“What’s the buzz, little bee?” Aunt Sarah flicks me on the shoulder as she passes me in the kitchen. I’m perched atop a stool at the island, and while my math book is open on one side of me, my computer is filled with words. I tip the screen down just slightly, to obscure it. “Still writing, I see.” She laughs at her rhyming. I’d roll my eyes at anyone else, but something about how much she doesn’t give a crap just makes me love her so much more. “Oh em gee.”

“Okay, just stop.” I laugh as she opens the refrigerator and pulls out the carton of lemonade.

“Sorry. When you wear that, you know I just can’t help it. Brings back memories.” She mock sighs and looks up dramatically, like her memories are locked up in a little cloud hovering overhead in our kitchen.

I look down at the yellow shirt and black leggings I’m wearing, and it does bear a slight resemblance to the bumblebee costume I was obsessed with in elementary school. It had black tights and a striped black-and-yellow body that looked like I’d gutted a giant stuffed animal, and inserted myself into it like a striped version of Big Bird. My mom had brought it home with her after she returned from wherever it was she had wandered off to. I didn’t know back then, but if I had to guess now, it was probably somewhere with our neighbor, Mr. Hoyle, whose wife moved out sometime shortly after. She was always scowling at our house.

Every day when I came home from kindergarten, I would pull my bumblebee outfit on, and spend the rest of the night buzzing about my Oma’s living room. Aunt Sarah would always come over for dinner when I was there—which was most of elementary school and the first half of middle school, before I moved in with her in seventh grade. She’d always greet me and my stripy legs with, “What’s the buzz, little bee?” I bet she wished I’d still been that cute when I moved in with her in seventh grade. It probably should have been weird for me to move in with her when I was twelve, but Aunt Sarah and I clicked right from the start. Probably because I never had a “normal” life. Aunt Sarah always made me feel like she wanted me at her house, and that’s all I ever wanted.