside of my cheek.

And she frowns.

I scratch the back of my neck. “But I’m trying to be someone who does.”

She smiles at that, like it just assuaged all her fears or something. And I realize for the first time that this is someone who actually wants to be there, who wants to care about me. Who really wanted me to say the right thing. And I think I just did?

liar

“You’re a good egg, Ridley.” She comes up behind me, her hand burning into my skin when she places it on my shoulder. Because I think she just gave me her blessing, but also it’s Friday, and I have to go write up another fake report for my dad.

I swallow hard, my skin crawling. I have to stop this. Today.

She squeezes my shoulder again. “I’m sorry for pushing. I just—I’m a mom. It’s what we do.”

I nod like I know what that means.

“I have to go.” I grab my hoodie, push open the glass door, and walk the three miles back to my house, clutching my skateboard like a shield, trying to buy myself time to figure this out.

I want to say just the right thing when I get home, the thing to show that I’m mature, that I’ve thought this through, that I’m more than the inconvenience my mom thinks I am—she’s barely called since I’ve been here—or the fuckup that my dad does.

That I’ve watched enough Captain America movies to know right from wrong, and this is wrong. That maybe if they let me, I could start a life here, maybe enroll in public school like a regular kid, even if I have to repeat my senior year. That it’s not worth it to nibble on the scraps of their attention anymore, begging for it like a starving dog.

That I could have a life and friends and a future, and maybe that wasn’t anybody’s intention when I came here, but it could be the outcome.

But when I get home and I knock on the door to Dad’s study, he pulls it open like I’m bothering him somehow, and it all goes out the window. I stand there for a second, trying to steel my nerves—What would Steve Rogers do?—but he just raises his eyebrows and says, “I’m on a call, Ridley.”