After his bumpy bus ride back to the group home, Philo noticed that Mr. Kelly had restocked the groceries. Philo half-expected the man to be there, ready to yell at him again, but the caretaker wasn’t around. Philo knew he should ask Mr. Kelly to borrow the laptop. However, he didn’t want anyone asking too many questions. What if Mr. Kelly wanted to sit with him while he recorded his video essay? Horrendously embarrassing. Philo decided to wait until everyone fell asleep. 

After a few hours of distracting himself by reading a fascinating book on food history in his bedroom, Philo noticed the clock had just passed 11:34 p.m. The boys were snoring around him in their beds, and he was sure the girls must be sound asleep, too. His stomach growled. All the food from his book made him ravenous, but he couldn’t risk making a snack. It was now the perfect time to record his video. 

Philo tiptoed out of the bedroom and snuck down the stairs. He desperately hoped none of the other foster kids would hear him. Especially Jonathan, who had trouble sleeping. Philo sat at Mr. Kelly’s cheap desk near the large family room window. He soaked in the quiet freedom of being the only kid awake in the foster house at night. Philo opened up Mr. Kelly’s laptop, launched YouTube in a new tab, repositioned the camera angle, and pressed record. A little red dot appeared, signaling for him to begin.

“Okay, so, I’m Philo Nockby. I just turned fourteen in April, and my life is fine. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say exactly, but I guess that’s the point. I’ve only gone to Central High for this school year, and so far, it’s not that bad. Most of the kids around here have rich families. They wear fancy clothes and are dropped off in fancy cars. I won’t ever drive because,” Philo scoffed all alone in the moonlit room, “I’m broke, and where would I go? 

“I might work in a small restaurant to earn some money one day if I knew I could stay in one city for more than a year. Maybe learn how to cook something interesting? That would be fun. Um… what else? I’ve never had a girlfriend. I think young romances are naive. There is no possible way you could imagine your whole future with someone when you aren’t even fully grown yet. I barely know who I am now, let alone what I’ll be in, like, ten years!” Philo checked his little notebook for bullet points and kept going. 

“Oh yeah, I have a birthmark, right here on my chest,” Philo pulled down the collar of his t-shirt to show the camera a strangely shaped brown spot. 

“One of the foster kids here named Gabby said that it looked like someone drew a heart and then tried to twist it. I thought that sounded kind of weird, but then Topher joked that it resembled an upside-down ball sack!” Philo admitted with a laugh. “It doesn’t really matter to me, but if anyone ever asked, obviously, I would prefer to say it looks like a twisted heart.” 

“Umm…, I’m intelligent, I like food a lot, maybe I said that already, and I find sports boring. I enjoy this creative writing class, even if I don’t say I do. I don’t like to engage in small talk with people. That’s also why I probably don’t have any friends; I just don’t invest the time or energy. I can look people in the eyes and already know how they feel and that they don’t want to speak to me. They think I’m poor and gross, a weird foster kid. If they want to avoid me, why should I bother with them?” Philo scratched his head, suddenly a little too self-conscious. 

“Is something wrong with me? I mean, sure, I’d like to have friends or a girlfriend, but it just never works out. I can’t control that I get shipped around to a new broken family every couple of months. Like, why did all this have to happen to me?”