“Yes. About stupid things. A year or so ago, I was at a grocery store, and I couldn’t remember what type of canned beans Mom had asked me to pick up, so I had a complete meltdown. Started hyperventilating right there in the lentils aisle. The store manager had to use my own phone to call Mom to come get me.
“Mom found me a counselor after that. She was mostly crap, but she must have helped a little, because I haven’t had one since we moved here. Or rather, hadn’t had one. Until Friday night happened.”
“Oh,” I say. “So that’s why you couldn’t come?”
She nods. “I had one at a party before. I really can’t do parties. I’m sorry.”
I should be disappointed, maybe, that there won’t be any parties in our future. But I’m just so relieved to have her back.
“I have ADHD,” I spit out.
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Shut up,” I say, smacking her in the arm. There’s no malice in her voice, though. Not like Lindsey used to have when she talked about my hyperactivity like it was a disease. I tug at one of my curls, even though Mom always tells me not to. “I thought our friendship was over.”
“I don’t want it to be over. Do you?”
I am suddenly giddy. “Definitely not.” I lean into her shoulder. “We should fight more often.”
She scowls at me in her normal, grumpy, wonderful way. “I’d really rather not.”
CHAPTER 8
KAT
THE SNOW NEVER LEAVES HERE. THE SKY’S BEEN CLEAR FOR A WEEK, BUT the ground is still covered in white. It doesn’t melt away, then snow again, then melt again like it did back home. I study a shoveled mound of it through my frosted window as Meg assures me that we have nothing to worry about. I twist the end of my ponytail around my finger as I grip my phone between my shoulder and chin. “It’s just—we’re already almost halfway through November. We should start doing some testing soon, shouldn’t we?” I bite my lip.
“Dude. Kat. You remember I called to talk about my date tonight, right?” Her voice fades in and out as she speaks; she’s pacing back and forth around her room, with the phone set to speaker on the bed.
Grayson asked her on a date a couple of weeks ago, and it’s pretty much all she’s talked about since, as their plans have jumped about in typical Meg fashion from coffee to a movie to a Friday-night dinner date. To be fair, it is a big deal. A big deal that’s happening today. I let go of my ponytail. “You’re right. Sorry. Are you nervous?”
She laughs. “You have got to stop asking me that. It’s a first date. I’m excited. Oh, that’s the doorbell! That’ll be Grayson. Better get to him before Mom and the halflings do. Bye. Love you.” And then she’s gone.
My stomach twists at the thought of her meeting him at the front door, awkwardly trying to figure out what to say. Except Meg never has a problem figuring out what to say. She’ll be fine. I hope.
I stare out over my binders and textbooks spread across the table. In front of me is a pathetic first draft of the questionnaire for all our test subjects to fill out. And beside that is my list of potential candidates. Which currently looks like this:
1. MEG
2. KAT
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
At least there’s a bonus to Meg going out with Grayson. I write his name in slot three. Of course, slots one and two assume we can even test ourselves, which we probably shouldn’t because of bias and stuff. I shove the papers into a binder and slam it shut. The test results aren’t due until February anyway. It’s only November.
Still, we’re going to need to come up with a plan. Soon.
We can’t do that while Meg’s on a date, though. So I neatly stack my binder and textbooks, and then go watch a Legs video instead.
MEG
I DON’T BEAT MOM, KENZIE, OR EVEN NOLAN TO THE DOOR. BY THE TIME I get there, Grayson stands in the front hallway, practically mobbed by the three of them. Well, Nolan hovers back near the kitchen, peering at him from afar, but Kenzie makes up for that by literally sitting on his snow-covered boot. He keeps glancing down at her, hair flopping forward adorably with each uncertain tilt of his head, as Mom asks him where we’re going for the evening.
“Out. We’re going out,” I say as I grab my coat off the floor and slide on my boots. “We’ll be back by ten.”
I grab Grayson’s arm, but he resists my pull and stares down at the Kenzie-monster still on his foot. Mom steps forward and scoops her up, and Kenzie decides it would be hilarious or fun or who knows what goes on in her brain to go limp like a rag doll, and I take advantage of their distracted moment of struggle to slip out the door, dragging Grayson behind me.
“You’re going somewhere public, though, right?” Mom shouts after us once we’re already halfway down the walk.
I spin around so I’m walking backward. “Yes, Mom, don’t worry! We’re going to go make out somewhere super public!” I shout back at her.
She shakes her head at me, and I whirl back around to look at Grayson, whose cheeks are flushed so adorably pink, I could kiss them. When I showed my cousin Charlotte a picture of him online, she gave me pretend crap for dating another white guy, but if I only dated black guys, my pool of options would just be a puddle. There are two other black guys in my whole grade, and just sharing a skin color doesn’t make us magically fall in love.
“So, where are we going?” I ask, as I hear the door click shut behind us.
“It’s a surprise.”
My stomach grumbles with either excitement or hunger or both. “It’s somewhere to eat, though, right? I haven’t eaten supper.”
He laughs. “Yes. Do you need me to tell you where? I can tell—”
“No! No. Surprises are good.” I love surprises.
We’ve made it to the bus stop, and Grayson leans against the signpost, all cool and nonchalant. Tonight’s going to be epically awesome; I can already tell.
“So that was your mom?” Grayson asks, tilting his head toward our street.
“Yeah, sorry, she’s usually buried in a spreadsheet. Not sure what made her decide to surface tonight.”
“What does she do?”
I glance up at the bus sign, wondering which of the three listed buses we’re taking. “Marketing consultant. Runs her own business. She’s been working like twelve-hour days.”
“And your dad?”
I kick at the ground. “He . . . died when I was four.”
Grayson straightens so he’s no longer leaning against the signpost. “Oh, I’m sorry. That sucks.” Then he starts telling me about his grandpa who died a couple of years ago, and it must not occur to him that my siblings are too young to have been born before my bio dad died, because he doesn’t ask about them, so I don’t tell him about Stephen-the-Leaver at all.