Petra arrived at our apartment at four o’clock sharp. She was usually at least twenty minutes late to parties. When we first became friends, she used to claim she liked to be fashionably late. It didn’t take long to realize she wasn’t late by any fault of her own.

“I take it your brother wasn’t home,” I said, following her into my bedroom.

She placed the birthday gift she’d wrapped in bright red paper on my worktable, then collapsed onto my mattress on the floor. “He’s probably with his new crackhead girlfriend, Mimi or Minnie, or whatever the fuck her name is. She looks like an anorexic frog.”

I laughed at her description, but Petra didn’t crack a smile. “What did your advisor say?” I asked, referring to the academic advisor at the community college Petra was considering attending, but she didn’t reply. She was probably lost in thoughts of comparing my mom to her parents.

Petra’s parents were not model citizens, by any stretch of the imagination. She hated them ninety percent of the time. The two-bedroom apartment they rented on Belmont was paid for with a Section 8 subsidized housing voucher. The money her mom collected through disability due to being legally blind in one eye mostly went to chips, soda, and meth. Her dad only showed up for a few months at a time, or however long her mom needed him until they would inevitably have a blowout fight and he’d leave again. Her older brother wasn’t much better.

Nick dropped out of school in the ninth grade, when he began smoking meth. That was also when he began inviting his junkie friends to spend the night in the bedroom he shared with Petra. At twelve years old, Petra was sexually assaulted in her bed by one of Nick’s nameless friends, as her brother lay sleeping a few feet away. That was the first time Nick was kicked out of the house. But he always came back.

It was no wonder Petra insisted on always hanging out at my apartment rather than hers. In the years that had passed since the day we met in the middle school bathroom when we were thirteen, I could count on one hand how many times I’d stepped foot in Petra’s apartment.

On the other hand, Petra practically lived here with my mom and me. In fact, she was here today for an impromptu surprise party for my mom’s 44^th birthday. I’d bet my life that the card attached to the gift she brought was inscribed:

I was even more certain that my mom would read Petra’s inscription and agree with every word, reminding me what an awesome mom I truly had.

Petra stared at the ceiling for a while as I sat next to her on the bed, wrapping my gift for my mom. I would hold out my finger and she would dispense the Scotch tape as needed. When I was satisfied with my wrapping job, I placed the gift next to Petra’s and collapsed onto the bed next to her.

“You can always move in here while I’m gone,” I suggested for the hundredth time.

Petra sighed. “I just need to get a job and move out. Fuck going to college and spending another four years in that nuthouse.”

“You’ll still be able to go to college if you stay here while I’m at NYU. Don’t let them make you give up on your future.”

She shook her head. “I love you, Kris, but you know I can’t do that to your mom. She’s probably dying for you to leave so she can start bringing home some sexy middle-aged men.”

“Ew. My mom is not dying for me to leave,” I said, flipping over onto my belly so I could see Petra’s face. “She’d love to have you here while I’m gone.”

My mom and I had discussed the possibility of letting Petra stay here while I stayed in the dorms at NYU, and my mom was completely on board. Though I’d been accepted into NYU on a full scholarship, Petra hadn’t been accepted into any of the local four-year colleges she’d applied to because of her SAT and ACT scores. Petra was funny and smart as a whip when it came to social situations, but she froze during tests.

I never said it aloud, but I was afraid that if I went away to stay in the NYU dorms to avoid the forty-five-minute commute, Petra might spiral and take up one or more of her family’s traditions.

The even harder truth that simmered beneath the surface of Petra’s family issues was her need to know the identity of the guy who unwillingly took her virginity so many years ago.

She liked to pretend she was over it, but on nights that she slept over at our apartment, I would often catch her whimpering in her sleep. She confided in me only once that she still had nightmares about that night.

To say I was afraid to leave Petra alone with her family while I went to NYU was an understatement.

But she’d held her own while living with them for the first eighteen years of her life. I was more afraid of not being there to stop her from doing something stupid if she ever learned the identity of her rapist.

“What time is it?” Petra asked, then answered her own question as she pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket. “4:20. Nick’s favorite time of day.” She sat up and slapped my butt. “Come on. We have forty minutes to whip up one humongous chocolate chip cookie for your mom.”