Sighing, I open Instagram and mindlessly scroll through my feed. I make sure to follow Pablo Eggscobar, who still only has one pic up. I wonder if that little rope hammock was homemade. I can’t imagine where they might’ve bought one. Hastings isn’t exactly teeming with miniature egg clothing and accessories boutiques.

Hunter texts during my scrolling session, a welcome distraction from social media.

HUNTER: You make it to the city all right?

ME: Yep. I’m here now. But it was the worst bus ride EVER. The guy beside me kept showing me pictures of his ferrets.

HIM: Ferrets???

ME: Ferrets.

HIM: Semi, I think you sat beside a serial killer. Next time please text me a pic of your seatmate so I have something to show the police.

I laugh to myself, and type, Are you in Greenwich? I know he was making the drive there after his morning practice.

HIM: Yeah. Drove up with Summer and Fitzy. He’s spending Thanksgiving with her fam.

ME: And for you, it’s just you and your parents? No uncle/aunt/cousins/grandparents?

HIM: Nope. Just the three of us. Oh joy.

ME: Is it that bad?

HIM: My father yelled at the caterer for only putting out one communal gravy boat on the table instead of small individual ones for each person. I heard her crying in the kitchen afterward.

Oh Lord, that’s brutal. And I can’t believe his family gets catering for Thanksgiving. My mother would literally rather face an execution squad than entrust someone else to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

ME: That = fucked up. Though if it makes you feel better, my father’s being insufferable right now too. I just told them about Nico, and Dad tried to convince me to give him another chance!!

HIM: Seriously??

ME: Yep. He’s obsessed with him.

HIM: Do you *want* to give him another chance?

ME: 100% no. Actually, I was just thinking before you texted that I might be ready for…drum roll please…a rebound.

HIM: Oooh exciting. Those are fun.

ME: Are you volunteering for the job?

Wait. What?

What the hell did I just type? And to add to my sudden case of agitation, Hunter responds with an LOL.

ME: WTF does that mean?

HIM: It means laughing out loud.

ME: I know what LOL means! But why are you laughing at me?

HIM: Because you were joking…?

ME: What, rebounding with me is a laughing matter? You don’t think I’m cute?

HIM: You’re more than cute.

I can feel myself blushing. This entire conversation is ridiculous. Of course Hunter wasn’t volunteering to be my rebound, and now I’m just fishing for compliments because I’m insecure that my ex-boyfriend couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Literally and figuratively.

HIM: Can we be real? Are you legit asking me to be your rebound?

My thumb hovers over the letter y. I could just press it, and then the letter e, the letter s. But that means opening the door to something that could blow up in my face. Hunter and I are friends. I find him attractive, but this is the first time I’ve considered being more than friends.

I don’t get the chance to type those three letters, as Hunter sends a follow-up.

HIM: Because you know I’d have to say no, Semi. I’m out of commission.

I don’t even try to make sense of the disappointment that flutters through me. My emotions are all over the place these days.

ME: I know. I was basically joking.

HIM: Basically?

ME: 60/40 joking.

HIM: So 40% of you wants to get with this?

ME: Get with what?

HIM: With me. You want to get all up in my dick biz.

Laughter sputters out of my mouth. Suddenly I don’t feel so disappointed anymore.

ME: If you say so. Anyway, pointless discussion. Like you said, you’re out of commission.

I put the phone down and slide into a sitting position. Interacting with Hunter never fails to cheer me up. I’m still grinning, and my appetite has officially returned. Luckily, there’s a feast downstairs with my name on it.

It isn’t until much later, nearly midnight, that I hear from Hunter again. I’m just getting into bed when the message lights up my phone.

HUNTER: If I wasn’t, I’d be all over you, Demi.

19

Demi

I feel surprisingly refreshed after Thanksgiving weekend. It was nice to see all my cousins and my crazy family, and Dad eventually did calm down about the Nico situation. He said he was sorry for not acknowledging my feelings, and I accepted his apology. Then he spent nearly an hour trying to badger me into hiring an MCATs tutor for next semester, until finally I flat-out told him I wasn’t interested in even thinking about that exam until next year. He didn’t like that idea one bit. So I appeased him by saying I’d take another science class over the summer to free up next year’s schedule for med school studying. That idea, he loved.

I get it, I really do. My dad had a tough upbringing. He grew up dirt poor in Atlanta and worked his ass off to climb out of the gutter. Because he’s genius-level smart, he excelled in high school, graduated early and got a scholarship to Yale. That’s when he met and married my mother, who was originally from Miami. She wanted to move back after graduation, so Dad went with her, working at Miami General for nearly two decades before we moved to Massachusetts.

Dad’s intense drive and unparalleled work ethic got him to where he is now, and he’s instilled in me the value of hard work since the day I was born. When I was a teenager, he insisted I do volunteer work and community outreach so I could see how many people go without the privilege I was born into. He wanted me to understand how blessed I am. And I do understand, absolutely.

But the pressure of living up to my father’s high standards can be exhausting.

And although Dad didn’t bring up the Nico subject again this weekend, that didn’t stop him from dropping several subtle comments over the weekend about how people are flawed, how human beings make mistakes. It was never specifically about Nico, but I knew exactly what Dad was trying to imply.

Well, too bad. Dad will just have to get over it. His boner for my ex-boyfriend will eventually deflate and hopefully get hard again for whoever I date next—and if that isn’t the grossest analogy I’ve ever used, then I don’t know what is. I don’t want to think about my father getting hard over anyone. I don’t want my father to have a penis, period.