I END UP BUMMING A ride home from Colton of all people. His truck is littered with toothpicks from his disgusting teeth-picking habit, and he has a bloodied zombie air freshener dangling from his rearview mirror. I’m tempted to ask what scents zombies come in, but ultimately decide I don’t want to know.

I’m still wallowing in self-pity, so I don’t mind when Colton cranks up his screamo music instead of making conversation. He shakes his head to the whines of the guitars as he drives, his long hair flying into his eyes. I clutch my armrest in case I need to brace for impact.

“Left on Rosebrush?” he asks when the song ends.

“Actually, can you drop me off at the 7-Eleven?”

Colton nods and makes a right. I don’t want anyone near my house. Not when Peach, Nonnie, and Saylor are around. I can’t chance anything getting back to Margaret, especially since she has the final say in sending me back to Portland with Aunt June.

When Colton pulls up to the 7-Eleven parking lot, I get out and shut the door. Before he drives off, he rolls down his window and sticks his head out. His light-brown hair is tangled from his elaborate thrashing.

“You sure you don’t want a ride home?” His fingers drum on the body of the car. “I can wait.”

Offering is beyond chivalrous for Colton, who doesn’t think twice about calling girls dude and publicly refers to his man-part as the Socket Rocket. But I know he wants to get straight to his band practice where he can re-create the same thrashing music that I had the pleasure of listening to on our short drive.

I wave him off. “Nah, this is perfect.”

“Oh, hey.” Colton leans over on his arm. “Our first show is coming up in October. You should come. I’ll text you the details.”

“Yeah, okay,” I hear myself say, my mind still processing everything that happened today. More specifically, Whitney and Jay. Jay-and-Whitney. Jitney?

My stomach roils.

I give him a small wave. “Thanks again.”

Colton nods, then blasts his music before driving away.

I’m only a five-minute walk from home, so it’s not a big deal. I know it’s pitiful to honor the Slurpee tradition by myself, but I’m in a mopey mood and don’t feel like going straight to my house. I still feel the blow from the Jay and Whitney news. It was wrong of me to neglect my friends, but isn’t going out with your friend’s ex wrong, too?

I wander down the cool aisles of 7-Eleven. I have to be okay with this. Everyone else already is. If I’m not, I won’t look like a good friend—and I already earned that label when I didn’t keep in touch with them in Portland.

I reach for the waxy, plastic cup and watch the dispenser distribute my red slush. I pay, then step out into the sticky afternoon and make my way home.

When I open the front door, I’m greeted by a warm, garlicky scent. It has to be my dad’s homemade marinara sauce. I would always beg him to make it for me when I was little, and he’d tell me that if I ate too much I’d start growing noodles out of my nose. The nostalgia catches me off guard.

Loud laughter erupts from the kitchen, immediately bringing me back to reality. I consider which would be less painful: walking into my kitchen that’s full of weird strangers my dad has brought home or rubbing chopped onions into my eyeballs.

“Is that you, Goose?” my father calls.

My shining opportunity to sneak unannounced upstairs is gone. I set my bags by the front door and head into the kitchen.

As expected, my father is leaning over an enormous pot of bubbling tomato sauce. Peach is beside him slicing a loaf of French bread. Her hair is pulled back in a giant clip and she’s wearing a floral apron. And heels. I don’t know a single person who could possibly be comfortable cooking in heels.

It’s strange seeing so many people in Grams’s kitchen. I used to find her in here after school cooking dinner. I’d start to tell her about my day, but instead of letting me stand there talking to her she’d put me to work chopping up whatever vegetable she needed.

“Hope you’re hungry!” my dad says once I’m in sight. “Dinner will be ready in the next hour or so.”

I wonder if I can fake cramps and avoid dinner altogether.

Nonnie is sitting on one of our barstools, transfixed by my dad’s laptop screen as she watches some video on YouTube. Her navy blouse has neon-green cheetahs printed all over in an eccentric pattern. It’s clear she has an obsession with multicolored safari animals. At least she’s ditched the cat slippers.

“How was your day?” Peach asks, smiling. She’s still wearing that too-bright magenta lipstick.

“Fine.” Although I really want to just say, Why do you even care?

Nonnie swivels around on her barstool to face me. “What is that?”

I follow her gaze and look down at my Slurpee cup. “I stopped by 7-Eleven after school.”

She frowns. “All that sugar in your teeth will have you looking like a jack-o’-lantern.”

It’s a joke, but it feels like an accusation. I make a huge gesture of slurping down the last bit of liquid at the bottom before throwing it in the trash.

Nonnie plays another video, and immediately I hear music starting up. From over her shoulder, I see she’s watching one of Queen’s live performances. As if I didn’t hear enough of it this morning. When Freddie Mercury takes the stage, Nonnie claps and hollers as if he can hear her. I wonder if anyone’s told her that the internet doesn’t work that way.

“Peach is teaching me how to make her basil marinara sauce,” my dad says. “She’s a chef.”

“Oh, stop.” Peach swats him with the dishcloth in her hands. She turns to face me. “I’m not. I’m just a big foodie.”

Nonnie waves her off. “She’s being modest.”

I stand there with my hands in my pockets. They’re going about this so casually, as if they’ve lived here for years. I never thought I’d feel so awkward in my own home—a place that was once my sanctuary. Now I’d be lucky to ever find a moment’s peace to watch Crime Boss in my ratty sweats.

The back door swings open. Saylor walks in carrying my old boom box that I haven’t seen in years. His face is beaded with sweat, but he’s smiling as if it’s seventy outside instead of ninety.

Peach looks up from rubbing roasted garlic on the slices of bread. “How was your practice?”

I look at him, wondering what he could possibly be practicing.

“Awesome.” He notices me, his face brightening. “Hey, Kira. Your dad told me you dance. You should join next time if you want.”

“You dance?” He doesn’t seem like a pirouette kind of guy.

Saylor laughs. “No, yoga. I mean, I practice yoga. But it helps with flexibility and technique and inner strength. Balances your chakras and all that.”

“Sounds very… Zen,” is all I can think to say.

“We did a lot of yoga at the ranch,” my dad explains, then turns to Saylor. “You hungry?”

He grins. “Like an ostrich!”

I look from my dad to Peach, wondering if this is some inside joke that I’m not in on.

Saylor must sense my confusion because he looks at me and says, “Ostriches have three stomachs.”

I blink. “Right.”

After Saylor heads upstairs to shower, my dad turns to me and says, “Can you set the table, Goose?”

As much as I would rather hide out in my room, I begrudgingly obey. I grab five plates from our cabinet and start placing them around the table. The faster this is all over, the faster I can escape.

It’s strange. After Grams passed away, the house felt smaller. Emptier. I never expected it to feel crowded again without her.

When I was little, way too young to remember, my dad obtained full custody of me. He met my mom in college during their senior year, and from what Grams shared with me, they’d only been seeing each other for a few months when she became pregnant. He supported her through it, but not too long after I was born she got herself in trouble selling drugs and served a hefty amount of jail time.

After she was released, she didn’t have any interest in getting to know me, and the feeling was mutual. I had Grams and my dad. That was enough.

You’d think an unplanned pregnancy would result in a lengthy sex talk, but my father’s version involved awkwardly setting a twenty-four-pack of condoms on my dresser when I started dating Jay. Which—OH MY GOD—we hadn’t even kissed at that point.

My dad moved back in with Grams to take care of me, completing his last few university credits online and skipping his graduation ceremony altogether. Grams had done her best to fill the void of my absentee parent. I remember she used these colorful Styrofoam letters to help teach me the alphabet, and she’d let me prepare tea parties using her antique tea set. Birthdays were always momentous occasions with family trips to water parks and Six Flags. I could talk to her about things I couldn’t talk to my dad about: boys and bras and the proper application of eyeliner.

When Grams died, my dad wasn’t the only one who’d lost someone close to him.

I was lucky to have Whitney, Lin, and Raegan to turn to after she passed. I’d sleep over at Whitney’s house a lot, and her parents always went out of the way to make me feel comfortable. They even bought a toothbrush for me and kept it in her bathroom. Raegan made sure I stayed involved with school activities to keep my sadness out of my mind, and Lin was there whenever I did need to break down. The three of them, in their own way, helped me heal. But there were moments when I’d catch myself wondering what things would have been like if she was still alive.

Michael, my dad’s AA sponsor, would come around sometimes. Twelve years sober, Michael was a divorced IT technician who’d dedicated much of his life trying to save others from destructive behavior. My dad talked about him constantly. Sometimes he was happy with the twelve-step program and Michael’s help, and other times he was defensive and reclusive.

When Michael first started sponsoring my dad, he reached out to me through e-mail. One part in particular stuck out in my mind.

He was right. It was hard for me to understand. It still is.

I push aside the heaviness in my chest as I finish setting the table. A live rendition of “We Are the Champions” erupts through the computer speakers. I turn around to see Nonnie watching Freddie Mercury strut across the screen. It’s clear she’s enamored by his majestic presence, but I’m starting to wonder if she knows YouTube contains more than just Queen videos.

“How’re all your friends doing?” my dad asks. “I bet it was nice to see them.”

I sloppily drop forks on each napkin. “They’re fine.”

“You’re welcome to have Jay over for dinner anytime.”

I freeze at the mention of Jay. Did his brain jump in a time machine and forget to bring along the rest of us? I didn’t talk to my dad much after the intersection incident, but I assumed he knew that leaving behind Cedarville also meant leaving behind Jay. It wasn’t like I was gone for a few days. I was gone for almost an entire year.

I slam the last fork in place on the table. “We’re not going out anymore.”

“Is Jay short for Jason?” Nonnie asks, still staring at the screen.

I suppress the urge to roll my eyes.

“Oh, Goose, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Well,” I say, desperately not wanting to talk about this anymore. “Now you do.”

Peach slides the tray of garlic bread into the oven. “Boys care more about food than feelings, anyway. Best not to waste your time with them at this age.”

I feel my defenses rise. I didn’t ask for her advice. Besides, she doesn’t know anything about my relationship with Jay.

“I have homework,” is all I say before darting upstairs.

But I don’t get any homework done. Instead I lie on my bed and think about Jay and Whitney because apparently I’ve turned into a masochist. I can’t get rid of the mental image of her hand on his arm at lunch, and I’m tortured by the thought of them kissing. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get over this, so I send a text to Lin.

ME: how serious are they?

LIN: Who?

ME: jay and whit

LIN: Oh. Maybe 3 months? It happened over summer.

Three months is definitely enough time to get past first base with the possibility of second.

WHY am I TORTURING myself with this?

ME: oh.

LIN: Kira…

ME: i know. it’s fine. i’m fine.

LIN: It IS a little weird, but you know how fickle she can be with guys. Just ride it out. I doubt it’s going to last forever, you know?

Ride it out. Like I’m riding out this whole Sober Living strangers thing because of my dad. But Lin does have a point. Whitney’s known for quickly losing interest in guys and moving on to the next. So if it’s just another thing I have to ride out, I can pretend I’m okay with it. It shouldn’t be too hard.

Right?

I decide a subject change is necessary.

ME: what’s up with breck wanting to join decathlon?

LIN: Valerie Martinez is on the team and I’m pretty certain he has a thing for her

While it’s not implausible for Breck to want to go out of his way to impress a girl, the time and studying commitment seems like a lot. Even for him.

LIN: BUT… ugh, I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but he texted me a picture of his transcript and he wasn’t lying. His GPA would make him a perfect Scholastic student for the slot we have open.

ME: you could give him the chance?

She fires back with a string of stressed-out and eye-rolling emojis.

Dad calls me down for dinner. I’m too hungry to make a valid excuse for skipping, so I trudge back downstairs.

“That’s just ironic,” Peach is saying as I reappear in our dining room. She’s occupying Grams’s usual seat, which is weird, but I doubt she’s aware of it.

Saylor nods across from her. “More ironic than the Mall of America being owned by Canadians, which I told him—”

“You told the president of this company that his new mascot is ironic?” Peach interrupts, shocked.

Nonnie laughs, her gray curls shaking as she does. “While you were at it, did you alert him if his toupee was crooked?”

Saylor does not find this funny. I notice that he’s swapped his ribbed yoga tank and sweats for a clean yoga tank and sweats. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what he wore to the interview.

“If they wanted to hire me to rebrand the company, then they need to know that placing a chicken mascot on a vegetarian product makes no sense.”

My dad brings the bowl of spaghetti into the dining room, and I slide into the only empty chair, across from him. “Saylor was going to OSU for graphic design,” he tells me. “A company wants to bring someone aboard who could help out with its new redesign.”

I heap a pile of spaghetti on my plate. I don’t know why he’s trying so hard to involve me in their lives when they aren’t going to be here long.

Saylor is still adamant about his case. “On what planet is it okay to put a chicken on a vegetarian patty box?”

Nonnie reaches for the noodles once I’m done. “Maybe it was a metaphor?”

“Consumers don’t tend to have deep, metaphorical thoughts when walking down the frozen food aisle.”

“Unless they’ve been smoking the Mary Jane,” Nonnie points out.

Peach leaps in to quickly get the conversation back on track. “So the interview was a bust?”

“Basically,” Saylor replies, looking down at the leather and beaded bracelets on his arms. There are so many that they practically reach his elbows.

“Hey,” my dad says in his best rally-the-troops voice. “You still have an SS today. You were offered the interview in the first place.”

“A what?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.

My dad looks pleased with my interest in the matter. Which I’m not. The only thing I’m interested in is seeing them leave before Margaret finds out.

“Small Successes,” he explains. “Instead of dwelling on the negative, we’re encouraged to talk about any SS’s we experience each day.”

Oh. Right. Yet another takeaway from Sober Living.

Peach catches my eye from across the table. “Do you have an SS you want to share?”

Does getting through this dinner count?

“Uh,” I say. “No.”

“What about making it through your first day of eleventh grade?”

I cringe. Okay yeah, it is eleventh grade but nobody calls it that. It sounds so young. We’re juniors.

I grab a piece of garlic bread. “Sure.”

“I found some animal shelters who need extra help,” Nonnie replies.

“Excellent.” Dad passes me the marinara sauce. “You have to try this, Kira. It’s way better than my own recipe.”

I stubbornly drizzle the tiniest bit of sauce on my pasta. There’s nothing wrong with his recipe. It was perfectly fine before she showed up and changed it, but he watches in anticipation as I try a bite.

“Good,” I mumble, and I hate that it’s true.

I barely register what my dad’s saying as he talks about his first day of janitorial duty at the elementary school. This is the old Dad I’m used to—the encouraging, positive Dad who comes home from work, puts dinner on the table, and makes an effort to be involved with my life. I wouldn’t be here if Margaret thought he was unfit to take care of me, but that doesn’t mean I automatically trust him again.

We were both in denial for a long time after Grams died. One night when he was on the back patio finishing off a handle of whiskey, I googled alcohol addiction. There were bullet points that neatly described when someone should get help. Neglecting responsibilities. Escaping reality. Repeated disorderly conduct. Frequent, extreme mood swings.

I’d closed my laptop, telling myself I was overreacting. My dad was just upset because Grams was gone. He’d come out of it, but until then I would make our dinners and clean up his beer cans and place a glass of water by his bedside. If that’s what I had to do to make sure our days went smoother, then that’s what I did.

I don’t remember much of what Margaret told me at the station, but I do recall one thing she said to me.

“It’s okay, honey. Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t know.”

But that was the thing. I did know.

I haven’t been following anything they’ve been talking about through dinner, but Peach feels the need to bring the conversation back to me.

“So, wow, eleventh grade? That’s a big year.”

I take a huge bite of garlic bread. I’m not feeling up to small talk.

My dad speaks on my behalf. “Yup, I can hardly believe it.” He turns to me. “Do you need to sign up for the SATs soon?”

“Everyone takes them first semester of senior year.” I’m annoyed he doesn’t know this.

“What about pre-SATs? You do the practice test, don’t you?”

I give an indifferent shrug. “I guess.”

“Well, good. Okay then.” He lifts a forkful of spaghetti to his mouth, then stops. “Should I get you an SAT study book?”

“I—”

“I’ll get you a book,” he decides.

“Veronica might have one,” Peach jumps in.

The table goes quiet with the exception of scraping forks. I don’t know who Veronica is, but I don’t want her books. I don’t want anything from anyone at this table.

“You don’t have to reach out if you’re not comfortable,” my dad says.

Nonnie leans over to me, her turquoise frames slipping down the bridge of her nose. “Veronica’s her daughter. Went off to college last year.”

I give the slightest nod, but I really don’t care.

“No, I should.” Peach sits up a little straighter. “It could be a good ice breaker.”

Saylor grins at her. “Maybe it’ll be tomorrow’s SS.”

Peach gives a hopeful smile. “It could.”

“Again,” my dad says. “No pressure.”

I let my fork clatter on my plate. I’m entirely over talking about embracing positivity through acronyms like it will solve all our problems. “Can I be excused?”

Peach looks at the mass of leftovers on the table. “I think we made too much.”

My dad pats his stomach. “I could pastably eat more for lunch tomorrow.”

He looks to me for a laugh, but I don’t give him the satisfaction. Instead I clear my plate and leave it in the sink. Before I can head upstairs to my room, my dad joins me in the hallway.

“Listen, Goose,” he says, lowering his voice a bit. “I know I wasn’t a father to you those months after Grams died. And I’m working on that just like you’re working on trusting me. But while you’re under this roof I expect you to respect my rules and authority. Okay?”

It’s a reasonable request. I nod curtly, but all I want to do is go up to my room and be by myself.

“You don’t have to like these people, but they’re my friends. All I ask is that you treat them with respect.” He looks me in the eyes for a moment. “They’re all here for you if you need anything. Don’t hesitate to ask. I promise they’re good people.”

I glance back into the dining room. Nonnie’s using her napkin to wipe a splotch of sauce off one of the neon-green cheetahs on her blouse. Peach has another gash of magenta lipstick across her top teeth, and Saylor’s humming with his eyes closed, rocking side to side as if he’s gone into deep meditation at the dinner table.

I can’t possibly imagine what I’d need from any of these people.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, scooting past him. “I have homework.”

“All right.”

There’s hesitancy in his voice, but I pretend I don’t hear it as I take the stairs two at a time. Once I’m in my room, I close the door and sit down at my desk. It was a yard sale find from a few years ago. The white paint needed to be retouched, but instead of repainting, Whitney, Raegan, Lin, and I Sharpied every inch of it.

The surface is covered in Lin’s cartoon bunny doodles and Whitney’s inscription—DANCE 4 EVA—in bright purple. There’s an Eleanor Roosevelt quote in Raegan’s handwriting near the center. I drew stick figures of the four of us in different neon colors, but that’s not what catches my eye. In bright green, we’d written our names in big, bubbly letters. Lin had scrawled, BESTIES BETTER THAN THE RESTIES in block lettering around it.

I know it was only the first day back, but I hate feeling so far removed from them. The memories they’ve made without me make my stomach twist. If there was a way to make things go back to normal, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Wait.

I dig through my book bag until I find a spiral notebook. I open it to a blank page and grab a pen from the collection in an old mason jar on my desk. It’s not enough to wish for something to go back to normal. If I want my life back, I need to do something about it.

Aunt June was the one who told me about the twelve-step program after my dad attended his first few AA meetings. They’re a set of twelve principles that present a guided path toward recovery that involve bettering yourself by admitting your addiction, fixing situations with people you’ve wronged, and committing to eliminate all bad behaviors that led to the addiction in the first place. If these principles were followed and practiced, a person would be able to go back to living their life the way it was before addiction.

I know the steps didn’t work for my dad the first time, but it was like his grief over Grams prevented him from really trying. I have to believe he’s trying now. He’s made progress, and if the steps did contribute to his sobriety, then maybe abiding by my own steps could help me, too.

This is what I need. Principles. Rules. A process that I can easily follow to get my life back on track.

I pick up my pen and start writing.