Katelyn’s mom was kind of a lot for Dylan to take. It occurred to him, as she was pulling him through the house, that maybe this was just how all mothers who were actual mothers behaved. Judging by the mortification Katelyn wore behind her eyes, she didn’t seem to think so. Dylan wouldn’t know, though, because his mother wasn’t an actual mother at all. He used to spend two weeks with her every year. Not in association with any holidays or birthdays or anything. His dad raised him, so he figured his father deserved every special day. Including Mother’s Day. So he’d spend a random two weeks with her, and then she’d spend most of that time at her office. When she was home, she was always at the kitchen table with a slew of work splayed out in front of her. She’d ask him about school and his friends and his father. He’d answer all of her questions and she’d say something like, “Hm, that’s nice, dear,” and offer to order Chinese. The previous year, instead of spending two weeks with her, he just picked two weekends to visit. Dylan knew that it wasn’t an ideal mother/son relationship, but he liked it well enough. The last time he’d visited her, his mother had taken him to a party and introduced him to his favorite late night talk show host.

Katelyn’s mom had hustled him through the house. The whole house was pretty Christmas-y. It was tall and white with green trim and it had those big windows with seats in them. Lights and garland were strung around the handrail that led upstairs. Wreaths made out of red and green and cream fabrics were hung on every door. There was a large nativity set on the mantel with a slew of stockings hung beneath it. The living room walls were painted red as if they were always prepared for this season and this decor. At the center of the living room stood an impossibly tall evergreen. Surprisingly, it was bare.

As Katelyn’s mom led Dylan through the house, she pointed at an older man, stretched out on the couch, sleeping, and said, “That’s Katy’s father, Jon.” They stepped into the kitchen where a well-built black man, holding a small girl in his arms, was being whispered to by the woman Dylan had seen on the front steps earlier. The woman looked like a slightly taller version of Katelyn.

“This,” Martha, said, “Is Katy’s sister, Lizzie--”

“Elizabeth,” the woman corrected, shaking his hand.

Martha ignored her and continued, “Lizzie’s husband, Malik, and my lovely granddaughter, Sapphire.”

As she said this, Martha pressed her lips against Sapphire’s temple and the little girl let out a giddy squeal. Meanwhile, Malik said, “Hello, Jason,” with laughter in his eyes.

The house tour ended at Katelyn’s room and with Katelyn’s complete mortification. As her mother headed back downstairs to let them “get settled,” Katelyn’s pale skin burned bright red. Her face turned into a strawberry set ablaze. Dylan had to fight not to laugh at her.

They stepped into the room. She shut the door and sank onto the floor in front of it, burying her face in her palms. Dylan still, somehow, managed not to laugh at her. Finally, she let out a breath, looked up at him, and then contorted her face with irritation, “Don’t laugh,” she said, her tone a scold.

“I’m not!” He protested, but a laugh escaped anyway, undermining his objection. “It’s okay. She just assumed. I mean, how long were you dating that guy anyway?”

“I don’t know. Three months maybe? At any rate, she would have been wrong about that assumption, too.”

“Really?” Dylan asked, his eyebrows pointed up towards his hairline. He was both surprised and relieved by this bit of information, then he had to chastise himself for being relieved, and even for asking, because honestly it wasn’t his business.

“Really,” Katelyn said. She sounded unbothered by the question. “I mean...Jason was nice to look at and everything. But I...I never really wanted him to touch me. I never…”

She seemed to think better of whatever it was she was about to say. She shook her head and blushed. An apology danced on Dylan’s lips. He really shouldn’t have asked. Then, Katelyn sighed, shrugged, and said, “So I guess this is better. We’re friends, right? I can platonically share a bed with a friend. But this would have been so awkward with Jason.”

Dylan schooled his face and nodded in agreement. He was surprised to find that he was disappointed by Katelyn calling him a friend. Wasn’t that the outcome he had hoped for? As a distraction, he glanced around her room. It looked like it hadn’t been changed since she was in high school. The queen sized bed was covered with a quilt made out of t-shirts from StuCo, Debate, Youth Group, and Girl Scouts. There were a handful of Fall Out Boy posters. There was a bookshelf, but most of the books had been taken off of it. The shelf primarily held picture frames and knick-knacks that had been left behind.

Dylan lifted Catcher in the Rye from the few books that were left behind. He thumbed through it and said, “I loved this book.”

Katelyn glanced in his direction and groaned. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, why?” He asked, almost offended.

She didn’t answer. Instead she just asked, “It’s not, like, your favorite book, right?”

“No,” he said. His favorite book was A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because he thought Douglas Adams was a comedy king.

“Thank goodness. Have you read it since high school?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Thank goodness again. I swear. Whenever dudes say that Catcher in the Rye is their favorite book, I assume they either haven’t grown up since high school, or they haven’t read since high school.”

Dylan laughed. “What’s so bad about it?”

“Holden Caulfield!” Katelyn said. She paused to rethink what she said and clarified, “It’s being stuck in his head, really. He’s running around, not doing much of anything, complaining a ton and acting like he’s better than everyone, and you’re stuck in his head for all of it.”

Dylan laughed again and set the book back on the shelf. He couldn’t really remember Catcher in the Rye all that well. He just remembered that when he had read it during his sophomore year of high school it had really resonated with him. He didn’t admit that, though.

“Hey, Dylan?” She asked. She was standing by her bed, looking away from him. He watched her for a moment before responding. She was staring very intently at her phone, but she wasn’t really doing anything with it. It was almost as though she was looking at it just to avoid looking at him.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Who is Ha Seung-jin?”

“Hm?”

“Earlier? When my mom--sorry about her, by the way, she doesn’t mean any harm she’s just...aloof I guess. That doesn’t make it any better, I know but… Well anyway. When she said that thing about you being so tall? You said that you were shorter than Ha Seung-Jin.” She said all of this to her phone. As soon as she finished talking, though, her gaze shot back over to him.

“Oh. He’s a basketball player. He’s South Korean. He played for the Portland Trailblazers back when I was in middle school. He’s like 7-something. He was one of the tallest players in the NBA.”

“Oh,” she said. “So, you’re like, into basketball?”

“Not really,” Dylan shrugged. “I just had an insane growth spurt when I was in middle school. I got teased about it and that made me pretty self conscious for awhile. I guess I was getting pretty noticeably down about it and my dad made me tell him what was going on. So, I tell him everything and then he just goes, ‘Oh, please, you’re not even as tall as Ha Seung-jin,’ and, I don’t know, I guess it just made me feel better. I liked seeing someone out there who looked like me. Albeit quite a bit taller.”

Katelyn laughed, and then groaned, and then let out a breath and said, “I cannot believe that she pointed out the thing you got teased about in middle school. That totally sucks. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’ve learned to deal with it a little bit better since I was in middle school,” Dylan laughed. She smiled at him, an easy grin, and the sudden ruckus his heart set off suggested that he, once again, had forgotten that this was all pretend. Then, Katelyn shook her head, like she was just coming to.

“We should probably get back out there,” she said. “But before we do, I should probably give you the low-down on my brother.”