“Easton!” Valencia scolds him from across the room.
“It’s fine, Mom, humor as a coping mechanism is very healthy.”
“Well, maybe I’d rather not make a joke about the single most traumatic experience of our lives.”
“The joke is memakingthe joke. It’s funnybecauseit’s uncomfortable and something I shouldn’t say out loud, and you making me explain it is removing all the humor. I’ve got a real good tight five on child kidnappings that I’ve been working on the past ten years.”
Valencia looks exasperated as she walks a plate of fried eggs over to Easton. “Well, I’m not ready for it, so you’re going to have to put your comedy routine on the back burner.” She sets the plate in front of him and pats his shoulder.
She tells him they’ll have to pack up his dorm at the end of themonth and then asks about his finals. He tells her four of his teachers are letting him take the final online, one is passing him without taking the final since he already has a high average and aced the midterm, and another said there wasn’t going to be a final but rather an essay, due next week.
He also starts explaining what his essay is about—something to do with the evolution of medicine from the twentieth century to today—but it all goes way over my head.
Easton is smart.Reallysmart. But not boring smart.
Finally, he jumps up and says he’s going to shower. “Then I’m going to hang out with JT. There’s a party tonight we might go to.”
“I was thinking we’d have a family dinner tonight,” Valencia says. “Gramma is coming over.”
Gramma? Valencia’s mother, maybe.
Easton looks disappointed. “Can I invite JT?”
Valencia deflates a little. “I think family might be enough.”
“Because Gramma is a very low-key individual with a calm and soothing personality.” But the way he says it makes me think Nate’s gramma is not any of those things.
“You don’t think introducing your brother to JT might be a little overwhelming, too?”
Easton smirks again. “Of course I do. But in a humorous way. And say it with me, family: humor is a...”
He conducts us with his hand as Valencia rolls her eyes and looks at me. I actually can’t help but smile, so I say at the same time as Valencia: “Coping mechanism.”
Is this how families usually act? You mean to tell me it’s not allwalking on eggshells and hiding in your bedroom until you’re called to dinner?
“There we go.” He throws his water bottle into a recycling bin under the counter. “And didn’t even have to make a joke about kidnapping.”
“Fine, JT can come. But try and keep him calm.”
“Impossible,” Easton calls over his shoulder, hitting his hand against the top of the doorway on his way out.
“Who’s JT?” I ask.
“His friend.” Valencia shakes her head. “His very, very... strange friend.”
At least it’s someone I don’t need to watch how I act in front of. And with a grandparent in the mix, maybe I’ll hear a few good stories to help me fake my way through this.
“Sounds like fun.”
Ten
Around three in the afternoon, I finally have some time alone again. Valencia helped me pick out a new color for Nate’s room—something she kept pressing me on until I realized maybe it was somethingshewanted more than Nate would. We finally went with “Juniper Fog”—a gray-green sage that isn’t too bright or too dark.
She decided to run out and pick up the paint, then go to the grocery store to grab a couple things for dinner. When I asked to stay behind, she was anxious, as though I wouldn’t be here when she got back. But then she must have remembered the security system.
And thank God she did. She downloaded the app for me and showed me all the features. It sends notifications to all our phones whenever the doors or windows are opened. If the alarm goes off, it sends another notification.
That’s going to be an issue when I try to run away. She, Marcus, and even Easton—unless he turned the notifications off—will get the alert that the front door opened. And of course they have a doorbell camera, too.
