We stare at each other for a beat, neither of us pleased to see each other, both for different reasons. Underneath Lily’s fierce bluster, I sense fear and embarrassment. It’s weird. So not Lily.

“What the fuck, Kylie?” she says, as if she owns the whole damn place.

“Sorry, I…” And my voice trails off. I’m thrown by the whole strange scenario. What I should say is, “What the fuck, Lily?” I mean, she’s the one yelling at her mother in the bathroom. Not me. But as usual, I’m on the defensive.

“Were you spying on me?” Lily demands.

“Of course not. I was going to the bathroom. I was here first. You walked in on me,” I remind her.

“Why don’t you get a life instead of listening in on other people’s?” And with that, Lily turns and marches out before I can come up with a witty rejoinder.

Bitch.

Hopefully, this will be our very last exchange for the rest of our lives.

hat was wack, bro,” Charlie says. “Girl’s a freak!” I say to Charlie. But what I don’t tell Charlie is that Kylie is right. I can be an asshole. It’s a role I’m pretty comfortable with. Bottom line, I get away with a lot of shit around here ’cause people let me. The thing is, everyone’s always wanting something from me. If I worried about everyone’s feelings, I’d never get anything done. I’ve got to take care of myself. I can’t be dealing with everybody’s junk all day long. And Murphy’s assignment is definitely Kylie’s junk. I should put it out of my head. Normally I would. But I made a promise to myself when my dad went into the hospital for the second time, that I would stop being such a selfish prick, because maybe that isn’t the way to go through life. It didn’t work out so well for my dad.

“She kicked me. Hard. Chick has issues,” Charlie insists.

“Totally,” I say. But I can’t help feeling sorry for Kylie. She takes everything so goddamned seriously. No one wants to hang with her, except for weird Will Bixby. I mean, who gets that worked up over an assignment? I can’t remember ever giving that much of a crap about any homework. Ever.

Charlie gets another point off of me. He’s in the lead. It’s eight to seven. Kylie totally messed with my head. I don’t need that kind of distraction, with tryouts for UCLA coming up next week. That’s a whole lot more important than some stupid paper for Murphy.

“Get your head in the game,” Charlie says.

“I’m trying,” I say. But it’s easier said than done. Charlie serves and I miss. Twice. It’s not even a good serve. It bounces off the back wall and stays high. I could have easily scooped in and slammed it. Instead, I’m wasting brain space on Kylie.

I jump up and down a few times. Shake my head. Okay. Moving on.

Charlie serves. I rush in, power driving the ball down the line. Charlie dives for it. Misses. My serve. I slam the ball. It hits the back, then the side wall, and dies on the floor. Ace. An impossible return. There’s nothing Charlie can do but appreciate my mad skills. I’m back. Kylie Flores is gone.

opefully, Kylie is getting on the 3:13 right now at the corner of Buchwald and Center. Otherwise, she’s going to be late, and Mom will be mad. The bus will stop fourteen times before she gets off. The ride is fifty-two minutes long. Unless the bus hits all the green lights; then the ride is forty-one minutes. But this only happens five times a year. Just like me, Kylie likes to sit by the window and look out as the bus cruises toward Logan Heights. There are 186 buildings downtown. More than twenty-nine of them stand taller than three hundred feet. The tallest building in the city is thirty-four stories. One America Plaza. It may not sound very tall if you’ve been to Chicago or New York. I haven’t. So One America Plaza seems really tall to me.

Kylie puts in her earbuds and listens to music so she doesn’t have to talk to anyone. I like to talk to people when I’m on the bus. Sometimes they get up and change seats. Mom says not to be upset, people just don’t like to talk to strangers. Lately, I’ve tried not to talk as much. But when Mom or Kylie aren’t in the mood to talk, it’s hard to know what to do with all the words. There’s always something interesting to talk about, like why certain cacti lean way over but don’t fall to the ground (I suspect this has to do with the moisture content in the cactus fiber), or how the labels on most soda bottles are exactly the same size as the labels on ketchup bottles, almost all of which are manufactured in Malaysia.

I wish I were on the bus right now with Kylie. She always likes listening to me. We could talk about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that I read about in school today.

I hear a key in the lock. Kylie’s home.

ctober 1972,” I say to Jake as I enter the house and see him waiting for me on the maroon chair next to the couch, a bowl of carrots on his lap. I hang up my backpack and step over the enormous pile of laundry deposited at the bottom of the stairs, wondering if it’s clean or dirty. Jake smiles at me like it’s been ten years since we’ve seen each other. Still, it’s nice to be greeted every single day with such enthusiasm. Even if Jake’s brain is a little scrambled from Asperger’s, it feels good to be loved this much. There aren’t a lot of people who feel so positively inclined toward me. “Hurricane Dimitri,” he yells out triumphantly. “Seven people died in Galveston, Texas, and there was twelve inches of precipitation over two days.” Jake eyes shine with excitement.

“Okay…December 1956.”

“Hurricane Meredith. Jamaica lost power for six days. Winds up to 146 miles an hour.” Jake jumps up. His carrots spill across the floor. At thirteen, he’s my height, his jagged energy bouncing off him like electric currents. On the heels of my enormously bad day, I am feeling irritated by Jake, which I try to hide.

“Pick up the carrots, Jakie,” I say.

Jake scowls at me. “No. I won’t.”

I soften my tone. “Please pick up the carrots. And then we’ll keep playing.” I wrap my arms around his hulking frame and pull him close. “Did you have a good day?”

“Yeah. We learned about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” Jake responds, eager to tell me more.

I smile. No matter how bad my day is, Jake can always make me smile. His passion for minutiae is infectious. Until it gets annoying.

“Did you have a good day, Kylie?” Jake asks. He’s been learning about manners and empathy at school, things that don’t come naturally to him. It seems like it’s finally sinking in. Jake is usually so immersed in his own world, he forgets to ask me about mine. Not that I mind. It’s a relief to spend some time in someone else’s reality.

“My day was great,” I lie. I know the truth will only confuse and depress him, just as it does me. He has a limited capacity to understand complicated social interactions, and my life is chock-full of them.

“Me too.” Jake smiles, genuinely pleased. “I like when we both have good days.”

I point to the carrots on the floor. “How about those carrots?”

Jake reluctantly gets down on all fours and gathers up a few carrots. He flicks one under the couch, for fun. He watches to see what I’ll do. I pretend not to see. I’m too wiped to care.

Jake stands up and looks at me expectantly.