Tim's mother is too young to die, but she dies anyway--in a video that goes viral. Tim scrambles to hold his life together, but the person who keeps him on his feet turns out to be his half-sister, a fiesty girl who has no idea they're related, but...
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I dangle my arm out of Billy's Grand Am.
It's this ancient rusted car he spent too much birthday money on, but the thing is his baby, blaring this '90s soft rock mix I burned for him, 'cause it's the kind of stuff he loves and I figured if I curated something for him, he would stop listening to top 40 radio.
Billy deserves music that means something more than just familiar chord progressions and obvious rhyme schemes.
Around me, my friends begin to look like themselves again. School finished without me, my grades all frozen in time from the moment Mrs. Williams called my name over the PA. Everyone else is ready for summer. Everyone else is ready to sidle out from underneath the dark cloud.
Billy drives seriously, his eyes squinted behind his glasses. His baseball shirt and swimming trunks hang off his thin frame, all hand-me-downs from bigger, more athletic cousins.
In the backseat, Chaos and Sari both wear enormous sunglasses, Chaos as a joke and Sari unironically.
Chaos is Ken Donald Osmond, but Ken Donald Osmond is not a name for such long-limbed, towering, golden retriever of a guy. His eyes are all dark and wild and reckless again.
Sari snaps her gum, never-ending dark curls whipping in the wind of open car windows.
The two of them together only make Billy and I paler by comparison, both their skin bronzed by genes: Sari's Lebanese and Chaos' Métis.
There's something Chaos says that Sari laughs at, all high and glassy. I miss it, too busy catching myself in the side mirror as we roll into the parking lot.
My face betrays me a little. There's a difference between tired and fucking exhausted and it's inked in shadows under my eyes and the glazed over look. I try to comb my fingers through my waves like it'll make up for the fact I haven't combed it since the funeral. It doesn't help.
"Okay. Get out of my car." Billy shuts off the engine, in the middle of a good song, but I'll forgive him for it.
The car empties, people and all due equipment piling out. Sari's got an enormous bag slung over her shoulder, full of towels, snacks, and sunscreen: SPF 50 for Billy, SPF 5 for herself.
