“If a picture’s worth a thousand words, how many words would a thousand pictures make?” 

“What?” Armin wipes across his forehead with his arm, and my eyes land on the tan from his Apple Watch still lingering on his wrist. 

We’re sitting on the roof right outside my bedroom window on the ratty pink blanket Armin brought out of his trunk. Mid-August always gets so hot in boring old Leetworth, Pennsylvania with its cookie-cutter suburban homes and Starbucks Coffee, but we have to suck up the last bits of summer while we have the chance. School is starting soon, and you know what they say: junior year is the worst. I can already smell the stench of homework and detention slips. 

“If a picture’s worth a thous—” I lower my eyebrows at him, the corner of my lip rising before he cuts me off and puts his hand up. 

“No, I heard the question.” He waves. He leans back on his hands, then changes his mind and puts all of his weight on one arm so he can use the other to take a sip of his Monster that’s been just barely hanging onto the roof tiles next to him. “I just—It would be a million, but why are you asking me that?” He starts to chuckle. 

I nod. “Wonder how long that would take me. Maybe I’ll get my old camera fixed.”

“You say that every summer.” 

I’ve been taking pictures since I was a kid and my mom thought it would be cute to get me a camera for my ninth birthday. No one expected me to carry that thing everywhere, taking pictures of anything remotely interesting from ants to airplanes. I still have that camera she gave me sitting on the shelf with the others, still filled with the first pictures I took along with photos of her and me. It broke a long time ago, but I refused to throw it away then, and I still do now. I can’t ever throw it away. 

Now, you’ll rarely catch me without a camera close by. Even at times like this with Armin and I cooking under the ninety-degree sun, me having to rub my hands across my shorts to dry them off and beads of sweat rolling down the back of my neck. 

I pick up my Nikon from my lap and stare through the viewfinder at the car passing by. It’s just Mr. Anderson. 

No, wait, it’s not just Mr. Anderson. 

I zoom in on the passenger seat, and there’s someone else there too, an older kid. He’s rolling his eyes so hard he looks like an extra in a bad exorcism movie. 

None of this would be surprising if Mr. Anderson had kids. But he doesn’t. 

Aside from ourselves and our families, the only people Armin and I have seen step foot into Mr. Anderson’s house are his mother and his ex. He doesn’t have family parties and get-togethers. He doesn’t do barbecues and book clubs. He doesn’t have late-night company. So, seeing him bring someone else home with him is like seeing an alien in the van on its way to Area 51. 

Armin follows my lens and turns to look at the driveway next door as the black sedan pulls in and stalls. It goes off, and we wait for the driver-side door to fly open. 

Mr. Anderson hops out as expected in his pressed blue polo and khaki pants. He does that awkward jog thing that men in their forties do to the passenger side, and he looks up at us while he does it, waves in passing. He’s already focusing on the car again before he sees my flimsy wave back, and he tries to open the door. By the way he jerks back and the door stays closed, it must be locked. 

“Yikes,” Armin says and pulls one of his knees into his chest. He wraps his arms around his leg and digs his shell-toe sneaker into the blanket.

I try not to laugh too hard and it still slips out of my nose. I hug my camera against my stomach and start to squint at Mr. Anderson talking into the car window with his hands waving. 

“Mr. Anderson doesn’t have kids. I’m not tripping, right?” I ask. 

“Mr. Anderson doesn’t have kids,” Armin confirms. 

Mr. Anderson’s little conversation must have gone well enough—or maybe he gave up—because he pulls himself out of his hunch and steps closer to give me and Armin a big, superficial smile like the ones painted on Barbie dolls. 

“Afternoon, boys,” he calls up. 

“Afternoon,” I yell back and wave again. 

Armin waves too, and I press myself against his shoulder as if that’ll help me see Mr. Anderson better. 

“What’s, uh, what’s up?” I ask, pointing at the car behind him trying not to be too suspicious. 

“What?” Mr. Anderson says and looks over his shoulder. “Oh! That’s my nephew!” 

He goes back to tapping on the window, and I cringe when he tries to pull the door open again. It’s, unsurprisingly, still locked. 

“Well, he’ll come out eventually. It’s a hot one today, isn’t it? Be careful up there.” He waves again and starts to stroll up the driveway. 

Armin watches Mr. Anderson’s slow walk up the pavement, his head turning to watch the way he disappears down the path that goes to his yard. Armin’s hair sticks to the sweat on my cheek. He turns back when I peel myself off of his shoulder, and he rests his elbow on his raised knee, lays his head in the bend. The sun glints off of his brown eyes. 

“You think this is some kind of forced send-off?” He squints his left eye just a bit. 

“Forced send-off?” I glance at the car. 

“Yeah, I mean, being sent somewhere he clearly doesn’t want to go, and if he doesn’t want to go, that could only mean someone made him go. He’s not even getting out of the car.” 

I hum. Well, that’s an interesting take even for Armin. He’s known to be right on the money when he has a theory, but to assume someone shipped their kid off without a choice, and now Mr. Anderson is stuck with him? 

No, that might actually make sense. But why would anyone do that?