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dressed in one of my new outfits—perfectly cut jeans and a strappy but super-casual sleeveless top—before sitting down with the laptop my mother insisted I needed for school. It’s exhausting deciding what’s worse: accepting all the money she spent on me or arguing against it. Okay, I never actually argued. If I’m stuck here against my mother’s wishes, an amazing wardrobe at least cheers me up and hopefully looks like I’m learning to stop apologizing.
    “Good morning, Devan.” Brad knocks on the doorframe and stands a very respectful distance from the actual doorway. “Breakfast?”
    “If you’re making it anyway,” I say.
    “Always on the weekends.” He nods at the MacBook. “How’s the computer?”
    “I can’t get the Internet to work, but good otherwise.”
    “May I?” He gestures to the doorway like he’s a vampire who has to be invited in.
    “Yeah, of course.”
    He sits down on the floor and takes the laptop from me. “How was your night?”
    “Really good; the restaurant was so nice.” I don’t mention that my mother and I didn’t talk much, especially because I’m sure it’s my fault as much as hers. It would just be better if one of us was good at conversation, period. Justine is so far the only person I’ve ever communicated well with, and even that didn’t totally last.
    “Here you are.” Brad hands the computer back to me. “I know at some point today you’re going with Reece to Kate and Vaughn’s so that you can prepare for your audition—”
    Wait, that’s where I’m going?
    “—but if you need anything for your room or to settle in otherwise, let one of us know. I’m happy to take you to pick up anything remaining.”
    “Oh, um, sure.” I doubt I’ll ask my long-lost mother’s boyfriend to take me shopping, but the offer’s nice.
    “We may be able to drag along Reece as well, but you may have noticed her patience is a bit lacking when it comes to shopping.”
    “She was totally fine yesterday,” I say. “I can’t believe how much she got me. It’s kind of crazy.”
    “For such a restrained person, she does go a bit overboard at times,” he says. “For her birthday I bought her a new coffeemaker, and then for mine she had my car stereo upgraded quite dramatically. I, understandably, felt a bit lacking in comparison.”
    “Yeah, but she seems to take coffee really, really seriously,” I say. “So probably it totally evened out.”
    “You’ve a point. I’ll call you when breakfast is ready.” He leaves the room, and I pull up my email, praying that Justine has written.
    TO: [email protected]
    FROM: [email protected]
    SUBJECT: L.A.!!
    Hi Devan,
    What’s L.A. like? Amazing?
    You won’t believe it but Noah called and wants to meet up soon. Details to follow . . . Call me if you can!
    Love, Justine
    I wonder if I’m a bad friend for being pretty much over Justine’s drama with The Tenor she met at camp. Justine was the best friend I’ve ever had, but something shifted when Dad died and I didn’t know how to talk about it. “You’ll feel better if you talk to me ,” she said, and often. And probably she was right.
    But I didn’t know how to explain the tangled mess of emotions heavy in my heart, and even worse I couldn’t find the words to define what was the hardest for me, the idea of peeling back my outsides and letting people just know what I feel. That stuff is all easy for Justine; she cries over greeting cards and freaking pet food commercials, and she tells me everything. It took five minutes alone for her to detail what she thought the first moment she saw The Tenor. I probably can’t even fill five minutes with explanations of what and how I feel. Dreams of New York and Tony Awards are one thing. The deeper stuff is another story I seriously don’t know how to tell.
    So it’s pretty easy to guess things shifted even further from wherever it was they started—best friends forever?—over the three weeks she was