“And…?” Mom wiggled her eyebrows.

She was #TeamLunight. She’d even made herself a shirt with the hashtag for Christmas four years ago, when the concept had seemed real. My parents had loved each other in secret for over a decade. They still believed in star-crossed lovers and fairytales coming true. Only they’d had a real obstacle stopping them from being together. And that obstacle wasn’t some random dude’s dick.

“She and Josh seem to be very happy, from what I could tell.”

Her face fell.

“Hey.” I nudged her. “It’s not like I give a crap.”

“Of course you don’t.” She arched an eyebrow skeptically.

“Girls are lizards. They don’t have souls.”

“This is slander. Who says lizards don’t have souls?” She pretended to gasp. “And how do you mean?”

“Cold blood. That’s why you always shower with extra-hot water. Fact. Look it up on the internet.” I pinched her nose just as Dad came out of the bathroom, freshly showered, wearing jeans and a Polo shirt.

“You’re still here,” he said, glancing at the door. “Can I bribe you with something to get some downtime with my wife? Another car? A nice vacation? Perhaps a kick in the butt?”

“Oh, you.” Mom opened her arms. Dad skulked into her embrace. A moth to a flame. Two unique pieces of an elaborate puzzle. The Coles were professional huggers. I swear Ma had a PhD in that shit.

“Lev! Levy-boy,” Dad roared. “Come here right now. Family cuddle.”

“Can’t,” Lev barked from his room.

Dad rolled his eyes and grabbed his phone, turning off Lev’s cell through an app.

“Hey!” Lev shouted. “I was talking to Bailey.”

“Shocker,” Dad and I drawled in unison.

Mom burst out laughing again.

“I want every Cole man in this bed right now!” She patted the mattress.

Lev came running down the hallway, cannonballing onto the giant bed. We were all in now, laughing and talking. Mom ordered pizza, and we played twenty questions with the loser picking up the pizza from the door.

I didn’t think about Luna. Or FUCKING JOSH. Or that first second every morning when I woke up and wanted to throw up because Luna had taken a dump all over what we’d had.

This was good.

This was for the best.

All I needed was my family—not another deserter who’d give me up.

After another grueling morning workout, I chugged down an entire bottle of BCAA water and slam-dunked it into the trash can on the way to my locker.

“Coming through. Beep, beep. Make way for the royal QB1, his highness Knight Cole.”

The rest of my team pushed people down the hallway, half-joking, but half dead-ass serious.

Some freshman turd mouthed something about my saliva and rummaged in the trash to retrieve my empty bottle. I couldn’t give two fucks if he tried to replicate my DNA and make a ninja turtle out of it. It was becoming harder and harder to care about stupid things when your mother was one day closer to dying.

The football team dispersed, each player to his own locker. I reached mine, glancing behind my back. After making sure the coast was clear, I produced the letter I’d received this summer and opened it. It was wrinkled from being read five thousand times, but I read it again. It wasn’t the first letter I’d received about this shitty matter, but it was the one I loved being tortured with the most, because it offered action.

Meet me.

I dare you.

I didn’t know why, but I especially liked reading it on days Mom felt like crap, one of which happened to be today.

Of course, drinking a bottle of whiskey before practice had helped, too.

“Dafuq am I going to do with you?” I muttered at the letter, scanning the scandalous words. I shoved it back inside my locker, buried it in textbooks.

Slamming my locker, I saw Poppy’s face. She stood right behind the door. Her sister, Lenny, was next to her.

“Hullo,” she said in her Mary Poppins’ accent.

“Yo.” I balanced my books under my armpit, ready to start for the lab.

There weren’t many things I hated more than chemistry, but seeing Vaughn’s smug face across the hall morphing into something that strangely resembled intrigue was one of them. He slammed his locker and came to stand next to us.

What does the fucker want now?

Vaughn being Vaughn, he just stood there for the first few seconds, like a fucking creeper, staring at the three of us. No hi. No good morning. Nothing. Asshole had the social skills of a Post-It note. It went to show that high school students were a special breed of idiots, because dude was actually popular.

“Hey, Vaughn.” Poppy smiled at him, mock-punching his arm.

Her sister rolled her eyes at the gesture. They were polar opposites, Poppy and Lenny. Poppy was more like a toned-down version of my friend Daria. She liked pretty dresses and putting highlights in her hair and knew how to distinguish one Kardashian from the other. Lenora was a different breed of chick entirely. Her wardrobe consisted of black shit only. She wore a lot of eyeliner and had a septum piercing. If you’d told me she’d lost her virginity in a satanic ritual on someone’s grave, I wouldn’t bet against it. Seemed legit. What worked for Lenny was the fact that she was small and pretty, so she looked cute more than scary—like something Tim Burton would keep as a pet.