“Yeah, well,” I say. “It’s a lot of money to accidentally donate to some guy’s woodland fantasy.”
Her hand finds the back of my neck, thumb rubbing a little line, the way she’s done since I was eight and sweating over a math test. “¿Estás nervioso?” she asks. “About the trip?”
“About all of it,” I say. “He brought it up. Not me. He looked at me with those big Bambi eyes and said, ‘Maybe we can still plan it for the summer.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, sure, totally,’ like my heart wasn’t doing cartwheels.”
“That’s good,” she says. “He’s asking for something.”
“I know,” I say. “And now he keeps saying it feels selfish.”
Her mouth flattens. “Selfish,” she repeats, like the word offended her personally. “Ay, Dios.”
“He said, ‘I almost died in our bedroom, I dropped out for a quarter, and now we’re using money to go sit in the trees? Shouldn’t we be… paying bills or donating to a crisis line or something?’”
Mom shakes her head. “Donating to the crisis line is staying alive and going on the trip,” she says. “That boy owes himself joy.”
“I keep telling him it’s not punishment time,” I say. “It’s… marker time. Dr. K actually suggested some kind of ritual or trip. He picked the treehouse. That’s the whole point. But you know how his guilt brain gets.”
She nods. “Te entiendo.” She squeezes my neck. “Miguel… you need this too.”
I look down at my hands. The pale scars on my knuckles are faint now, Caleb’s blood long washed away, but I remember the feel of it, like it’s embedded in the skin.
“I know,” I say softly. “That’s almost scarier.”
Her thumb presses, firm. “You boys want permission? Here it is. Go.” She jerks her chin toward the counter, where a half-packed grocery bag waits. “I’m already making snacks. Tortas. Fruit. Chicharrones. You’ll think you’re going for two weeks, not four days.”
The knot in my chest eases a millimeter. “Thanks,Mamá.”
“And Dad called from the office this morning,” she adds, like it’s an afterthought, which means it is absolutely not an afterthought. “He wants to talk to you before you go.”
“That sounds ominous,” I say.
“Relax,” she says. “He had his lawyer voice, but it’s fine.”
I groan. “Great.”
Dad’sat the condo when I get back, of course. Because the universe likes to stack my anxiety appointments. Caleb’s stretched out on the couch in sweats, laptop balanced on his stomach, his new glasses sliding down his nose. There’s a stack of college class pamphlets on the coffee table next to an IOP discharge packet.
Ashton’s in the armchair like he came with the furniture, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up. He stands halfway when I come in.
“Hey,” I say, hanging my keys up. “You guys having a financial aid party without me?”
Caleb snorts. “Dad’s stressing about timelines,” he says. “I’m reminding him I’m allowed to take more than five minutes to decide if I want to go back full-time or not.”
“You’re allowed,” Ashton says, nodding. “I’m just letting you know what dates exist in the world.”
“Uh-huh,” Caleb says, giving me a look that says,Help, my father is hovering with a calendar.
“Hey,” I say, trying to divert his attention from the love of my life. “Mom said you wanted to talk to me.”
He clears his throat. “If you have a minute,” he says. “Before I head out.”
Caleb pushes his glasses up and sits up straighter. “If this is about money,” he says, “I already told you, I’m not just?—”
“I know,” Ashton says quickly. He looks between us. “This is… tangentially about money. But also about support.”
I sink onto the arm of the couch, close enough that my knee brushes Caleb’s shoulder. “Shoot,” I say.
Ashton reaches into his briefcase and pulls out an envelope. This already feels like A Thing.
