“We did this in my sisters’ dorm rooms every year. Trust me.” I take a cup and walk up to one of the walls, smearing some toothpaste on it. “Just smear a little in the hole. It dries white.”

Joanie takes a paper cup from me. “I think I can handle this. Thanks, Aiden.” She exaggerates my name, like she’s trying to prove she knows it. “Olivia, do you think you can make dinner for us? I’ve been cleaning this place all day and I’m starving.”

“We actually had somewhere to go.” Olivia’s voice sounds disappointed but also unsure.

“We can do the thing another night,” I say. “I’ve probably hijacked you for long enough today.”

“Okay,” she says, her voice still disappointed. “Or—you could stay and have dinner with us, if you want.”

“I make really good tacos,” I say. Once we were old enough my mom always had my sisters and I make dinner once a week. Tacos have always been my specialty.

Olivia smiles. “That sounds awesome.”

“Zander who?” Joanie yells from the other room, and I laugh. Olivia may not be a big fan, but I’m still glad to have won her mom over. Who knew toothpaste and tacos could be so helpful?

Chapter

Thirteen

AIDEN

I don’t wake up in the morning and think, Man, my vision is shit. Maybe I would, if I had a pair of glasses I put on every morning that made my vision not shit. But as it is, this is just how I see. It wasn’t some dramatic, overnight change; I didn’t even realize I had a problem until I ran off the road two months ago, when I mistook a trashcan for a person, and swerved to miss it, plowing into the ditch. That accident got me a bill for body damage that wiped out my birthday money since I was ten, and an appointment with Dr. Shah. And then a follow-up appointment with two others, shots in my eye, and my car keys snatched.

I don’t realize how bad my right eye is until I close it. During the day, I notice it the most when I’m trying to read something, like the tiny menu on the back wall of The Grill. Because unlike my phone or our training scripts at work, I can’t move that stupid menu any closer to my face.