During lunch, sometime in the beginning of October, Kamilla suggested a ‘hang out’, which more-or-less translated loosely into a ‘play date’. Just like when we were all kids and we had to beg our parents to let other kids come over to play.

It wasn’t my suggestion, but all of a sudden, Kamilla decided it should be at my house. I accidentally inhaled the sip of water I’d just taken at her offer, ending up spluttering water through my lungs for a good minute.

When I finally resurfaced for air after having nearly drowned, I turned an incredulous look at my friend. She blinked at me as if she hadn’t just said what she had.

“What?” I asked, my throat raw.

“What what?” she asked back.

“What do you mean ‘my house’?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, it just sounds like the logical choice.”

“You do know that means going over to your band director’s house, right?” I said, trying to see the ‘logic’ that she seemed to be operating over.

“Yeah, exactly,” she said unashamedly. “That means less awkward introductions between us and your parents.”

“What about him?” I said, gesturing with my thumb over at the happy little puppy named Zephyr, who was organizing his strawberries by size and eating them one by one.

“Huh?” he said, looking up at my mention of him.

“Nothing, go back to your strawberries,” I said, brushing him off without taking my eyes off of Kamilla’s determined ones.

“He knows your mom,” Kamilla said as if it was common knowledge.

I backtracked. “Huh?”

“Yeah,” Kamilla said with a nod, “she’s his pediatrician.”

“Oh, you mean my mama,” I said, understanding.

“Yeah, her.” Kamilla shrugged again. “So, that’s settled.”

“Wait, wait,” I said. “What do you mean, that’s settled?”

“Sunday, your house,” she said, as if this decision was obvious.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, waving my arms around in a mainc ‘halt’ motion. “I never said anything close to ‘yes’.”

“Yes you did,” she told me.

“When?” I asked her, baffled.

“Just now,” she said with a smile.

I groaned, slapping my hands to my eyes and running my hands up over my face to pull at my hair. Kamilla started laughing, but I was too frustrated to let her amusement affect me.

I dropped my head to the table, narrowly missing the edge of the lid I had taken off of my lunch container. I groaned again before pushing myself up.

Kamilla snickered at the imprint on my forehead, no doubt a perfect imitation of the table I had just dropped my head onto, but I ignored her.

“What the fuck,” I said, annoyed. “Fine. You’d never take ‘no’ as an answer, anyway.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Kamilla said with a sly, toothy smile.

“Fine, fine, fine,” I intoned, thoroughly annoyed, and pulled out my phone.

“Who’re you texting?” Kamilla asked, leaning forward to peek at my phone screen.

“My moms,” I told her. “I have to tell them a friend invited herself to our house.”

Kamilla just laughed.

…

I had secretly been hoping that my parents would forbid me from having people over, but they didn’t. They were ecstatic, actually, probably all because of my tragic backstory regarding friends.

So when I told them that two friends from school wanted to come over, my moms went crazy to clean the house and prepare tons of snacks. And that Sunday, two new cars pulled into our driveway.

Zephyr texted me that he arrived, first of the two, much to Ben’s annoyance.

“Is that Zippy?” he asked bitterly, sticking his head out of his room as I made my way to the door from my room.

“It’s Zephyr, not Zippy,” I said, putting my hand on Ben’s forehead and gently shoving him back into his room. “And yes.”

“Oof!” I heard my brother exclaim as the door quietly clicked closed. And he may or may not have snickered; I was too far from his room at that point to know.

“Hey,” I said as I opened the front door.

For some odd reason, I expected Zephyr to be alone, but of course his parents would not only drive him but also wish to meet my own parents. I gave myself an internal kick in the shin to jolt myself out of shock and back into motion.

“You must be Mr Lee. I’m Amaryllis, and-” I turned around and prayed that my parents were behind me somewhere, “-these are my moms.”

“Hello, I’m Raven Miracle Paek,” my mom greeted, sticking her hand out for Zephyr’s dad to shake. “It’s nice to meet you. And I’m sure you’ve already met my wife, Lily.”

“It’s nice to meet you as well,” Mr Lee said with a smile. “And Dr Miracle! It’s lovely to see you again! Your daughter seems very kind; Zephyr always talks about her at home.”

He elbowed his son, who squirmed uncomfortably.

“Dad!” he whined, a red flush heating his cheeks as he tugged on his father’s sleeve.

“Don’t worry, Zephyr,” my mama said with a wink at Zephyr as she patted my hair, “Lissie talks about you, too.”

I rolled my eyes and ducked out from under my mama’s hand. “Yeah yeah, thanks, mama.”

The adults laughed as I grabbed Zephyr’s wrist and started to drag him out of there.

“Parents,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Parents,” I agreed.

I escorted Zephyr into my room (which my Mama had nagged me to clean twenty-million times in the past two days even though I had already cleaned the fucking room the first time she told me to) and sat him at my desk chair. I watched him look around my room while also trying not to look like I was watching him.

And then I caught myself.

What am I doing? What does it matter if I watch him? Wait, why am I watching him in the first place?

It was suddenly awkward—the silence was too loud and the teasing comments from our parents seemed to echo in the quiet of the room. My face felt warm, like fresh cookies pulled from the oven, and we were both suddenly looking anywhere but at each other.

That was when—perfectly timed, I might add—the doorbell rang once again.

“Oh, that’s got to be Kamilla,” I said, both of us shooting to our feet. I checked my phone to confirm. “Yep, yeah, uh, I’ll… I’ll go let her in.”

I darted from the room while I texted her that I was on my way, breathing a sigh of relief now that I was out of the tension in the room. There shouldn’t be any tension—I blamed my parents.

I shook my head to push the awkward from my mind as I arrived at the front door.

“Hey!” Kamilla practically shouted as I opened the door, launching herself at me. “So this is your house? Oh my god, is this baby you?”

In ten seconds, she had already detached from me and had practically teleported to the baby photos hanging on the walls.

I rolled my eyes as she flitted from picture to picture.

“Wait, is this your sister?” she said, turning to me and pointing to a small, smiling brunette baby in a fluffy yellow dress, trying to press flowers into another little girl’s hair.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod, looking at the child who looked like the personification of a ray of sunshine, which was a pretty accurate description of her.

“Rosie, right?” Kamilla asked, turning back to the photo.

“Yeah,” I said again with a nod.

“But who’s this?” she asked, pointing at the other girl in the photo. Her hair was similar to Rosie’s except for the fact that it was black. Her eyes were bright and her smile looked like a mirror of the sunshine in her lap. She was wearing a soft pink dress and was gently holding the flowers into her hair. “Do you have another sister?”

“That’s actually… me,” I told her, hesitating.

“What?” Kamilla demanded, turning wide eyes and an open mouth to me. “This is you?”

“Yep,” I said, clasping my hands together behind my back. I could already feel my fingers squeezing each other almost painfully tight. “That’s little four-year-old me. Rosie’s two in that photo.”

“You? This is you?” Kamilla asked again.

I nodded, again, and patiently waited for her to finish processing. It took a few minutes (and a few more repeated questions) before she finally seemed to get past her shock.

“You look so…” She paused, seeming to struggle for the right word. “…Happy,” she finished.

“Thanks,” I told her dryly.

“No problem,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

“What’re you guys doing down here?” Zephyr’s voice interrupted.

I turned to see the boy in question curiously descending the stairs. He looked from me to Kamilla and back at me.

“Hey, Zephyr!” Kamilla exclaimed before I could say anything else. “Look at Baby Amaryllis!”

“At Baby-?” Zephyr started, but he froze when he saw the picture that Kamilla was pointing enthusiastically at.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m adorable, okay, point made,” I said irritability. “Can we move on now?”

“Wait,” Zephyr said, grabbing my arm and pointing to the little black haired girl in the pink dress. “Is that… you?”

“Yeah, can we move on?” I said, tugging at his hand on my arm.

“Lissie?” another voice came.

All three of us turned as my mom walked in from the kitchen.

“Hey, Mom,” I said. “We were just going up-!”

“Hi, Mrs Paek!” Kamilla announced, jumping past me and Zephyr to address my mom.

“Hey, Kamilla,” my mom greeted. “Nice to see you here.”

“Nice to be here!” Kamilla agreed. “My parents are kinda busy, so my sister dropped me off. They’re coming to the next competition, though!”

“That’s great, Kamilla,” my mom said. “We always appreciate the extra hands.”

“Hey, guys,” my mama said as she joined my mom around the corner of the kitchen.

“Hi, Mrs Amaryllis’s Mama!” Kamilla said happily.

If I had been eating something, I would have choked.

“Hello,” my mama said, a warm smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “You can call me Mrs Miracle.”

“You mean Doctor Miracle, right?” my mom teased, wrapping an arm around my mama’s waist.

Mama slapped Mom lightly on the arm.

“Yes, ma’am, Dr Miracle, ma’am!” Kamilla said, snapping to attention with her right hand in a salute at her forehead and a strict expression on her face.

“Look what you did,” Mama chastised lightly, giving Mom another light smack on the arm.

“I am Kamilla, Dr Miracle, ma’am!” Kamilla said, her hand still in a salute.

“You can relax, Kamilla,” Mama said kindly, and Kamilla (like a true band student) relaxed.

“Okay,” I said, clapping my hands together to draw everyone’s attention back to me. “Now that everyone has met everyone, can we go?”

“Do you need snacks?” my mama asked, turning a willing smile at all three of us.

“No, we’re okay,” Kamilla said brightly before I could respond.

“It’s okay, Mama,” I told her, gently leading Zephyr towards the stairs. “I can always get whatever we need.”

“Okay, Lissie,” my mama said with a smile.

“Have fun, you guys,” my mom said as she and my mama turned back to the kitchen.

“Okay, will do!” I called over my shoulder as I started pushing Zephyr up the stairs and dragging Kamilla up with us.

“Why do they call you Lissie?” Zephyr asked once I had pushed him into the refuge of my room.

“Ever heard of a nickname?” I asked him in a cheeky reply.

“What? A nickname?” Zephyr asked in mock disbelief, clutching his pearls. “Why, I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

I gasped. “You haven’t? Well-” 

“So this is your room!” Kamilla exclaimed, cutting off our back and forth as she burst into my room behind us. “This is way more you than that photo downstairs.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks.”

“No problem!” she replied happily before plopping down onto my bed and making herself comfortable.

“So…” I said as I lowered myself to the floor. Zephyr had already resettled into my desk chair and Kamilla was happily leaning her chin in her hands on my bed, her feet swinging above her head. “This is my room. My house, my parents, my homework.”

“Oh, and your brother,” Kamilla said with a smile.

“Yes- huh?”

“Yeah, he popped his head out of his door while we were coming upstairs,” Kamilla told me.

“Wait, is this your essay for English?” Zephyr asked, picking up my nicely printed and stapled final draft.

“Yeah,” I said, pulling one of my mom’s handmade quilts from the end of my bed to wrap around myself. With one look at his longing expression, I told him, “You can read it, if you like.”

He immediately brightened and began doing exactly that. In the meantime, Kamilla and I shot off into random conversation. At some point, the conversation turned back to my Aunt Pihu

“Do you like Mrs Singh?” she asked me, leaning fully into her right hand to look down at me.

I nodded. “Yeah, of course,” I said, looking down as I untucked the edge of my blanket from under my foot.

When I looked up, her head cocked to the side, a slight frown furrowing her brow. “‘Of course’?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “She’s my aunt.”

“Woah, really?”

“Yup,” I said with another nod. “She married my Uncle Dylan a while back. She was my tutor when I was younger.”

“That’s so cool,” Kamilla intoned. “No wonder you’re so smart!”

“Thanks,” I said with a small smile. “Honestly, though, compared to my brother, I’m barely average.”

“Don’t say that!” Kamilla told me, frowning as if she was offended.

“No, really,” I said, holding a hand out to stop whatever argument she was about to make. “He’s a literal genius.” She pouted, obviously wanting to object, so I added, “And he’s the one who convinced me to befriend you.”

Her face blanked in surprise before a grin spread across her face.

“Well!” she said proudly. “He is smart!”

“I know!” we heard from down the hallway.

“Go away, Ben!” I shouted back as I leaned over to just barely push the door closed.

We could still hear him laughing even with the door closed.

After four more topic changes (from the crazy senior prank the school’s seniors pulled the week previous all the way to the gossip in the school’s band), Zephyr finally resurfaced from my nine and a half page essay.

“Whoa,” he said as he looked up at us and set my essay back on my desk.

“What’d you think?” I asked him, trying not to seem too curious about his feedback.

“Whoa,” he just repeated.

Kamilla laughed. “Anyway, do you know why Eric quit?”

I lightly shook my head.

“Everyone says it’s because his parents made him quit,” Kamilla said, leaning in suspensefully, “because he got his girlfriend pregnant!”

“What?” Zephyr asked, shaking his head in disbelief, tuning into our conversation at last.

“Yeah,” Kamilla said, her eyes sparkling as she nodded at him.

“But that’s just what they say, right?” I asked her, my eyes narrowed.

“Exactly,” Kamilla said, nodding vigorously. “But that’s because the band, other than the battery, doesn’t know that Eric is gay!”

I gasped. “Wait, actually?”

“Yeah,” Kamilla said with another nod. “And guess who he’s dating?”

“Who?” Zephyr asked, leaning over the back of my desk chair to get closer.

“The school’s quarterback!” Kamilla exclaimed, her fingers clenching my blankets under her. Both Zephyr and I gasped together. “His parents told him he could only have one; his boyfriend or be in band because both would be time consuming. A bit strict, if you ask me. My parents would never do that, but.”

She shrugged, as if to say every parent is different.

I paused, though, when her words registered in my mind.

“How do you know your parents would never do that?” I asked.

All of a sudden, my usually chatty friend clammed up.

“Something you’d like to share with the class?” I probed.

Kamilla muttered something incoherent.

Both Zephyr and I leaned in to hear, accompanied by a unified, “Huh?”

“I have a girlfriend!” Kamilla exclaimed, way too loudly, her cheeks red.