At one point I said, "You're literally making this worse."
"Probably."
"Then why are you still here?"
"Because parents don't get to quit before their kids do."
Parents.
He didn't seem to notice he'd said it.
I did.
A few months later, Mom married him.
That fall, she told me something I wasn't supposed to know.
She and Ray had opened a college account for me.
"We can't put much in," she said. "Don't get excited."
"How much?"
"Whatever's left."
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Some months, that meant almost nothing.
Ray had Danny and Cara to provide for, too.
So I tried not to think about the account.
At school, everyone was thinking about something else.
Cars.
One friend got his aunt's old Honda.
Another got a pickup.
A girl in my English class got a used convertible and complained that it wasn't the color she'd wanted.
I took the bus.
It honestly didn't bother me much.
