Page 2 of The Do-Over

Send email to internship adviser

Exchange gifts with Josh

Say “I love you” to Josh!!!!!!!!!!!

I lingered on the last one, picking up my pen and doodling hearts around it. I’d never saidthosewords romantically before, and since our three-month anniversary happened to fall on THE day, it was almost as if the universe had scheduled itforme.

Filled with buzzy excitement, I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. As I stuck my hand under the stream of water to test the temperature, I heard:

“Em, are you almost done in there?”

Ugh. I rolled my eyes and stepped under the water. “I just got in here.”

“Joel needs to go potty.” Lisa, my dad’s wife, sounded like her mouth was planted on the door. “Bad.”

“Can’t he go upstairs?” I poured shampoo into my hand and rubbed it on my head. I adored the twins, but living with toddlers sucked sometimes.

“Your dad’s in there.”

Sighing, I said, “Give me two minutes.” I rushed through the rest of the shower, refusing to let the disruption ruin my mood. After toweling off and throwing on my robe, I ran past Lisa and a squirmy Joel, back to my basement bedroom. I breezed through blowing out my too-curly hair—still humming love songs—before plugging in the iron and steaming out the pesky crease on the right sleeve of my dress. I knew my best friend, Chris, would roll his eyes and tell me I was being hyper-anal, but why leave the crease when it takes a mere two minutes to get it out?

I got dressed and ran upstairs to scarf a protein bar before leaving for school. As I ripped open the wrapper, my eyes wandered over to the pie pan that was sitting beside the microwave like temptation incarnate. Yes, the leftover piece of French silk pie would taste amazing, I thought as a took a big bite of peanut butter and whey, but a slice of sugar and carbs was no way to start the day.

I looked away from the chocolate dessert and focused on chewing the dry protein bar.

“Good Lord, slow down.” My dad was sitting at the table, reading the paper and drinking coffee like he had every single day of my life. His hair was flame-red, the potent original to my watered-down coppery-brown version. He gave me a smart-asssmile and said, “No one here knows the Heimlich.”

“Isn’t that, like, a parental requirement or something? How do you and Lisa have kids and no Heimlich-ing skills?”

He stared directly at my overfilled mouth. “We foolishly assumed our offspring wouldn’t suck down food like sows.”

“You know what happens when you assume, right?”

“Yeah.” He winked and went back to the paper. “Someone’s an ass.”

“Oh, come on, you guys.” Lisa came into the kitchen with Logan on one hip, Joel on the other. “Can we please not swear around the babies?”

“They weren’t in here,” I said through a mouthful of bar, “when he said it.”

“And technically,” my dad said, throwing me another wink, “?‘ass’ isn’t a bad word. It’s a donkey.” I grinned while Lisa looked at me as if she wished I would disappear.

I’d been splitting time between my mom’s and my dad’s since they divorced when I was in elementary school, but I was still just a nomad in the way. At both of their houses. To be fair, Lisa wasn’t the stereotypical evil stepmother. She taught kindergarten, made my dad happy, and she was a really good mom to the boys. I just always felt like I was in her way.

I grabbed my backpack and my car keys, threw out a goodbye, and ran for the door.

The sun was bright even though the air was freezing, and we’d gotten a dusting of snow overnight, but it looked like my dad had already scraped my windows. I heard my phone from the depthsof my bag, and pulled it out just in time to see that Chris was FaceTiming me.

I answered and there were my two closest friends, smiling at me from in front of the red lockers of the junior hallway. I smiled at my phone’s cracked screen, at my favorite faces in the whole world.

Roxane had dark brown skin, cheekbones for days, and the kind of eyelashes that suburban moms tried to emulate with extensions, and Chris had heavy-lidded brown eyes, flawless porcelain skin, and curly black hair that stuck up in the most perfect way. If they weren’t genuinely amazing humans, it’d be hard not to hate them for their good looks.

“You’re at school already?” I asked.

“Yes, and guess what we just saw?” Chris asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“I want to tell,” Rox said, moving in front of him on the screen.

“I saw, so I tell.” Chris nudged her out of the way. “Josh is already here and I saw him put a gift bag in his locker.”

---