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Winona’s adorably tongue-lolled face is my response

I’ll pretend she understands she’s uard

It’s a minute later when I’m halfway to the curb that my mom calls out from the front porch: “Toby, wait for your brother! He’s just finishing up in the bathroom! Five minutes, sweetie!”

I stop, suppress a groan, then turn “Moet to school There’s this …” The lie doesn’t co in the theater … this thing with, with my friends …”

“You can wait five dang h, not buying a word of it Perhaps suggesting I actually have friends was taking it one step too far

And twelve es frooodbye kiss on the cheek froreat first day back!” she calls out, nearly giddy “Watch over each other, boys! I already can’t wait to hear how your days went!”

My stepbrother so voice sound halfway cheery when he calls back: “Thanks, Marly!”

Then I’h—with my dull-eyed telephone pole of a stepbrother Lee He towers over me by a whole foot, has broad shoulders off which a curtain could hang, and feet that seem to crush the pave noodles comparable to my own, his father boasts of his son’s skill on the football field and insists he’s Coach Strong’s star player I couldn’t even tell you what position he plays, only that froames I was forced to attend, Lee looks more like a misplaced wall painted the school colors than an actual player And that’s not even counting how he looks in the spring when he hangs up the football uniform to don the baseball one Talk about an aard cluster of li first base …

Thesky swells a dark, bitter blue with the not-quite-risen sun by the ti roads, across Main Street, and onto the school grounds All the usual popular cliques are gathered by the trees and on the front steps leading up to the front of the school The fuzzy noise of chatter sendsover with expected anxiety Did I mention how much I hate first days back?

That’s when Lee stops and faces me “You know the drill”

Neither of us have uttered a word to each other the whole way here “Yes”

“You don’t know oes on anyway, “and I don’t know you Keep out of my way, I keep out of yours Got it?”

“It’s weird that you call Mom ‘Marly’”

He flinches, his face wrinkling up Then, I guess deciding to disht, he repeats himself “Got it?”

“I mean, your dad calls her Marly And now you call her that? When did this start? Is there a group chat I wasn’t invited into?”

“You’re so … freakin’ weird,” he es off, ditching me by the road

I smirk victoriously Like father, like son Except Lee has never threatenedlu on the Spruce football team, he’s in with the crowd of puffed-up,to avoid for years—a croho has gained no sense of character regardless of who their coach is

I don’t seek out anyone in the yard, as there is no one there for raduated last year I go straight through the doors of the school, navigate the echoing halls full of laughter, and locate s (and placingwhile I’one, like a prince of my metal cave), I shut the locker and head off A door just a few paces down the hall brings me to my first period class—which isn’t a class at all I was selected as an office aide fora free period to do whatever I want, unless my immediate supervisor and Master-of-the-Phone Becky actually has a note I need to run to a classroom, or an Excel spreadsheet to help fill in, or so busywork

After the first bell rings, signaling the start of class, Becky hastedious she started (and is clearly relieved I’atory “Hoas your su into a lengthy, gossipy phone call, and the minutes pass quickly Thebefore all my anxieties about the rest of the day melt away