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The sun strikes me with a splash of heat. I fish out my phone and see a text from Nora.

Nora: Tostadas?

Before I left my house, I texted Nora the details of my punishment. She comforted me after I told her how crappy I felt for upsetting my parents and having my camera confiscated.

Nora texted What are you gonna do?, which definitely wasn’t good for me since she always devises a strategy.

At the time, I didn’t have an answer. Now, though, with my hour-long lunch break, and both my parents at work, I finally have one.

On the drive back home, I listen to the extensions of Jase’s songs: “i miss dad,” “jordan,” and “dream.”

He texted the audio clips last night, but I didn’t listen to them until this morning. After I texted Nora about my punishments, I relayed the information to Jase.

Jase: Ah man that sucks. But you’ll figure something out

At the time, I didn’t know how.

But now I do.

****

It’s never felt so weird coming to my house at noon.

It only feels weirder knowing my parents aren’t inside.

I’ve already sneaked into a school, so I don’t know why it feels more nerve-racking sneaking into my own house. A tornado whirs inside my stomach. My brain tells me to go back to my car. But my feet lead me into my house.

The brown leather on the couches looks more desaturated, the white walls a greyed-out tone. Over the windows, the blinds are opened, revealing strips of our backyard, sunlight coating the grass and fence. Every step I take, the floor feels like carpeted quicksand, like it’ll sink me so I won’t get my camera.

Inside my parents’ bedroom, the blinds are closed, every color—their olive-blanketed bed, the photographs of us framed across their walls, nightstands, lamps—muted with grey tones. I shouldn’t be here.

But as I replay my last presentation, how I projected every word and pointed at every element of my photo, I step further into their room and begin my search.

Bills and receipts, along with binders and calculators and photo albums, flood their nightstand drawers. But not my camera. After arranging everything back to how I found them, I cross through their bathroom, the tiles cold beneath my feet. Their shower booth, towels, and sinks are greyed out like everything in their bedroom. At the end, their closet door, the white wood desaturated to grey, the details washed out, is closed.

Please don’t be locked.

I turn the knob, which stops short, then wriggle it. It’s obviously locked, so I don’t know why I try to yank it open. Maybe this is a sign to drop out of the competition. It’s gotten me into enough trouble.

But I’ve come too far to turn back now.

I google how to unlock a closed door without a key. Pulling my bobby pins out of my hair, I follow the instructions written in the article. I insert my bobby-pin keys into both keyholes, twist, then click.

Inside, my mom’s dresses and slacks, along with my dad’s khakis and button-down shirts, are shadowed enough that I barely see color or detail. I flick the light on, only to find my camera nowhere in sight. It has to be here. Otherwise my parents wouldn’t have locked it. I scan the shelf above the clothes and, behind the stack of towels, pinpoint a black box. I grab the step ladder against the back wall, unfold it, and climb up, sliding the towels to the side. It’s a safe. But I don’t know the code.

I suddenly remember, during one of my homework checkups, when my dad told me about the day we arrived in America, he and my mom strolling with luggage through LAX.

“Coming here,” my dad said, gazing out of our living room window as the sun submerged our backyard, the fence and the cherries dotting our trees, with light. “It was a day we’d always remember.”

He told me the date in Tagalog.

I punch in the numbers—month, date, year—and the safe unlocks. Inside, sitting on our passports and other important documents, is my camera. It’s like a diamond sitting in a case. I snatch it out, shut the safe closed, and punch in the code again.

After I put away the step ladder and double-check that I haven’t left anything, I lock the closet door from the inside, shut it, then hurry out.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I step into WCH to see Eliza coughing into the crook of her arm, an elderly woman before her in a wheelchair.